A coalition of North Carolina voting rights advocates on Monday denounced newly proposed congressional maps they say would dismantle the state’s historic Black Belt district and erode Black political power in the state’s northeast.
The group held a press conference hours after a Senate committee adopted a redistricting plan that would make the 1st Congressional District more favorable to Republicans. It is North Carolina’s only competitive United States House seat.
The 1st District, anchored in northeastern North Carolina, has elected Black representatives for more than three decades. It is currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, who won reelection last year by less than two points. Under the new map, Davis’s home county of Greene would be moved into the adjacent 3rd District, represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy. Members of Congress are not required to live in their districts.
Voting rights advocates said the proposal would split up communities that have long shared historical and economic ties, particularly in the state’s Black Belt region. The district includes several majority-Black counties such as Halifax, Hertford and Bertie — areas that have been the backbone of Black political participation in North Carolina since the passage of the federal Voting Rights Act.
“Please don’t buy into it when someone says ‘This isn’t about race, it’s about party,’ because those two things are intertwined,” said Kat Roblez, senior voting rights counsel with Forward Justice.
“This map … is really a retaliation against the people of the 1st District for the audacity to select the representative that the General Assembly doesn’t approve of … and was drawn explicitly for political gain,” said Marques Thompson, organizing director for Democracy North Carolina and a district resident.
Ashley Mitchell, a staff attorney with Forward Justice who also lives in the 1st District, said the redistricting plan threatens communities that fought for decades to gain representation. “It’s the people power that pisses off our legislature, which is why we see so much pushback against the voters,” said Ashley Mitchell, a staff attorney with Forward Justice. We are not going to sit back. We are going to fight back in 2026 and show that the people truly do have the power to elect our representatives and leaders, whether they like it or not.”
Republicans currently hold 10 of North Carolina’s 14 congressional seats. With the new map, the GOP could expand its advantage to 11–3, a shift that comes as former President Donald Trump pushes to maintain Republican control of the U.S. House after the 2026 midterms.
“The motivation behind this redraw is simple and singular,” Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell), said as he presented the plan in the Senate Elections committee Monday. “Republicans hold a razor-thin margin in the United States House of Representatives. And if Democrats flip four seats in the upcoming midterm elections, they will take control of the House and torpedo President Trump’s agenda.”
Trump posted on social media thanking North Carolina Republicans for the plan, calling it an opportunity to “elect another MAGA Republican” next year.
Gov. Josh Stein called the proposal a “cynical power grab” during a news conference Monday morning. “The Republican legislature is abusing its power to take away yours,” Stein said, as he urged lawmakers to instead pass new spending for the state’s mental health system and Medicaid.
Shruti Parikh, director of education & political engagement for North Carolina Asian Americans Together, said the state’s majority-Republican leadership is “taking the coward’s way out and putting a thumb on the scale.” She added that North Carolinians “deserve leadership that works for us, not politicians who twist the rules to protect their own power.”
Former U.S. Reps. Eva Clayton and G.K. Butterfield, who both represented the 1st District, also criticized the plan, saying it would “silence communities that have long been the backbone of northeastern North Carolina.” In a joint statement released through Common Cause NC, they called the map “a moral regression” and condemned the lack of public input.
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