North Carolina can redraw maps. The conservative move is to decline | Opinion

The General Assembly absolutely can redraw North Carolina’s congressional map this month. Whether they should, however, requires a bit of long-term thinking.

On Monday, General Assembly leaders said they’ll use October’s session to redraw North Carolina’s congressional map, aimed at squeezing out one more GOP seat for 2026. It’s the local chapter of a national arms race aimed at control of the U.S. House next year.

California and Illinois Democrats are hunting for pickups, and Texas Republicans are, too. The urge to join in is understandable.

And if North Carolina does, the most likely outcome is that nothing bad comes of it. Sure, plenty of lawsuits will be filed. But the courts have mostly blessed partisan line-drawing, and our General Assembly has learned how to color inside those lines.

Most likely, the story will drift into the national abyss, overshadowed by louder fights in those bigger states. One more Republican seat gets penciled into a spreadsheet, President Donald Trump says nice things about North Carolina, and most people get back to their lives.

But “most likely” isn’t the same thing as wise.

The investor’s lens

In purely partisan exercises like this, I think about it the way a conservative investor considers risk, or how a prudent general manager evaluates a high-level draft pick.

Ideally, I’m looking for a high ceiling and a high floor. A high ceiling, meaning that the potential gain is significant. A high floor, meaning that the downside risk is minimal.

Viewed through that lens, mid-decade electoral cartography appears to be the opposite. It’s a low-ceiling, low-floor gamble.

What’s the upside? At best, you get one more Republican congressman and a nod from Trump. There’s not much else to gain.

The floor, however, is low. Maybe not in the short-term, but in a 50-50 state even small decisions can ultimately yield major consequences. There’s a real, if modest, chance it becomes the hinge moment that starts loosening the bolts on a decade of Republican stewardship.

Majorities here don’t end with a thunderclap, they fray over time. Ask Democrats in 2010. After decades in charge, complacency and corruption set in. Then a favorable breeze, some money and good candidates flipped two dozen seats and delivered the GOP’s first modern majority.

This time, it could be a few judicial races breaking the wrong way in 2028 and suddenly that “settled” law isn’t. You don’t need much of a spark to relight a political prairie fire.

The Republican majority is more fragile than it looks

I like having Republicans in charge. Just look at the results: a vibrant economy, simpler taxes, steadier budgets, and savings to recover when disaster strikes. That record helped make North Carolina a magnet for families and employers.

But the numbers say our majority isn’t as sturdy as it looks. I went through the 2024 results to see just how much would need to change before a chamber flips.

It’s actually quite surprising. A bare Democratic majority in the state House is reachable by flipping 12 Republican-held districts with about 18,000 voters switching sides combined. The Senate flips with roughly 31,000 vote flips across six seats.

These are not large numbers, and they show how little slack there is. A couple of bad cycles — or even one with the wrong coattails — and the gavel can move.

Restraint matters

This is why restraint matters. The North Carolina story of the last decade is a strong one, and Republican governance still has a good reputation.

Redrawing the map might not dent that reputation today. Most likely, it won’t. But it could change the conversation in subtle ways.

It keeps process on the front page. It gives opponents a clean rallying line and fundraising pitch that can be saved for the next rough year at the top of the ticket. It risks turning a strength into a tell: We don’t trust ourselves to win the persuadables we’ve been winning.

So yes, the General Assembly can redraw the lines. Our state Constitution prohibits mid-decade redrawing of General Assembly districts, but says nothing about Congressional seats.

But a healthy majority resists doing everything it can do just because it can. It picks its spots. It remembers that in a 50/50 state, durability comes from persuasion and performance, not power plays.

If Republicans want an eleventh seat, the most North Carolina way to get it is to go earn it. The district already wants to go red, and a strong campaign could win it with the lines where they are today.

Low-ceiling, low-floor trades are for gamblers. We’ve gotten this far by governing.

Contributing columnist Andrew Dunn is the publisher of the Longleaf Politics newsletter, which offers thoughtful analysis of North Carolina politics and policy from a conservative perspective. He can be reached at andrew@longleafpol.com.

This story was originally published October 14, 2025 at 10:21 AM.