MORRISVILLE, NC (October 22, 2025) – In a single week, North Carolina lawmakers proposed and passed gerrymandered maps that will unequivocally tear apart Congressional District 1 (CD1). Despite calls to end the latest attempt at racist redistricting schemes, the maps passed the NC Senate and House after a rushed vote without debate earlier today, handing Republicans nearly 80% of the NC congressional delegation by attacking the state’s most prominent Black opportunity district.
“You only have to cheat on a test if you know you will fail,” said Marques Thompson, Organizing Director with Democracy NC and a voter from the 1st District. “And North Carolinians have been tested again by lawmakers this week, who have resorted once more to sneaky, destructive tactics to desperately cling to their power. They have done so through another round of bad maps, without time for consideration or public comment, ignoring our years-long demand for fair maps yet again. The people of CD1 and North Carolina reject these maps and the attempt to strip the power of our Black communities. But we will continue to push back. They are counting on North Carolinians not to care and not to show up at the ballot box in 2026. But we, the people, still have power. We have a responsibility to continue to make our voices heard, regardless of the callous actions of North Carolina leaders. We can show, unlike some, we still care about true representation and protecting our democracy. Attempts to diminish our communities will not be met with a diminished spirit.”
Voting rights groups gathered on Monday ahead of the votes to speak out against the latest maps. You can watch the full press briefing here.
“For far too long, gerrymandering has robbed Black, Brown, and Asian American communities of fair representation,” said Shruti Parikh, Director of Education & Political Engagement with NC Asian Americans Together. “Redistricting is supposed to happen once every 10 years, through an open and transparent process that centers community voices; not in secret meetings designed to cement partisan control. Elected officials shouldn’t be picking their voters. Voters should be picking their representatives.”
In 2023, state legislative leaders approved a congressional map which sliced and diced communities of interest all over the state. The CD1 gerrymander is lawmakers’ latest attempt to silence voters of color by eliminating the state’s only swing district.
“When you rig a system to favor yourself and silence the votes of people who think differently than you, you erode the right to vote and you diminish our democracy,” said Liz Barber, Policy Director with the ACLU of North Carolina. “It makes it harder for voters like you to hold your representative accountable, especially as policies like federal Medicaid cuts hurt North Carolinians.”
“Normally, districts are redrawn in only two situations: after the census to rebalance populations and uphold the 14th Amendment’s ‘one person, one vote’ principle, or when a court orders changes to fix legal violations,” said Melissa Price Kromm, Executive Director of NC For The People. “Legislative leaders have openly admitted that this redraw isn’t about population balance or a court order; it’s about removing voters in North Carolina’s Black Belt to engineer partisan advantage.”
The maps also arrive at a time when the most pressing issue at the legislature is passing an equitable budget.
“However, leadership has found time to create gerrymandered maps with no public input. This was not ordered, requested, or necessary,” said Hasani Mitchell, Democracy & Economy Coordinator with NC Black Alliance. “This new Congressional map does nothing for the 300,000 North Carolinians who will lose healthcare coverage, including citizens who live in CD-1; voters who need affordable housing; and voters who need a livable wage and workforce development.”
The map specifically undermines Black Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis and the voters who elected him, while making the adjoining district safer for white Republican Rep. Greg Murphy in Congressional District 3. The approved map will shift a partisan split of 10-4 with a Republican majority, to 11-3. This does not match up with North Carolina voters, in addition to being a direct attack on the Black community, said Kat Roblez, Senior Voting Rights Counsel & Litigation Manager with Forward Justice.
“We see in our statewide elections that we are pretty evenly split,” Roblez said. “This simply doesn’t reflect what people want or are looking for. And no one behind this has made a single comment about whether this is something the voters want or not.
Voters from CD1 spoke out against what they called a “new form of poll tax.”
“As an independent, I take issue with the lack of transparency and lack of public hearings,” said Tiffany Smith, an advocate from Northampton County. “It’s like they’re trying to jam this down our throats with a sham process. We deserve better than that.”
Tyler Daye, Program Manager with Common Cause North Carolina and a Triad resident, pointed out state legislative leaders have ignored concerns from voters in his district to be kept together as much as possible, instead doing the exact opposite.
“If politicians want to increase the number of seats their party has, they can do it the old fashioned way: Campaign,” Daye said. “It seems, however, that North Carolina’s legislative leaders don’t have much faith in the voters of this state, because they’ve gone to extraordinary measures to redraw our congressional districts again for the sole purpose of obtaining one more Republican seat in the U.S. House. This is cheating; and it is disgraceful, shameful, and it should be illegal.”
Ashley Mitchell, another resident of CD1, closed the briefing by detailing the myriad of ways lawmakers have sought to block free and easy access to the ballot box, including attacks on early voting, absentee ballots, voter registration, and the implementation of voter ID.
“This is not the last attempt we’ll see to silence voters, especially Black voters across our state. But are we going to sit back? The answer is no, we are going to fight back – we do that by giving [lawmakers] more people power,” Mitchell said. “We are going to show up at the polls. We are going to show that you cannot sway us, you cannot deter us from exercising our right to vote.”
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Democracy North Carolina is a statewide nonpartisan organization that uses research, organizing, and advocacy to strengthen democratic structures, build power among disenfranchised communities, and inspire confidence in a transformed political process that works for all.