The Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature approved a new gerrymandered congressional district map this week, making North Carolina the latest state to cave to the Trump administration’s mid-cycle redistricting pressure campaign. 

For months, Trump has been trying to strongarm Republican-controlled state legislatures around the nation to redraw their congressional district maps mid-cycle — instead of waiting until after the Census takes place in 2030, which is standard practice — to help ensure Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House in the upcoming midterm elections. Democrats had to flip just a few seats to take back control of the House in the midterms, but Trump’s redistricting campaign has thrown all that into question.  

After a 26-20 party line vote in the state Senate earlier this week, and a 66-48 vote in the House on Wednesday, the new North Carolina map is set to go into effect. North Carolina state law does not give the Democratic Gov. Josh Stein veto power over redistricting maps. The new map is expected to be challenged in court. 

So far, red states with Republican-controlled state legislatures, including Texas and Missouri, have happily bowed to pressure from the Trump administration and approved revised congressional maps that are likely to flip seats currently held by Democrats for Republicans in 2026. Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana, are in the process of approving redrawn congressional maps as well. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has taken some steps to try to redraw congressional maps there to help offset the impact of Texas’ gerrymandering. Democratic officials in Illinois and Maryland are considering taking similar action.

Despite the fact that Texas was the first to act on Trump’s demands for nationwide mid-cycle gerrymandering to help Republicans hold the House, North Carolina Republicans have been pushing bad faith spin for weeks that the map change is actually some sort of attempt to offset Democratic redistricting. 

“Across the country, Democrat-run states have spent decades ensuring that Republicans would be drawn out of Congress,” Republican North Carolina Senate Leader Phil Berger said after the measure passed the state Senate on Tuesday. “North Carolina Republicans will not sit quietly and watch Democrats continue to ignore the will of the people in an attempt to force their liberal agenda on our citizens. This new map respects the will of the North Carolina voters who sent President Trump to the White House three times.”

North Carolina Republicans have already redrawn their maps once in recent memory to score political advantages for Republicans in the U.S. House. The state’s previous 2023 congressional map re-draw gave Republicans 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats. In 2022, the seats were a seven-seven split. The new map is expected to give Republicans one additional seat in Congress, by making a swing district likely unwinnable for Democrats.

The new map, which experts say is the most gerrymandered in state history, primarily impacts the 1st Congressional District, represented by Rep. Don Davis (D). Davis’ district in the Northeastern part of the state is currently considered the only competitive House district in the state and is made up of several majority Black counties. 

“This is the most gerrymandered, least responsive to any kind of future election congressional map that’s been ever created in the history of North Carolina,” Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, told TPM. 

“It’s for one purpose and one purpose only, and that’s to gain a seat for the Republicans so the policies of Donald Trump will not be jeopardized by potentially a flip in the U.S. House,” he added. 

Democratic State Rep. Pricey Harrison similarly described the new map to TPM as a “direct fulfillment of an order from President Trump.”

Berger, the Senate leader, confirmed as much in announcing the vote last week. In a statement, Berger explicitly said the new map would serve as a path “to protect President Trump’s agenda, which means safeguarding Republican control of Congress.”

Trump praised the gerrymandered map proposal last week in a post on Truth Social, describing it as “fair” and “improved Congressional map” that would give North Carolinians “the opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 midterm elections.”

The new map will not only give Republicans an additional U.S. House seat, it will also silence minority votes. Voting rights experts say any lawsuits challenging the new map could accuse Republicans of engaging in racial gerrymandering in a district that has elected Black representatives to the U.S. House continuously since 1992.

“It will silence the voices of African American voters who have traditionally been able to elect a person of color for the last 30 years,” Phillips, the head of Common Cause North Carolina, told TPM.

Until now, the Black voting age population in District 1 was 40%, Phillips said. Under the new map, however, the Black voting age population will be reduced to 32%.

“The new map guarantees the next representative of CD1 will be a white male Republican,” Phillips said.