NC’s Republican-drawn electoral maps go to trial this week over gerrymandering claims
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Federal judges hear gerrymandering case against North Carolina's 2023 maps.
- Advocacy groups argue the maps dilute Black and minority voting power.
- Republicans defend redistricting maps, citing confidence they would stand up in court.
North Carolina’s Republican-crafted electoral maps are headed to trial this week as opponents contend they illegally gerrymander the state’s Black voters, and other members of racial and ethnic minority groups, into districts meant to dilute their voting power.
The trial begins Monday morning in Winston-Salem, where three federal judges will determine whether lawmakers violated the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution in 2023 when they passed new maps for the state legislature and Congress.
At a press conference ahead of the trial, advocacy groups bringing the lawsuit said their case was essential to the future of fair elections in the state.
“When politicians use gerrymandering to divide our neighborhoods and weaken our votes, they’re not just manipulating the process — they are rigging the outcomes,” Da’Quan Marcell Love, the executive director of the North Carolina NAACP, said at a press conference ahead of the trial. “This is a direct attack on Black political power and a continuation of voter suppression tactics we have faced in North Carolina for generations.”
The NC NAACP, alongside other advocacy groups, filed the lawsuit back in 2023, but courts did not block the maps from taking effect before the 2024 elections.
Redistricting is frequently litigated in North Carolina, where first Democrats, and then Republicans once they took over the General Assembly, have long drawn maps for partisan benefit. Courts have struck down maps in the past, but Republican leaders have said they’re confident these maps will withstand scrutiny.
“We wouldn’t pass these maps if we didn’t think they would stand up in court,” Senate leader Phil Berger said in 2023 shortly after voting on the maps. “... It wouldn’t surprise me if along the way, before we get a final decision from courts, that you might find a court that has some problem with some part of the maps — but it’s our belief that when all is said and done, these maps will stand.”
The stakes are high when it comes to redistricting — especially in a swing state like North Carolina.
Some argue that the state’s new congressional map may be the reason Republicans currently have a majority in Congress.
At an event kicking off her reelection campaign last month, state Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, a Democrat, noted that the Republican-drawn 2024 electoral maps elected 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats. Just two years earlier, a court-drawn plan that Earls called a “fair map” elected seven Democrats and seven Republicans.
“If we still had 7-7, the (U.S.) House of Representatives would be in control of Democrats right now,” she said.
This week’s trial isn’t the only legal battle involving the state’s redistricting process.
A separate lawsuit challenging the state Senate districts for racial gerrymandering already went to trial in February. No ruling has been issued so far.
This story was originally published June 16, 2025 at 8:00 AM.
