Democrats rushed to a majority in the U.S. House by flipping seats in Republican states across the nation, including South Carolina, Utah, Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma.
But despite heavy investments in three districts in North Carolina, Democrats were unable to wrest control of a single Republican-held seat in the state. Republicans maintained control of 10 of the state’s 13 congressional seats.
To critics of the state’s Republican-drawn congressional districts, which have been declared unconstitutional by a panel of three federal judges, Tuesday’s results provided another example of a broken redistricting process, protecting Republicans from a strong showing by Democrats.
Democrats have won more than 24 Republican-held seats as of Wednesday morning, according to The Associated Press, a number that could rise into the 30s.
“The blue tide did not breach the gerrymandered sea wall that exists because of the broken redistricting process we have in North Carolina,” said Bob Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause NC. “That was what we were watching for. We were waiting to see, does anything change? Gerrymandering does provide a protective sea wall for those districts.”
Across the state, Republican candidates for Congress won 50.3 percent of the vote and Democrats won 48.4 percent of the vote, according to a News & Observer analysis of vote totals. Democrats did not have a candidate in Eastern North Carolina’s 3rd district, won by Republican incumbent Rep. Walter Jones.
But Republicans kept their 10-3 edge in the state’s House delegation.
