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North Carolina’s new congressional map, passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly, is the latest in a series of redistrictings the state has had in recent years.
The constant redrawing of district lines can leave voters confused about who represents them in Congress.
Dennis Mersereau has called the Greensboro area home for 15 years and in that time he’s had a lot of different people representing him in Congress.
“I think I’ve had five or six different representatives. It’s hard to keep track of them because they keep shifting us around so much,” Mersereau said.
He lives in Reidsville outside Greensboro, a city that’s been ground zero in the state’s shifting congressional district lines.
North Carolina has had five maps used in elections over the past 15 years and that’s not counting two that were struck down before they could be used. This week the Republican-controlled General Assembly pushed through a sixth map.
“Reidsville shouldn’t be in the same district as Greensboro because Greensboro is its own distinct community,” Mersereau said.
Former Democratic Rep. Kathy Manning used to represent Greensboro before Republican state lawmakers approved a map that carved up the heavily Democratic city into three districts, each with more Republican voters than Democrats.
Manning decided not to seek reelection in 2024 because she thought it would be too difficult to win.
“We have three different people in Congress who are supposed to represent Guilford County and Greensboro and they don’t represent the values that the vast majority of people in my former district hold,” Manning said.
Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of gerrymandering in North Carolina and around the country. But with so many different maps in North Carolina in recent years, with changes to the congressional delegation, there are concerns voters may not even know who their member of Congress is.
“Every time they do a round of redistricting, I have to learn who our representative is and it’s a pain in the butt,” Mersereau said.
The shifting maps are also a challenge for lawmakers and their offices, which spend lots of time focused on district-specific issues.
“I think it’s very difficult on the representatives themselves. They want to know the districts they represent. They want to represent the people in the best way they can,” Manning said.
“Surely this is dizzying for not only the voters but also the representatives,” said Princeton Gerrymandering Project Director Sam Wang. “That bond between voters and their representatives breaks in a situation like North Carolina where the map gets redrawn every two years.”
Spectrum News found people on both sides of the aisle who say the current system where maps are drawn by elected officials isn’t working.
“The independent redistricting question is something I think we should have,” Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, told Spectrum News. “I do believe it should be subject to a political vote by the legislature.”
“The founding fathers envisioned that there would be a political decision process in redistricting, but that’s not going to happen in this political environment,” Tillis said.
Many states have independent redistricting commissions that are supposed to take politics out of the process. But in California and Virginia, Democrats are moving to take control of the process to counter President Donald Trump urging Republican states to redraw district lines to benefit the GOP.
In North Carolina, it would fall to the General Assembly to create a commission, something not likely to happen.
“I don’t care who started it, you know it’s wrong. Both parties are going to have to decide, in the long run this is not good for the country, and we need to stop the political, the partisan gerrymandering,” Manning said.
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Reuben Jones
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