Protesters accuse GOP of racial gerrymandering as NC map moves forward
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Senate passed a party-line congressional map advancing GOP seat gain.
- Map redraw reduces Black voting share in 1st District, prompting protests.
- House committees advanced plan; bill will become law without governor veto.
As protesters chanted about “racist maps” and Democratic politicians accused North Carolina Republicans of disenfranchising Black voters, lawmakers on Tuesday moved ahead with a new congressional map intended to pick up another seat for the GOP.
“Now, I don’t know about y’all, but I got a daddy and his name ain’t Donald Trump,” Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch told people attending the rally. “But for some reason, for some God-awful reason, the Republicans fear him more than they do their own constituents. And they can do that when they can gerrymander the hell out of this state and make sure that your vote doesn’t matter.”
The rally took place Tuesday just after the state Senate gave its final approval to the map in a party-line vote, sending it to two House committees where Democrats objected to the plan and members of the public excoriated lawmakers for brazenly drawing maps in their own favor.
Over 11,000 public comments came in to the state’s online portal about the map, said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford County Democrat.
“And they are angry,” she said.
Unlike in previous years, lawmakers did not hold public forums in the affected districts to hear from voters.
The House is expected to hold a full floor vote on the map Wednesday. The state constitution prohibits Democratic Gov. Josh Stein from vetoing the bill, so it will become law after both chambers approve it.
The map, which redraws the 1st Congressional District in northeastern North Carolina and significantly reduces its racial minority population, is part of a nationwide push, led by President Donald Trump, for Republican-led states to redraw their districts in the GOP’s favor ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Hundreds rally against new map
Ahead of Tuesday’s committee hearings, hundreds of people joined the rally organized by the North Carolina Democratic Party outside the state Capitol.
Participants held signs reading “Democracy for the People,” “Cheaters” and “Stop rigging our elections.”
Joanne Hill and Carmen Mattocks drove from Onslow County that morning to protest the new map.
“I just felt that I needed to be here today, because I don’t feel like I’m represented,” Hill said.
She said it bothered her to hear that Republican politicians said they were drawing a new map because of what California Gov. Gavin Newsom. They “neglected to mention that it was actually what (Gov.) Greg Abbott did in Texas that started this whole thing,” she said.
Over the summer, Texas Republicans passed a map creating five additional congressional seats favoring their party. California lawmakers responded by proposing their own redrawn maps with five new seats favoring Democrats.
Mattocks said she wanted to “feel like I’m a part of the process to maintain fairness and democracy.”
Another group of rallygoers came from Chapel Hill. Alice Carlton said they went to the “No Kings” protest on Saturday in Carrboro “and I just got fired up.”
Lawmakers are “doing the bidding of Trump in order to obtain a favor,” said Carlton.
Several Democratic politicians and party leaders, including state lawmakers and members of Congress, spoke before the crowd.
Making an appearance was also Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier, a Democrat who participated in a two-week walkout to delay passage of the new congressional map in Texas. “We are being robbed in broad daylight,” Collier said.
“They’re not playing with us — they are coming for our votes,” she said.
Among North Carolina leaders who spoke was U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, a Charlotte Democrat. She said the redistricting was “racial.”
“They’re trying to take out the only Black male that we have,” Adams said, “and in that district in the east where we’ve had Black representation for the past 30 years — and so they’re disenfranchising people.”
Batch said Democrats had asked Republican lawmakers whether they had reached out to the congressional members affected, and if they had gone to Eastern North Carolina and talked to voters in the region known as the Black Belt, and were told no.
Sen. Ralph Hise on Monday said he drew the map and acknowledged that its goal was to prevent Democrats from winning a majority in Congress in 2026.
“Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Hise, of Mitchell County, said during debate on Monday. “If Democrats flip four seats in the upcoming midterm elections, they will take control of the House and torpedo President Trump’s agenda,” The News & Observer previously reported.
House Minority Leader Robert Reives called it a “money grab.”
“If you’re a Republican, they want you to think they’re doing it to get more Republicans,” Reives said. “If you’re of a different race, maybe it’s about race, maybe it’s about religion, maybe it’s about something else. Let me tell you what this is about: This is about money. It is nothing but a money grab. It is amazing to me that we are in the greatest democracy in the history of the world, and we have a couple of billionaires that have figured out they’re going to steal it.”
Before the crowd walked to the state legislature, Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton said they had just gotten word that the House would not be voting on the maps on Tuesday because “look at all of y’all here.”
“But you know what we’re still going to do,” she said, “is pay them a visit.”
Just before 12:30 p.m., the crowd began making its way to the legislature to the tune of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, chanting, “This is what democracy looks like.”
NC’s first Black congresswoman joins condemnation
At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, former U.S. Rep. Eva Clayton, who represented the 1st district for over a decade in Congress, called the redraw “blatant discrimination.”
“They want to lock in that no Democrat, and especially no Black Democrat, will ever win again,” she said.
In 1992, Clayton became the first Black woman to represent North Carolina in Congress and the state’s first Black representative since 1901.
Since her election over 30 years ago, the 1st district has been represented by Black lawmakers, including current U.S. Rep. Don Davis, a moderate Democrat from Greene County.
In statement, Davis called the new map “beyond the pale.”
“My office has received 46,616 messages from constituents of different political parties, including those unaffiliated, expressing a range of opinions, views and requests,” he wrote. “Not a single one of them included a request for a new congressional new map.”
At the press conference, Clayton was joined by Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause NC, who reminded attendees that Republican Senate leader Phil Berger supported an independent redistricting process when Democrats held a majority in the legislature.
“I only regret that I am not able to convince (him) or his party to once again embrace what they should — and that is reform,” Phillips said. “... They know better, they know this is wrong.”
Republican map approaches final vote
The House did not hold a full vote on the new map Tuesday, but did advance the plan through committee in anticipation of a Wednesday vote.
During over an hour of public comment in the House Redistricting Committee, veterans, members of Congress and others urged lawmakers to stand up to the president and reject his call to further shift the map in Republicans’ favor.
“Today, North Carolina Republicans showed their true face,” Vicki Boyer, a resident of Orange County, said. “They have lost all sense of honor. They have lost their Christian values. They’ve become completely absorbed into the American fascist party ... Their actions today prove that their plans for North Carolina are so unpopular that they have to cheat to win. They don’t want to govern — they want to rule.”
None of the several dozen speakers who showed up to Tuesday’s hearing spoke in favor of the map. Republicans advanced the map through the House Rules Committee Tuesday evening, the final step before a floor vote.
This story was originally published October 21, 2025 at 5:06 PM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the organization Bob Phillips works for. He is the executive director of Common Cause NC.
