NC Republicans tell a whopper of a lie to justify redrawing districts again | Opinion

North Carolina’s Republicans are telling a whopper that exposes the truth.

Republican leaders say they will redraw North Carolina’s congressional districts in response to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s move to change his state’s districts to add Democrats to its U.S. House delegation.

“We will hold votes in our October session to redraw North Carolina’s congressional map to ensure Gavin Newsom doesn’t decide the congressional majority,” Senate leader Phil Berger said Monday in a joint statement with House Speaker Destin Hall.

Hall said the same: “Our state won’t stand by while Democrats like Gavin Newsom redraw districts to aid in their effort to obtain a majority in the U.S. House.”

That’s a gross distortion of what’s happening. Newsom acted recently in response to Texas’ redrawing its maps in August to elect more Republican House members. Texas redrew its maps at the behest of President Donald Trump, who’s terrified of Democrats winning the House in the 2026 midterm election.

Newsom didn’t start this tit-for-tat and North Carolina is about to make it worse.

Berger said it was a necessary move. “We are doing everything we can to protect President Trump’s agenda, which means safeguarding Republican control of Congress,” he said.

But in shielding Trump, North Carolina Republicans are conceding that without further gerrymandering, voters are likely to reject Trump’s agenda by giving Democrats the House. The president, an endless complainer about allegedly “rigged” elections, is afraid of a fair one.

Republican lawmakers have already redrawn the state’s election districts to shift North Carolina’s U.S. House delegation from a 7-7 split between parties in 2023 to 10-4 in the Republicans’ favor this year. Now Berger says lawmakers will move to give Republicans an 11-3 advantage.

Facing a tough primary and eager to win Trump’s endorsement, Berger is doing what he can to please the president. But trying to shift the maps to give the state’s congressional delegation an 11-3 Republican edge in an evenly divided state will be a challenge. If new maps stretch Republican voters too thin, the GOP could actually lose congressional seats in 2026.

Yet Speaker Hall says more gerrymandering is justified because Trump won the state in 2024.

In responding to Newsom’s move, Hall said, “We will not allow them to undermine the will of the voters and President Trump’s agenda.” Yes, a Republican leader in perhaps the nation’s most gerrymandered state really said that Republicans would not allow politicians to undermine the will of the voters.

The truth is that state lawmakers have already done more than enough to protect Trump. By redistricting at mid-decade before the 2024 election, they helped send three more Republican representatives to Washington. That gave Trump the razor-thin Republican House majority that has allowed him to impose sweeping budget cuts and tariff hikes that are opposed by most voters.

State Republican leaders also are putting themselves at risk by trying to prop up Trump. A recent survey of North Carolina voters by Opinion Diagnostics found overwhelming opposition to gerrymandering for any reason. The disfavor is abundant regardless of party affiliation. Gerrymandering was opposed by 78% of Republicans, 87% of Democrats and 85% of unaffiliated voters.

Despite that opposition, gerrymandering is once more upon us. But there is a limit to how much Republicans can contort districts and distort the justifications. In 2026, North Carolina voters may be so fed up with being silenced and ignored and denied that they’ll break through Republican-drawn lines and throw the drawers out.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published October 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM.