Dems To Steal Two Congressional Seats In N.C. After Court Ruling

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As the 2020 elections just keep getting closer, Democrats have scored another victory in their fight to overcome GOP obstruction. A panel of North Carolina judges has approved a new Congressional district map that seems poised to deliver two additional seats to Dems on top of the three in the state that they already had. That development would bring the total to eight for Republicans and five for Democrats. Although Democrats had argued that the new lines developed after a court order still weren’t fair enough, they’re still likely to see electoral gains.

State Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin insisted:

‘North Carolina Democrats will not stop fighting for truly fair maps where voters — not undemocratically-elected politicians — choose their representatives, and we look forward to sending new representatives to Congress who will better reflect our state’s values.’

The North Carolina Republicans who now have to reassess their career include Rep. George Holding, whose new constituency gave most of their votes to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Another Congressman, Republican Mark Walker, is facing an even steeper challenge. Although his district went mostly for Trump in the 2016 election according to its old boundaries, the new lines encapsulate an area in which Hillary Clinton led by a whopping twenty percent.

Although Holding has not yet said what his next step will be — and filing for running for seats in Congress closes relatively soon, on December 20 and there are even already Democrats eyeing his seat — Walker has already asserted his opposition to the new lines and intent to keep doing… something. It’s just not clear what.

He said:

‘I ran for Congress on the promise of people over politics. That promise will not be overridden by hasty judicial action or the actions of others.’

To be clear, there’s nothing hasty about the current judicially-mandated new district map. The old lines were apparently in legal limbo for ten years, ever since they were first enacted following the most recent census. The new map will, ironically enough, be used only once, considering it will yet again be time for a redraw in 2021 following the next census.

The 2020 elections seem poised to deliver big wins for Democrats across the board. Trump consistently loses by big margins when pitted against leading Democratic presidential candidates, who, of course, have a whole host of issues to run on, from Trump’s documented corruption to his also documented incompetence.

On the Congressional level, Democrats will have to hold on to a number of competitive seats that they nabbed in the 2018 midterm election’s blue wave, but there’s plenty of room for them to struggle with a few and still maintain the majority. Having that majority has allowed Dems to launch the impeachment inquiry and hold the president accountable for his abuse of power. In the Senate, the Cook Political Report rates three currently Republican-held seats as toss-ups and just one Democratic one as also a toss-up. If Dems hang onto all of their own seats and take four seats from the Republicans, they’ll become the majority party in the upper chamber.