Some voters in North Carolina and Alabama are selecting US House candidates Tuesday in contests dramatically reshaped by congressional redistricting in recent months.
In North Carolina – where members of the Republican-controlled General Assembly drew a congressional map last fall that heavily favors their party – the GOP is poised to win at least 10 of 14 House seats this year, up from the current 7-7 partisan split. Flipping several seats now held by Democrats could help Republicans retain their threadbare majority in the chamber after November’s elections.
Three Democratic incumbents in North Carolina – Reps. Jeff Jackson, Wiley Nickel and Kathy Manning – opted to head for the exits or seek a different elective office, rather than run for reelection in newly redrawn, Republican-friendly districts. In addition, two GOP House members – Reps. Dan Bishop and Patrick McHenry – also decided to leave Congress after this year, creating vacancies in districts that favor their party.
In Alabama, meanwhile, new lines have triggered an incumbent-versus-incumbent primary Tuesday for one House seat and could set up a history-making outcome this fall if Alabamians choose, for the first time, to send two Black lawmakers to the US House.
In a legal confrontation that drew national attention to Alabama, a federal court approved a new congressional map last year that gives the state’s African American residents – who make up about 27% of the population – the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice in a second House district.
(Currently, Black voters make up the majority of voters in just one district out of seven in Alabama. It’s represented by Democrat Terri Sewell, the only Black member of the state’s congressional delegation.)
The contest for the…
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