INDY Week: What does the 2022 congressional redistricting in North Carolina mean for the election?

Asher Hildebrand: Well, the current [North Carolina] congressional delegation includes 13 members, eight Republicans and five Democrats. North Carolina, because of its population growth, received a 14th seat after the reapportionment.

Through a long saga of map drawing and legal challenges … [we got] a map drawn not by the General Assembly but by a bipartisan panel of so-called “special masters” appointed by a state court. [The map] is very likely to produce seven Republican seats, six Democratic seats, and one true toss-up in the 13th District.

Now, in terms of partisan fairness, this is probably the fairest map we’ve had in the history of the state. The court took great pains to make sure that the balance of districts reflected the overall balance of political preferences in the state. That came a bit at the expense of competitiveness in that you really see only the one district [the 13th District] … that’s up for grabs. That’s where Wiley Nickel and Bo Hines are running against each other in the south Raleigh suburbs and exurbs.

What do you think will happen in the 13th District?

I think Wiley [Nickel] has a very good chance at the seat. He’s been a candidate who is far more in touch with the needs of the district. After all, he actually lives there, as opposed to Bo Hines, who has picked up and moved there.

On the other hand, it’s such a narrowly divided district that I think a lot will depend on the national environment, on the outcome of the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina. Wiley Nickel could potentially overperform the national ticket, so to speak, because of his fit with the district and because of Bo Hines’s kind of uniquely extreme character.

Bo Hines is being backed by former president Donald Trump. Will that work to his advantage?

This race is a microcosm of what you see happening around the country. Democrats nominate a candidate who is progressive but very much in the mainstream Democratic tradition. Whereas Republicans, despite there being more moderate candidates in the primary field, nominate someone who is very extreme ideologically and very much aligned with the kind of aggressive, anti-Democratic, pro-Trump wing of the party. Whether that’s an effective strategy or not, well, 2022 will be a big test of that.

It’s in part a test of how supportive Republican voters are of that kind of extremism. But it’s also kind of a test of just how far polarization has advanced. Have we come to the point where voters … whatever doubts they might have about someone like Bo Hines, would still rather elect him than stick their nose out and vote for a Democrat? If we’ve gotten to the point where the qualities of the candidate don’t matter all that much, and all that matters is the letter next to their name on the ballot, then I think that’s a pretty ominous sign for the future.

How important are the North Carolina seats in the overall struggle for control over the U.S. House?

The short answer is that every seat matters, given how narrow the margin is. Republicans are still favored overall to win the House for the simple reason that they don’t have to win a single Democratic district to do that. All they have to do is win the districts that Donald Trump carried in 2020.

But insofar as Democrats are able to buck the trend, to win swing districts, to continue to carry at least some of those seats that Donald Trump carried, that starts to really put the focus on seats like that 13th District in North Carolina that could swing the majority. So there’s a reason a lot of national leaders have been focused on that seat.

Even not including that seat, North Carolina will have one more likely Democratic seat in the new Congress relative to how it was before, because we moved from five likely Democratic seats to six [with the redistricting]. That sixth one is down in Charlotte and parts west, where Jeff Jackson is running. It’s not a shoo-in for Jeff, but I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t win it.

It’s refreshing to hear that the redistricting has made the election more balanced. Usually it goes to one extreme or another.

Well, let me depress you for a second. Because of the way it turned out, this is an interim map that will only be in existence for this election. The courts have been clear that the General Assembly will have to redraw the congressional map for the next election. And Republicans in the General Assembly, who are just irate at how the courts handled this … they’ve been pretty clear that they’re going to take every opportunity to exact revenge and draw a map that highly favors Republicans.

Plus, the Supreme Court is now hearing the Moore v. Harper case, which, if they rule in favor of Moore, will take the state courts out of the business of policing redistricting altogether. [It] will essentially be an invitation for every legislature to pursue extreme redistricting. So, the current map is maybe the fairest in history, but it’s also not long for this world.

What are some of the big issues voters are paying attention to in North Carolina?

Well, the two that rise to the top are the economy, which this year has included inflation and rising prices, and abortion rights.

Abortion rights are much more clearly defined, because the impact of the Dobbs decision for everybody, especially women and birth parents, is very present. In North Carolina, even though it’s not directly on the ballot in the form of a constitutional amendment or a referendum, it is indirectly on the ballot, because if Republicans win a supermajority in the General Assembly, they’ve been pretty clear about their intentions to enact additional restrictions.

That said, there’s been a lot of really interesting polls that are showing voters are concerned about issues of American democracy to a greater extent than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. In fact, [they are] sometimes ranking it as their number one issue of concern at the polls, which is just striking.

The January 6 hearings and other criminal investigations around Trump, as well as just the broader debate we’re having about voting rights and election integrity, are contributing to that. Voters very strongly see Democrats as more committed to democracy, although that breaks down on partisan lines. 

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