Three federal judges ruled North Carolina’s newly redrawn congressional maps can be used during the 2026 midterm elections.
North Carolina’s map is likely to give Republicans an additional House seat as they try to retain their razor-thin majority.
The state’s Republican leaders argued their motivation for drawing the new map was partisan and not because of race or political retaliation, The New York Times reported.
The judges in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina were all appointed by Republican presidents, including two by President Donald Trump.
In their 57-page ruling, the judges ruled the plaintiffs had not acted “with the intent to ‘minimize or cancel out the voting potential’ of Black North Carolinians,” the Times reported.
North Carolina’s new map redraws the state’s 1st Congressional District, held by Democrat Rep. Don Davis, to include more Republican leaning areas, having previously included all eight of the state’s majority Black counties.
Plaintiffs, which included the NAACP, said in court the state legislature “wiped North Carolina’s historic Black Belt congressional district off the map, silencing Black voters by denying them any reasonable opportunity of electing their candidate of choice” to Congress.
“This is not redistricting as usual,” Hilary Harris Klein, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs said at a hearing.
“It’s a mid-decade, no-pretext attempt to cancel Black voters’ voices because those in power didn’t like the results of the last election,” Klein added.
State Sen. Ralph Hise, who helped draw the new maps, said no racial data was used to create the new map.