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North Carolina Republicans are expected to redraw the state's congressional lines in a way that heavily favors the GOP.
North Carolina Republicans are expected to redraw the state's congressional lines in a way that heavily favors the GOP.Gerry Broome / AP file

‘Every seat matters’: Redistricting poised to boost House GOP in 2024

Changes to just a handful of congressional districts could make a big difference after Republicans came out of 2022 with a four-seat majority.

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Republicans have little room for error as they defend their four-seat House majority next year — but they are getting a bit more breathing room thanks to new House maps on the way in a few states.

Last week, North Carolina’s state Supreme Court opened the door for the GOP-controlled state legislature to redraw congressional lines there. That new map alone could net Republicans as many as four additional seats in the House, redistricting experts say, effectively doubling the House majority the GOP has to work with heading into 2024. 

Ongoing litigation in Ohio could result in a redraw that shifts one to three seats towards Republicans, although redistricting watchers cautioned that those shifts are not guaranteed. And there are a few states that could see seats shift towards Democrats, such as New York and Wisconsin, scrambling the final balance of power. 

The upshot, though, is clear: While only a few redistricting lawsuits could be resolved in time for the 2024 elections, shifts in just a handful of districts could have a major impact on who controls the House after the next presidential race.  

"We live in a world where every seat matters,” said Michael Li, senior counsel at New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice, likening the current landscape to a “gerrymandering arms race.” 

"The ability to change the maps may be where the whole ballgame is,” Li said. He noted that most of the opportunity to change maps this election cycle is in Republican-controlled states, adding: “Democrats don’t really have a lot of opportunity to do a gerrymandering counteroffensive,” he said. 

Adam Kincaid, who leads the National Republican Redistricting Trust, agreed that the GOP is in a better position. “I’d rather be us than them,” Kincaid said. “But there’s a long way to go before we will have a good sense for how these cases will play out.”

But Democrats aren’t throwing in the towel. 

“I would feel a lot more pessimistic if we as an organization didn’t exist,” said National Democratic Redistricting Committee President John Bisognano. “The reality that we are in this fight constantly is going to shape the reality of the future.” 

Bisognano suggested that public pressure could dissuade North Carolina legislators from passing a gerrymandered map. During last year’s redistricting process, GOP legislators initially enacted a map that heavily favored Republicans, which the state Supreme Court struck down (the court’s new conservative majority revisited the case this year). 

North Carolina’s congressional delegation is currently evenly split between seven Democrats and seven Republicans after the state Supreme Court redrew a GOP gerrymander ahead of the 2022 election.

Michael Bitzer, a politics and history professor at Catawba College, said he expects a map that could result in 11 Republicans and three Democrats, with the biggest shifts affecting Democratic Reps. Wiley Nickel, Jeff Jackson, Kathy Manning and Don Davis.

New congressional lines are also expected in Ohio, where state legislators clashed with the state Supreme Court over the district boundaries last year. Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Greg Landsman and Emilia Sykes still prevailed in competitive seats — but each of their districts could get tougher under a new map. 

New York and Wisconsin are two places where Democrats could try to make up some of the difference.

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing in court for a new congressional map, arguing that the court-ordered map a “special master” drew last year should be temporary. But it’s not clear how many seats could be significantly altered, given uncertainty around the role of the states’ independent commission and the state legislature in a potential redraw. 

Redistricting watchers also expect a lawsuit to be filed in Wisconsin after liberal Janet Protasiewicz is sworn into the state Supreme Court on Aug. 1, which could make a seat or two there more competitive for Democrats.

Across the country, experts are tracking lawsuits in roughly a dozen states, but many of them, especially those focused on racial gerrymandering claims, are expected to stretch beyond the 2024 elections or have a minimal impact on the House battlefield. 

For example, federal district judges found last year that the Alabama and Louisiana maps likely violated the Voting Rights Act, but the Supreme Court stayed those rulings amid appeals. There are similar lawsuits in Georgia, where a federal judge wrote last year that some aspects of the plans were likely “unlawful,” but said it was too late to redraw the lines before the 2022 elections.  

And Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who recently served as a senior policy adviser to President Joe Biden, noted the U.S. Supreme Court remains a “big wild card.” 

The court is considering a case from North Carolina on the “independent legislature theory,” which argues that state legislatures have sole power in federal candidate elections, including in determining the district lines for House elections. Even if the court decides not to rule in that case given the recent state Supreme Court ruling, it could still consider a similar case from Ohio, potentially injecting chaos into redistricting processes around the country

“If the Supreme Court buys this theory all bets are off,” Levitt said.