Hundreds of protesters marched on the North Carolina legislature Tuesday, ahead of what was expected to be Republican lawmakers’ final vote to redraw the state’s congressional map to target one of the state’s few Black members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
However, after the protesters began marching, Republican House Speaker Destin Hall’s office said the vote would be delayed until later in the week.
The new map, which aims to increase the number of Republicans who represent North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives, could become law as soon as Tuesday evening. It passed the state Senate in a series of votes Monday night and Tuesday morning, and is scheduled to be heard Tuesday afternoon in a state House committee. The final vote in the House could now potentially happen Wednesday.
Both chambers of the legislature are controlled by Republicans. They say they’re acting under requests from Republican President Donald Trump to further gerrymander the state in favor of GOP candidates ahead of the 2026 elections when Democrasts have a chance to flip control of Congress, particularly the U.S. House.
North Carolina Democrats including Gov. Josh Stein are essentially powerless to stop the map from becoming law. It requires only a simple majority of votes since the governor isn’t allowed to veto any new maps. Democrats are hoping their protests — whether in fiery remarks from lawmakers inside the chamber or from demonstrators outside — will help sway public opinion and retake control of the state legislature or the state Supreme Court, their two best chances for reversing the state’s pro-Republican gerrymanders.
On Tuesday Sen. Michael Garrett, D-Guilford, proposed changing the bill so that, instead of containing a new map, the bill would instead put a constitutional amendment on the ballot letting the state’s voters decide if the legislature should lose some of its power to gerrymander the state.
Republicans shot that proposal down with no debate or explanation, prompting a fiery speech from Garrett.
He spoke about this weekend’s “No Kings” protests against President Donald Trump, which he said were possibly the largest protests in America’s history, as millions of people took to the streets. The state legislature is betraying every single one of those people by rigging the congressional map even more than it already is, Garrett said, and by bending to Trump’s demand to deliver him more power.
“Future historians will look back at 2025 and ask: When democracy was openly under assault, when a president demanded states rigged their elections, when millions took to the streets, begging their leaders to protect their rights. What did those in power do?” Garrett said. “Did they stand with the people? Or did they stand with the power?”
After Garrett finished his speech Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, proposed that the Senate prevent it from being formally recorded in the journal that the Senate uses as a record of what happened on each day. That effort succeeded, with every Republican voting to block Garrett’s speech from being included in the official record.
Republicans also defended their push to further gerrymander North Carolina, saying some Democratic-led states are also gerrymandered, and that they do indeed want to do whatever they can to give Trump more power.
“Less than a year ago, the people of North Carolina voted for President Trump,” state Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters Monday night.
Sen. Sophia Chitlik, D-Durham, said she agreed the will of the people is important. So she asked a top Republican rdistricting leader, Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, why he and other Republicans shot down Garrett’s effort to let the people decide on an anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment.
Hise told her that the idea of taking politics out of redistricting is “a fairy tale” and that he supports Republicans having the maximum amount of power anyway.
Multiple Democratic state Senators on Monday accused their Republican colleagues of racism as the chamber’s GOP majority originally advanced the new districts. The map would eliminate the state’s only competitive district — currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis — by carving up a part of eastern North Carolina with a large Black population.
Republicans said they drew the map without the aid of outside political operatives and without racial data or motivations — claims Democrats said they believed to be lies.
Republicans said they relied only on political data, not racial data, to draw the map. They said they were drawing it specifically because Trump has called on GOP-led states to gerrymander their congressional maps as much as possible ahead of the 2026 elections, when Democrats have been hoping to flip control of the U.S. House.
A U.S. House majority requires 218 seats in the chamber. Republicans currently hold 219 seats, and the president’s political party almost always loses seats during midterm elections. North Carolina is represented by 14 members in the U.S. House — 10 Republicans and four Democrats. The newly proposed map has 11 districts that lean Republican and three Democratic-leaning districts. No seats in the new map are expected to be competitive, unlike the current map.
“The president asked that legislatures look at their maps and determine whether or not it’s possible to add additional individuals [to the U.S. House] that would support the agenda that the president has advanced,” state Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters Monday. “The people of North Carolina, on three separate occasions, have voted [in favor of Trump]. And it is something that is an appropriate thing for us to do.”
Trump won the 2024 presidential election with 49.8% of the vote nationwide, including 50.9% in North Carolina.
The new map would all but guarantee a GOP victory in Davis’s district in any election, except for a major Democratic wave, according to data provided by Republican lawmakers. Trump in 2024 likely would’ve won more than 55% of the vote in the new version of the district, substantially higher than his statewide margin of victory.
To turn Davis’ district red, the new map would swap some more diverse and politically competitive counties he represents, including Wilson and Wayne, with some more heavily conservative counties currently represented by Rep. Greg Murphy, a Greenville Republican. Murphy’s district would still favor Republican candidates but would be more competitive in the future.
The map also carves Davis’ house in Snow Hill out of his district, placing it in Murphy’s district. Members of Congress don’t have to live in their districts, so that wouldn’t necessarily stop Davis from running for reelection.