Democrats knew the carnage was coming, but their outrage is still palpable: on Wednesday, North Carolina GOP state legislators released two different draft congressional maps that would gut Democrats' representation in the Tar Heel State. The brutal gerrymanders would transform the current 7D-7R delegation into as lopsided as an 11R-3D breakdown, giving Republicans up to a four-seat boost in their efforts to hold the House majority in 2024.
Republican legislators in Raleigh have scheduled committee votes on the plans for early next week and are expected to use their supermajority to ram through one of the plans later this month. Per state law, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has no veto power over redistricting.
The new GOP majority on the state Supreme Court cleared the way for this redraw when it ruled in April that gerrymandering didn't violate the state constitution. As expected, the two plans released by the state Senate GOP would doom Democratic Reps. Kathy Manning (NC-06) in the Greensboro area, Wiley Nickel (NC-13) in the Raleigh suburbs and Jeff Jackson (NC-14) in the Charlotte suburbs by converting their
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