Red state GOP threatened with legal war as election maps described as 'surgical racism'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Raw Story

October 23, 2025 5:02PM ET


Calling the North Carolina Republican Party’s new congressional district map “surgical racism with surgical precision,” Bishop William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach was in Raleigh Thursday, announcing a lawsuit challenging the redistricting effort—pledging that the state’s voters will “challenge gerrymandering in the courts, in the streets, and at the ballot box.”

“This is a direct attack on the state’s Black Belt district and marginalized communities,” said Barber at a news conference announcing the legal challenge, a day after the state House of Representatives approved the new map in a party-line vote. The new map, which was passed by the state Senate earlier this week and cannot be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein under state law, will likely give the GOP an additional seat in the US House after the 2026 midterm elections.

President Donald Trump has called for mid-decade redistricting efforts by the GOP in states including Missouri and Texas, as well as North Carolina, with state Republicans heeding his demands. North Carolina’s new map will likely give Republicans 11 of the state’s 14 districts by moving some Black voters out of the 1st District and into the 3rd District. Had the new map been in place in 2024, Trump would likely have won 55% of the vote in the new 1st District in 2024, up from the 51% he won.

Barber denounced the redistricting efforts across the country as “political robbery” by a party that wants “to rob people of their rights through this racially based gerrymandering... so that they can give power or keep power in the US Congress to engage in political violence,” including by cutting healthcare and blocking the passage of living wages.


Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/north-carolina-redistricting-2674227959/

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Link to Repairers of the Breach website - https://breachrepairers.org/

[barbtries]

1. Just for the record,

NC is a purple state. Since 2010 republicans have run wild. They gerrymander the way they do so that the people's will will not be honored.

[yardwork]

2. Came here to say this!

We are not a red state.

[barbtries]

3. seems like raw story

should have known that.

[COL Mustard]

4. GOP knows they cannot win elections fairly

So they gerrymander, suppress the vote, and do anything else they can do to cling to power. It's disgusting. And their faithful fall for it. I am visiting my centenarian mother this week and she has been a MAGA since the beginning. No reasoning with her on it; she loves her some Trump.

[barbtries]

7. my mother died in 1980

but sadly I expect she would be just as bad. In this regard I am definitely my father's daughter.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. I think they did that because like PA (at least until a couple years ago)

the state legislature was Red, although we both had (D) governors (and PA Dems finally barely clawed back one chamber).

But in the case of NC, the legislature (like was done in KY with a loon red legislature and (D) governor) basically neutered the Governor's authority.

[barbtries]

8. But it should be noted that

in terms of the electorate, the people of this state, we are purple.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. The media seems reticent to even do that here in PA as well

despite the fact that when 45 won in 2016, we hadn't voted for a GOP President since 1988.

But in the case of NC, the last blue vote for President was Obama in 2008 and they only FINALLY broke the legislative super-majority, finally putting a tiny dent in their nasty gerrymandering last year IIRC (yay).

You have a bunch of weird states like VT, New Jersey and even NY that rotate governors by party too.

There are also a bunch of purple states that get "reddened" by the media (including AZ, MI and WI) again with them only looking at Presidential elections to make that assessment.

[barbtries]

11. I just looked up the statistics for NC

Registered voters as of 18Oct2025

Democratic 2,310,564
Green 4,201
libertarian 46,320
republican 2,303,558
unaffiliated 2,938,831

As you can see, Democrats outnumber republicans by a little bit, and unaffiliated voters outnumber us both.

That elections do not reflect this reality is because of republican ratfucking.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. Oh I agree

The "No affiliations" here in PA have grown as well and the sucky media keep emphasizing how Democrats are "losing voters", where the difference in registrations between (D)s and (R)s is down to about 300,000 (in favor of (D)s).

(below from here (PDF) - https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/dos/resources/voting-and-elections/voting-and-election-statistics/voter-registration-statistics/2024%20Election%20Nov..pdf)

(D) - 3,998,602
(R) - 3,712,319
(L) - 47,316
(O) - 1,416,896
(TOTAL) - 9,175,133

The unaffiliated/other parties (including Libertarians) here are about 17% and the major parties are about 44% each, and both major parties are losing voters who are opting to register unaffiliated. But then by doing that, they can't participate in a primary (we don't have open primaries).

We finally managed to get a majority (D) State Supreme Court and along with keeping a (D) governor more than 2 terms in a row, they were able to start breaking up both the state legislative AND federal legislative gerrymandering!

[FakeNoose]

15. It's the party registrations that enable the gerrymandering

Whenever D voters - who are going to vote D no matter what - withdraw from the Party they make it harder for the R's to figure exactly where the new gerrymandered boundaries should lie. The R's guess wrong more often because they don't always know.

If every Pennsylvania voter were to register in the Party of their choice (it will never happen) then it would be so easy for the R's to gerrymander the entire game. But D's have a way of changing residences, jobs, schools, sometimes even our names (when we marry and divorce) so that makes things really complicated when the Repukes try to rig the voting.

I'm OK with Democrats leaving the Party, as long as they continue to vote D.....

[BumRushDaShow]

17. As long as we maintain a majority (D) state Supreme Court (and 3 (D)s are up for retention this year)

then they have been able to keep a handle on this.

They were successfully able to un-gerrymander the GOP Congressional disaster to net us 4 more seats in 2018! And un-gerrymandering some of the legislative seats helped to give us the state House.

It would be a fantastic if we can take the state Senate (and I know those seats are staggered by "even/odd" ).

[FakeNoose]

18. Yes!!!

So true

[JustAnotherGen]

5. Rev Barber

Is always right about the last, least and lost.

He's the new MLK Jr. He's been arrested for standing on truth.

[barbtries]

9. He is.

I encountered him at the airport last month and told him how much I appreciate him. Then on Saturday in Durham he spoke at the rally. it was very good.

[electric_blue68]

13. I got to hear him speak at the Riverside Church in Manhattan in 2016...

It's an interdenominal church. One of the Major churches of NYC.
It holds affiliations with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ.

[happy feet]

14. Thx for posting

I have no patience with those c who claim Dems/we are doing nothing or not enough without digging to find (because msm doesn't cover) of what is being done nor suggestions of what they will do and whom they will encourage what to do.

Power concedes nothing without an equal and opposite reaction. We must all contribute as we can.
IMHO

[BumRushDaShow]

16. I dig through over 3 dozen news sites trying to find what we ARE doing!