Pres-by-LD: North Carolina Republicans passed new maps for state House and Senate in September after a state court struck down their 2017 gerrymanders, and last week, plaintiffs abandoned any further appeals and ended their lawsuit. As a result, these lines will be used next year, when all seats in both chambers will be up for election. Daily Kos Elections has calculated the 2016 presidential results for both new maps, and while they give Democrats the chance to win more seats, it’s still going to be very tough for Team Blue to take a majority in either house next year.
As our new data shows, these maps retain much of the GOP’s old gerrymanders, which is why Democrats should never have signed off on them. Under the 2017 maps, Donald Trump carried 75 of the 120 House districts and 32 of the 50 Senate seats while he was defeating Hillary Clinton 51-47 statewide. Under the newest maps, Trump took 72 House seats and 28 Senate districts. In other words, even though Trump won just 51% of the vote, he’d still have won 59% of all seats in the legislature.
While those are better numbers for Democrats, the newest maps still will make it very difficult for the GOP to actually lose its grip power. One way to dig a little deeper is to sort each seat in each chamber by Trump's margin of victory over Clinton and see how the seat in the middle—known as the median seat—voted. Because North Carolina has an even number of seats, we average the presidential margin for the middle two seats to come up with the median.
Under the old Senate map, the median seat backed Trump 55-43, which was 8 points to the right of his statewide win; under the new map, the median seat supported him 54-44, which is only a little better for Democrats and still 6 points to the right of Trump’s statewide performance. It’s a very similar story in the House, where the median seat went from 55-41 Trump to 55-43, or 8 points better than Trump’s 2016 share of the vote.
This means that if Democrats are to take the barest of majorities, they’d need to win at least some seats that backed Trump by double digits—a very tough task even in the best of years.
The new map does, however, strengthen some Democratic incumbents while weakening a few Republicans. Last year, under the lines drawn up in 2017, Senate Democrats won three seats that had supported Trump, while Republicans carried no Clinton districts. Under the new Senate map, just one Democrat now holds a Trump seat, while there are two Republicans in Clinton turf.
In the state House, 10 Democrats won Trump seats last year while Republicans once again failed to take any Clinton districts. Under the 2019 map, there are now eight Democrats defending Trump seats and one Republican in a Clinton district.
Note that these newest maps will be used only in 2020 because the legislature will once again redraw the districts after the next census. That means that in 2022, the Tar Heel State will have new legislative maps for the fourth cycle in a row.
For the rest of our elections results by legislative district, you can find all our data from 2018, 2016, and past cycles here.