NC Policy Watch: “Voter registration in North Carolina is divided roughly into thirds – a third Democrats, a third Republicans, and a third unaffiliated voters.
Donald Trump eked out a victory in North Carolina with 49.9% of the vote to President Joe Biden’s 48.6%.
So how did North Carolina Republicans senators come up with proposed new districts for congressional seats that would give Republicans 10 or 11 and Democrats 4 or 3?
State Senate Democrats said during a news conference Monday said the new district lines proposed so far are unfair. There is “an absoluteness of lawsuits if the maps we’ve seen so far are enacted,” said Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue of Raleigh. Republicans would face wasting millions in legal expenses trying to defend these maps, he said.
Legislators are focused on redistricting this week. Public hearings are scheduled for today and Tuesday.
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which uses math to grade redistricting proposals, gave four congressional maps proposed by Senate Republicans Fs for partisan fairness.
The congressional maps Republicans propose disperse the populations of Mecklenburg, Wake and Guilford counties among at least three districts. One of the proposals splits Mecklenburg among four districts.
Wake and Mecklenburg have too many people to make self-contained districts, so it’s necessary to divide their populations between at least two.
But the multiple splits of Democratic-leaning urban districts “show a clear intent to gerrymander, said Sen. Ben Clark, a Democrat who represents Cumberland and Hoke counties. “There’s no need to do that if you intend to establish fair plans.””