When word came out that the General Assembly might consider drawing a new congressional map to make the First District more Republican, I wondered if they were potentially creating a rod for their own backs:
Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, warned that redrawing districts could have unintended political consequences.
“Republicans risk drawing a so-called ‘dummymander’ that could end up benefiting Democrats,” he said. “Unless they plan to change the entire map, they will most likely make the First District more Republican at the expense of making the Third District less Republican. That would make both districts Republican-leaning but competitive. Since the president’s party tends to suffer in midterm elections, Democrats would have a shot at winning both of them.”
The new congressional map arrives
Well, the new congressional map [documents in link subject to change] is out, and it does make the First District more Republican at the expense of making the Third District less Republican. It does so by moving Beaufort, Carteret, Craven, Dare, Hyde, and Pamlico counties from the Third District to the First District and shifting Greene, Lenoir, Wayne, and Wilson counties from the First District to the Third District (see Figure 1).
Is is a dummymander?
So, is it a dummymander?
Not if you only consider the 2024 presidential race. According to the stat pack on the proposed map from the General Assembly, Republicans in both districts should win comfortably. Trump carried both by over ten percentage points (Figure 2).
Looking down the ballot, the Republican total was comfortably ahead of the Democratic total in both districts in every race (except for the governor’s race, which is an outlier), but usually by a smaller margin. See Figure 3 for an example from the state Supreme Court race. Republican Jefferson Griffin carried the new First District by 8.3 percentage points and the Third District by 9.7 percentage points.
So far so good for Republicans. However, 2026 will be a Trump presidential midterm election. The president’s party tends to lose seats in midterm elections. Republicans lost 40 seats in Trump’s last presidential midterm election in 2018. In North Carolina, Democrats did very well in 2018, sweeping all four statewide judicial contests (although they were aided by two Republicans being on the ballot in two of those races).
So, Republicans will probably win both seats. However, given the political tides, incumbent Democrat Don Davis has a shot at holding on in the First District, and Democrats could make things interesting against Third District Congressman Greg Murphy if they can nominate a strong candidate.
The next question is whether the new First District will survive the inevitable racial gerrymandering lawsuit. More information is needed, but based on the result of the most recent such lawsuit in North Carolina, it probably will.
