© 2024 WFAE
90.7 Charlotte 93.7 Southern Pines 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
The 2022 midterm elections are the first of the Biden era. They're also the first since the 2020 census, which means there are new congressional districts. There are U.S. Senate races in the Carolinas as well, along with many state and local races.

North Carolina’s top court delays March 2022 primary due to remapping lawsuits

Updated: 8:45 p.m.

The North Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that the state’s March 2022 primary be delayed until May 17 so it can settle two lawsuits challenging Republican-drawn maps for Congress and the state’s General Assembly.

The court, which has a Democratic majority, said that there is a “need for urgency in reaching a final resolution.” It said it would issue a final ruling on the maps on or before January 11.

The state’s current Congressional delegation has eight Republicans and five Democrats. The state gained an additional seat after the 2020 Census and now has 14.

The new Congressional map approved last month by the Republican legislature gives the GOP the clear advantage in nine of the 14 seats. Democrats are heavily favored in three seats and two are toss-ups.

Democrats have said a fair map would give them the opportunity to win seven or six seats. In most federal races, Democrats receive a little less than half of the vote statewide. Donald Trump won the state in 2020 with 49.9 percent to Joe Biden’s 48.6 percent.

The non-partisan Princeton gerrymandering project has rated the recent North Carolina Congressional map an F for fairness. The group has said it’s one of the most gerrymandered maps in the nation, along with a Republican-drawn Congressional map in Texas and a Democratic-drawn map in Illinois.

In making the Congressional map, North Carolina Republicans divided the state’s largest urban counties to dilute the strength of Democratic voters. Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte, was divided into three Congressional districts, as was Wake County, home to Raleigh. Those counties could have been split into only two districts each.

Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Manning today represents a seat in Greensboro. Her Democratic-leaning seat was wiped out with the new map when the GOP split her home county into three Republican-leaning districts.

Another Democratic member of Congress, G.K. Butterfield, announced recently he would not run for reelection. He blamed the new map, which added more Republicans to his mostly rural district in the northeast part of the state.

North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race is expected to be one of the most contested in the nation. Republican Richard Burr isn’t running for reelection, and Democrats are hoping to flip that seat to keep control of the Senate. The primary for Senate has also been delayed until May.

Last decade, North Carolina was one of the most litigated states in the nation over its Congressional and state legislative maps.

Democrats had held power for decades and had often drawn their own gerrymandered maps. Republicans won legislative majorities in 2010 and then drew maps to consolidate their power.

In 2016, former North Carolina Republican state Rep. David Lewis helped draw a new Congressional map after a previous map had been struck down for being racial gerrymander.

Lewis said the GOP was seeking to maximize its advantage.

"I acknowledge freely that this would be a political gerrymander which is not against the law," Lewis said. "I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it's possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats."

Lewis was a defendant in a 2019 gerrymandering case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices in that case said that political gerrymandering was not unconstitutional and left the issue up to states.

A North Carolina court then overturned the state’s 11-3 Congressional map and ordered Republicans to draw a new map, which resulted in the current 8-5 Republican advantage.

North Carolina’s Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, was not able to veto the maps under state law.

In a statement, he said the order “restores faith in the rule of law and it is necessary for the Court to rule on the constitutionality of these unfair districts before the next election."

The order also impacts primaries for the Charlotte City Council and mayor’s race, as well as judicial races and the Mecklenburg Commission.

Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter

Select Your Email Format

Steve Harrison is WFAE's politics and government reporter. Prior to joining WFAE, Steve worked at the Charlotte Observer, where he started on the business desk, then covered politics extensively as the Observer’s lead city government reporter. Steve also spent 10 years with the Miami Herald. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Sporting News and Sports Illustrated.