Federal Judges Allow Gerrymandered Congressional Map to Go Into Effect

A federal judicial panel last week denied plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction blocking use of North Carolina’s 2025 legislature-approved Congressional districts map in the 2026 elections. Plaintiffs challenging the maps include the NAACP, Common Cause NC, and individual voters.

A three-judge panel  –  Fourth Circuit Judge Allison J. Rushing, the Middle District’s Chief Judge Richard Myers, and Judge Thomas Schroeder – found that while the plaintiffs “have shown a disparate impact on black voters, they have not demonstrated that this effect likely reflects discriminatory intent.” They said that the evidence provided did not provide a “clear showing” that the challenge is likely to succeed. Therefore, the new congressional map will therefore go into effect even as the lawsuit continues. 

“This ruling gives blessing to what will be the most gerrymandered congressional map in state history, a map that intentionally retaliates against voters in eastern North Carolina for supporting a candidate not preferred by the majority party,” said Bob Phillips, Executive Director of Common Cause North Carolina. 

The map used in 2024 had only one competitive district, won by Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis. The new map turns that competitive district into one that’s expected to elect a Republican in the future, likely giving Republicans 11 of the state’s 14 House seats in next year’s election. 

Diminishing Black Voters for Partisanship

In a ruling issued the previous week, the same three-judge federal panel hearing challenges to North Carolina’s Congressional districts map upheld the maps used in 2024. That decision came in a long-delayed ruling following a trial held last summer on whether that map violated the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. The panel found that drawing the map explicitly for partisan advantage was legal, under precedent decided by the US Supreme Court in 2019, and that the plaintiffs had not shown a racially discriminatory intent by the legislature. All three judges on the panel were appointed to the federal bench by Republican presidents. 

The newest map redrew the First Congressional District’s lines to convert a competitive district into one with a wide Republican voting advantage. In doing so, the legislature broke up a multi-county area of majority Black voters (the “Black Belt”) which has driven the election of a Black Democrat to Congress from the First District in every election since 1992.

“In one fell swoop, the General Assembly 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 the U.S. House of Representatives,” asserts the complaint filed by NAACP attorneys in the case. 

Where the Case Goes From Here

This decision likely clears the way for candidate filing to begin December 1 in North Carolina for a primary race concluding with an election day on March 3, 2026. While plaintiffs in the case are expected to seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court of the lower court’s ruling, court observers consider a stay by the high court to be unlikely at this time.