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A North Carolina state House committee voted Tuesday to advance a new congressional map over the objections of Democrats and some protesters -- setting up a vote in the full House on a measure that could net the Republican Party a new seat in the 2026 midterms. Republican legislators in North Carolina have said they want to adopt the new map to bolster President Donald Trump, and the effort comes as the White House continues encouraging Republicans to redraw maps ahead of the midterm elections, in order to help Republicans flip more seats. In a striking moment just ahead of Tuesday's vote, protesters in the hearing room chanted "Berger's maps are racist maps!" -- referring to state Sen. Phil Berger, who introduced the redistricting proposal, and "Fascists!" as they were led out by law enforcement. Democrats argue the new map could impact Black voters and could cause U.S. Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat and one of three Black members of the state's congressional delegation, to lose his seat in the midterms. U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, another member of the state's Democratic delegation, said at a rally outside the Capitol ahead of the vote, "We know they're lying when they say, well, it's not racial. It is racial. They're going to take out, trying to take out, the only Black male that we have." Republicans argue the map was not drawn with racial considerations and is meant to combat Democratic-aligned congressional map drawing in other states, such as California. Berger, who announced the mid-decade redistricting push last week, wrote on X on Tuesday morning ahead of the vote, "Across the country, Democrat-run states have spent decades ensuring that Republicans would be drawn out of Congress. North Carolina Republicans will not sit quietly and watch Democrats continue to ignore the will of the people in an attempt to force their liberal agenda on our citizens." The North Carolina Senate approved the new map in a vote on Monday. North Carolina's state's Democratic governor, Josh Stein, has slammed the redistricting effort but has no power to veto any district maps, according to an analysis of state law by the Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics Currently, North Carolina's congressional delegation is made up of 10 Republicans and four Democrats. Trump himself has been openly supportive of the effort. In a post on his social media platform on Friday, he called on legislators to adopt the map: "this new Map would give the fantastic people of North Carolina the opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 Midterm Elections, which would be A HUGE VICTORY for our America First Agenda, not just in North Carolina, but across our Nation." Davis, the Democratic member whose seat is put at risk by the new map, told ABC News in a statement on Tuesday that he has never heard any requests from constituents for a new map. "In the 2024 election with record voter turnout, NC's First Congressional District elected both President Trump and me," Davis wrote. "Since the start of this new term, my office has received 46,616 messages from constituents of different political parties, including those unaffiliated, expressing a range of opinions, views, and requests. "Not a single one of them included a request for a new congressional map redrawing eastern North Carolina. Clearly, this new congressional map is beyond the pale." One of the speakers who joined a rally with North Carolina Democrats on Tuesday, Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier, has her own experience with fighting mid-decade redistricting -- as one of the Texas House Democrats who left the state to deny a quorum when Republican legislators tried to push through a new congressional map. Collier also was temporarily confined to the Texas House after she refused a law enforcement escort for having previously broken quorum. She told ABC station WTVD's Michael Perchick that she has been telling legislators to continue to fight, and to "Never quit. Keep fighting. That means take it to the streets and into the courts. We've got to fight this in the court system." ABC News' Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
