Why redrawing a congressional district in NC doesn’t mean candidates must move
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- U.S. House candidates need state residency by Nov. 3, 2026, not district residence.
- Redrawn 2026 map reshapes Eastern NC contests and complicates incumbent strategy.
- Residency becomes campaign issue; candidates may be criticized as carpetbaggers.
If you want to run for Congress in the newly redrawn 1st district in Eastern North Carolina, it doesn’t matter if you don’t live there.
Unlike state lawmakers, members of Congress don’t have to live in their districts, as long as they live in the state.
A new map just drawn by Republicans for the 2026 congressional races in North Carolina is shaking up the election a year before Election Day, and more than a month before candidates can even file to run.
Why members of Congress don’t have to live in their districts
In short, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t require members of the U.S. House of Representatives to live in their districts. According to the House’s history and archives, the Founders based it on British law and therefore required members to live in their states, but the district system came later.
The State Board of Elections and the U.S. Constitution lays out what’s required to run for the U.S. House. Candidates must:
- Be at least 25 years old;
- Be a U.S. citizen for at least seven years;
- Live in North Carolina by Nov. 3, 2026, the date of the general election.
That’s different from state law for the General Assembly, which requires all members of the House and Senate to live in their districts.
In some cases, sitting state lawmakers have been drawn out of their districts or double bunked, or placed in the same district with another incumbent. Some have chosen to move to a new district to run, like Wake County Democratic Sen. Lisa Grafstein did for the 2024 election. She was successful in winning her new district.
But the same scenario in Congress wouldn’t spur any kind of move, at least not for legal reasons.
What candidates do about district shifts
U.S. Rep. Don Davis was the target of President Donald Trump and state Republicans, who heeded Trump’s call for them to redraw Davis’ district in favor of Republicans.
Davis now faces a much harder race, and his home in Greene County is in the new 3rd Congressional District, rather than the 1st district. Davis can move or he can stay where he already lives and run in either district.
After the new map passed the General Assembly on Wednesday, Davis, who is serving his second term in Congress, said in a statement that he remains “committed to ensuring every voice in eastern North Carolina is heard, no matter how the lines are drawn.”
But redrawn districts can still impact candidate decisions when it comes to running for Congress.
U.S. Rep. Tim Moore ran and won his district in 2024, but had stopped short of running in 2022 after former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn switched districts to challenge Moore’s planned run, then back again only to be taken out in the Republican primary by now-U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards.
On Thursday, one of the candidates in the Republican primary, state Sen. Bobby Hanig, reaffirmed he’ll continue to run in the 1st district. He took a jab at anyone coming to the district to run who doesn’t already live there — an example of how residency is a campaign issue rather than legal one.
“Eastern North Carolina doesn’t need millionaires trying to buy the seat or carpetbaggers who’ve never lived here. It deserves a leader who knows the people, the struggles they encounter and their values,” Hanig said in a news release Thursday.
There’s still more than a month to go before candidates need to choose a district to run in.
Candidate filing for the 2026 primary begins Dec. 1 and closes at noon Dec. 19.
This story was originally published October 23, 2025 at 2:30 PM.
