NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The 2024 state and congressional maps have been reconfigured in the GOP’s image, and though a court challenge is presumed, many tri-county voters may find their district has changed next election year.
The U.S. House map has received the most heat from Democratic lawmakers. As Republicans have the majority seats in the General Assembly, they are charged with redrawing the maps every 10 years reflecting population changes in the Census data.
The state gained over 900,000 people in the last decade and with it came a 14th congressional seat. There are nearly 23,000 more people in New Hanover County, along with almost 8,000 more in Pender County and a little over 29,000 more in Brunswick County (one of the fastest growing in the state).
Democrats, including New Hanover County representative Deb Butler, have accused the other side of the aisle of partisan gerrymandering with the redraw.
“With these maps, Republicans are trying to rig the 2024 elections by taking the 10 closest races in the 2022 election and moving every one of them an average of almost five percentage points toward a Republican advantage,” Butler said on the House floor Tuesday.
The current makeup of the congressional map is an even 7-7 split between Democrats and Republicans. Several analyses, including one from Duke and the New York Times, of the drawing have found it favors Republicans in 10 districts and Democrats in three, with one district deemed competitive.
A new district near Charlotte includes Cleveland County, where North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore resides. The state legislator is still deciding whether to run for Congress. Three Democratic lawmakers were drawn out of their districts; one, Rep. Jeff Jackson, has announced he will run for attorney general in 2024.
District 7, covering New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties, and represented by David Rouzer, has minimal changes. Along with Columbia and Bladen counties, the district will include eastern Robeson, northwest Sampson, and all but the northwest quarter of Cumberland. This is a shift from the previous decade’s plan which had the district expanding northward to include all of Sampson, Johnson and Wayne counties.
The major shifts for the Cape Fear region lie in the North Carolina Senate and House maps.
In the Senate, a chunk of downtown Wilmington will be transferred from District 7, represented by Republican Sen. Michael Lee, to longtime Sen. Bill Rabon’s District 8 encompassing Brunswick County.
While Rabon has served his district since 2011, Lee’s New Hanover County race has been more competitive. Lee won in 2014 and 2016, but lost the seat in 2018 to Democrat Harper Peterson; Lee took it back by a one-percentage-point margin in 2020.
The carve-out around Dawson Street was part of the voting maps used from 2012 to 2018 and has been dubbed the “Wilmington notch.” In 2019, the section was part of 128 districts a Wake County Superior Court panel deemed unconstitutionally gerrymandered and ordered new maps be drawn for the 2020 election.
After the 2020 Census, Republicans redrew the maps again, though several versions were deemed gerrymandered and a three-judge panel ended up producing the map used in the 2022 election. That Senate map included a portion similar to the Wilmington notch, though it cannot be reused per state law. Wednesday’s approved maps show the notch may be here to stay.
Regarding the changes, Port City Daily reached out to Sens. Lee and Rabon, the latter of whom serves on the Senate redistricting committee; neither responded by press. Sen. Brent Jackson, also on the committee but whose district remained consistent, did not respond either.
Another consequential shift in the Senate: Raleigh Democrats Sen. Lisa Grafstein and Sen. Jay Chaudhuri were placed in the same district, or “double-bunked.” Because Chaudhuri is the Democratic whip and has four terms under his belt, he has a leg-up in the new district compared to Grafstein’s freshman status.
An ousting of Grafstein would result in the legislature’s loss of its only LGBTQ+ and Jewish senator. If Grafstein and Sen. Natasha Marcus, another representative whose district was redrawn more competitively, were to lose in the next election, the Senate would have two fewer women. The current makeup includes 17 women out of 50 senators.
In the House of Representatives, Republican Reps. Carson Smith (Pender County) and Frank Iler (Brunswick County) saw no major changes to their district lines. However, New Hanover County legislators received a shakeup.
In the 2022 map, New Hanover County was split between Republican Reps. Charles Miller and Ted Davis, along with Democratic Rep. Deb Butler.
Miller’s territory covers the southern part of the county extending up to downtown’s southside, along with about half of Brunswick County covering Southport and Bolivia. Miller will now be responsible for portions of Davis’ territory, including areas like Pine Valley, Myrtle Grove and Masonboro.
Davis’ district will move into the northern part of the county covering Porters Neck, Ogden, and Castle Hayne. These areas are currently represented by Butler, who now has a more condensed district surrounding downtown.
Though the rearrangement is intended to reflect population changes in the region while also keeping similar communities intact, Butler, the only Democrat in the region, lost 1,449 people in District 18. The six-year House member also has 1,875 fewer constituents in her district than Miller and 1,767 less than Davis.
In response to PCD, Butler pointed toward her remarks on the House floor Tuesday, though she did not speak directly to the changes.
“This map has nothing to do about where people live,” Butler said to the House chamber. “It has nothing to do with the values and the will of North Carolina’s citizens. It has to do with politicians placing the lines to manipulate and preordain the outcomes of elections.”
She criticized the unnatural shapes of Mecklenburg and Wake counties, which she said was done to draw a Republican district where it does not naturally occur. Butler also targeted the new map’s 65 municipal splits due to population changes compared to 51 in 2022; she claims the splits divide a community to benefit Republican politicians.
PCD reached out to the Republican House members; all but Miller did not respond. Miller’s legislative assistant, Natalie Nichols, said his office will not provide a comment because “Representative Miller is not a member of the House Redistricting Committee.”
The maps, which give Republicans the edge over at least three more seats in Congress and bolster their supermajority in the legislature, are likely to be challenged in court. Republican leadership has maintained the maps will be upheld.
Still, one Republican acknowledged GOP’s advantage.
“There’s no doubt that the congressional map that’s before you today has a lean toward Republicans running in these congressional districts,” House Redistricting Chair Destin Hall said in a News & Observer article. “However, just as I said on the House map, it doesn’t preordain any sort of outcome.”
Challengers will have to prove the maps violate the federal Voting Rights Act or the U.S. Constitution’s 14th amendment equal protection, which prohibits disenfranchisement through racial gerrymandering. After the North Carolina Supreme Court swung to a Republican majority in 2022, the court said it would not rule on claims of partisan gerrymandering.
With their supermajority in hand, Republican legislators also passed a bill containing a slew of appointments, including seven new superior court judges. The appointments, made by the leaders of the President Pro Tempore of the Senate Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, are new allowances under the recently passed Senate Bill 512.
The law strips the executive branch of some appointment power and transfers it to the legislative branch. As for the judgeships, Gov. Roy Cooper was responsible for making 10 appointments; now, seven of those go to the General Assembly.
S.B. 512 is also being challenged in court per a lawsuit filed by Gov. Roy Cooper. The lawsuit is scheduled to be heardnext week for a temporary injunction. Depending on the three-judge panel’s ruling, some of these appointments could be put on pause.
The outcome of that ruling could affect claims of partisan or racial gerrymandering complaints in the future; in the case of the 2022 map, a three-judge panel ordered a new map drawn by a nonpartisan group of redistricting experts. The panels, which are called over all constitutional issues, can pull judges from new legislative appointments.
“The GOP legislature creates new judge positions that the people can’t vote on, appoints the judges themselves, sets their salaries and allows them to rule on cases that challenge the constitutionality of laws the legislature passes,” the governor said on X, formerly Twitter. “Wonder how those cases will turn out?”
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
Want to read more from PCD? Subscribe now and then sign up for our newsletter, Wilmington Wire, and get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
