'Jeffries would be the next speaker': How one state’s GOP gerrymander 'changed the nation'

28 November 2024

While Democrats lost control of the White House and the Senate in the 2024 election, they may have flipped control of the House of Representatives were it not for a controversial move by Republican lawmakers in one battleground state.

In a Wednesday tweet, Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) claimed that "North Carolina's gerrymandered maps changed the nation." The freshman congressman — who announced in 2023 that he would not seek a second term — further argued: "The three seats stolen from Democrats (mine included) cost Democrats control of the U.S. House of Representatives."

"Without a brutal mid-census NC GOP gerrymander @RepJeffries would be the next Speaker in a 218-217 House," Nickel added, mentioning the official handle of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in his tweet.

Nickel's opinion was also shared by NBC News reporter Sahil Kapur, who posted to Bluesky that the current partisan makeup of the House as of this week stands at 220 Republican seats and 214 Democratic seats. In the one contest yet to be decided in California's 13th Congressional District, Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) is narrowly trailing his Democratic opponent Adam Gray by roughly 200 votes. If Gray prevails, that would put Democrats at 215 seats.

However, the House's Republican majority becomes even more tenuous after the 119th Congress is sworn in on January 3. At that point, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) will officially leave the House. When President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) will join his administration as National Security Advisor. And if Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who is the current House Republican Conference chair, is confirmed as the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the GOP could end up with the tiniest of majorities.

"Could be a 220-215 majority, which shrinks to 217-215 early 2025 when you subtract Gaetz, Stefanik, Waltz," Kapur wrote. "The GOP gerrymander in North Carolina (flipped 3 Dem seats) saved their majority."

The gerrymander went through last fall, when North Carolina Republicans ignored court-drawn maps in 2022 to propose new redistricting maps that effectively turned four previously Democratic districts into districts that heavily favored Republicans. Even though Democratic Governor Roy Cooper vetoed the maps, the GOP supermajority overrode him, making the maps official for the 2024 election.

Lindsey Prather, a Democratic lawmaker in the Tar Heel State, blasted her Republican colleagues in a tweet, and called for an independent redistricting process to propose fairer maps.

""I want to take a second & acknowledge the sheer insanity that is [North Carolina politics]," Rep. Prather posted. "We need nonpartisan, independent redistricting. We shouldn't be waiting w/bated breath for maps that were drawn in secret. This shouldn't be exciting. It should be a boring thing that happens every 10 years."

The new maps will likely remain in place until after the 2030 Census. However, Democrats were able to break the Republican supermajority in the Tar Heel State this November despite Republicans' wins at the federal level. And Attorney General Josh Stein won North Carolina's gubernatorial election, keeping the governor's mansion in Democratic hands through at least 2028.

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