NC-02, NC Redistricting: In a very telling quote, Republican Rep. George Holding revealed that he hasn't been focused on fundraising—in the third quarter, he raised just $175,000 and had only a single donor from his district—because he feels "fairly certain we will have new districts to be running in" next year in North Carolina.
Last month, Democrats filed a lawsuit asking a state court to strike down the GOP's congressional gerrymander and put a new map in place for 2020. There's a strong chance they'll succeed, which would result in some Republicans such as Holding finding themselves in much bluer districts.
In September, a bipartisan panel of three state court judges unanimously struck down Republicans' legislative gerrymanders for violating the state constitution and ordered they be redrawn. Those same judges were appointed to hear the lawsuit over the congressional map, which was drawn by the exact same GOP lawmakers with the exact same goals, making it highly likely the court will issue a similar ruling.
The evidence against the congressional map is, in fact, overwhelming: Republicans explicitly stated that it was a "political gerrymander" drawn to maintain the GOP's 10-3 advantage in the state’s 13-member congressional delegation—and admitted they didn’t go further only because they thought it was literally impossible to draw a map that would guarantee them 11 seats.
Republicans made this admission in a perverse defense of a new map they created in 2016 after their previous districts were invalidated for illegally diminishing the power of black voters. In other words, said the GOP, we didn’t draw a racial gerrymander—we drew a partisan gerrymander (never mind that race and party are strongly correlated).
That display of chutzpah already came close to derailing Republicans last year, when a federal court found that partisan gerrymanders did indeed violate the U.S. Constitution. The GOP was bailed out, though, when conservatives on the Supreme Court ruled that claims of excessive partisanship in electoral maps couldn’t be litigated in the federal court system. However, the justices acknowledged, such arguments could still proceed in state courts—and plaintiffs took that advice to heart.
With the GOP’s smoking gun confession in hand, Democrats have asked for a preliminary injunction to block the map immediately while the case proceeds on the merits. The court has set a hearing for Thursday to address that request, meaning there could be a ruling within weeks.
Republicans' only option has been to stall for time until it’s too late for a new map to be implemented in time for next year’s elections. Recently, they tried to remove the case to the friendlier federal judiciary but saw their ploy to swiftly rejected on Tuesday. With the possibility of an injunction coming within weeks, Holding and his fellow Republicans could finally be out of luck.