(The Center Square) – Any chance North Carolina’s battleground status is lessened in the 2026 midterms or 2028 presidential cycle is just about nil and void.
To wit, prognosticators have the midterm U.S. Senate race between Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley pegged to approach or eclipse $1 billion. And the biggest and best guns for the respective parties are, or soon are expected, to be involved in the congressional redistricting spat.
On the latter, 13th term Rockingham County Republican Sen. Phil Berger – president pro tempore of the chamber since the 2010 midterms changed the majority – has his hands full at home with Sheriff Sam Page challenging. Both promote conservative values, and a coveted endorsement from second-term Republican President Donald Trump figures to sway voters of Rockingham and Guilford counties.
“North Carolinians from both parties should be alarmed by credible reports that Phil Berger is pursuing redistricting as part of a corrupt bargain to secure a political endorsement from Donald Trump,” said U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C. “Republicans are waging a war on American voting rights because they know the truth – their policies are unpopular, their candidates are unlikable, and they can’t win a majority in Congress without stacking the deck in their favor.”
Amid the bravado is context.
North Carolina is a battleground state because voters are choosing themselves rather than falling into the beholden nature of the major political parties. Democrats, once overwhelmingly popular and crafty in their own right when it comes to drawing maps, have bled registrations mightily for two decades.
Still, the state has elected just three men not Democrats since 1900 to be governor. The attorney general hasn’t been a Republican since the 1896 election, and it goes back to 1882 for the last time the U.S. House representative in the northeastern part of the state was won by a Republican.
Republicans, meanwhile, have won the state in presidential contests 13 of the last 15 cycles over 60 years. And they’ve sent the man for the U.S. Senate every time since Democrat Kay Hagan won in 2008, having not lost a midterm since 1998.
While Ross paints the move of Berger and House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, as a pitch for Trump, this week’s news from California shows how steadfast will be the opposition from Democrats. There, former President Barack Obama was on a major podcast and is in a multi-million television ad buy to promote Proposition 50 – the November ballot measure that could replace the state’s independent commission-drawn congressional district maps.
Already 43-9 Democrats in representation to the U.S. House, the party figures five more in the Golden State could flip. Obama, one of the two Democrats to win North Carolina in more than half a century but unable to do it twice, was also on Marc Maron’s podcast.
Berger and Hall said earlier this week lawmakers would return to Raleigh next week with congressional map redrawing on the agenda. The delegation to the Beltway is already 10-4 Republicans, and only the 1st Congressional District of Democratic Rep. Don Davis was decided by less than 13% in 2024.
In addition to North Carolina and California, some level of engagement about congressional redistricting is happening in Texas, Missouri, Ohio, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland and New York. Govs. Mike Kehoe of Missouri and Greg Abbott of Texas have already signed new maps into law.
Berger, for his part, has publicly feuded across the country with California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Each has a presidential ally, arguably the strongest their parties can offer.
“President Trump delivered countless victories during his first term in office, and nine months into his second term he continues to achieve unprecedented wins,” Berger said. “Picking up where Texas left off, we will hold votes in our October session to redraw North Carolina’s congressional map to ensure Gavin Newsom doesn’t decide the congressional majority.”
