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College Activists Push Back as North Carolina Republicans Seek Another House Seat

As part of a Trump-led gerrymandering effort, North Carolina GOP leaders redrew the state’s congressional district map in 2025 with the hopes of achieving an 11–3 majority.

Even though 2025 gerrymandering only affected two congressional districts, it has become something of a rallying cry for student activists across the state.

As the president of the College Democrats at Eastern Carolina University (ECU), Thomas Remington is used to hearing from people who aren’t politically engaged. After all, he is often talking to college students—a demographic that traditionally votes at one of the lowest rates of any group in the United States—ahead of an election known to generate less voter turnout than the presidential race.

But recently, Remington has heard something surprising from these self-described apolitical students.

“Students are saying, ‘I’m not all that politically engaged, but I remember when they gerrymandered,’” Remington said. “It’s been really interesting to see how many people know what the word ‘gerrymandering’ means now.”

The gerrymandering that these students are referencing is the redrawing of North Carolina’s congressional district map in 2025. In North Carolina, the redistricting aimed to give Republicans an additional seat in the US House of Representatives, which would secure an 11–3 majority over Democrats. The effort followed a Trump-led push for states to redraw congressional maps that would favor Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.

The redistricting is one of many attempts that college activists across North Carolina say Republicans have taken to try to increase their majority in the House. But with the midterms just days away, those activists believe the attempts might be backfiring.

North Carolina currently has 14 seats in the House—10 Republicans and four Democrats. The state’s new congressional district map focuses on making District 1, currently represented by Democrat Don Davis, Republican.

To do this, leaders of the state’s GOP-controlled General Assembly moved six reliably Republican counties from District 3 to historically Democratic District 1. They also shifted four counties previously in District 1 to safely Republican District 3.

But Remington said this has made the District 3 race more contentious than Republicans anticipated.

ECU is located in District 3, which is currently represented by Republican Greg Murphy. The last time Murphy was up for reelection, in 2024, he didn’t even face a Democratic challenger.

“Now we’re telling people, with the makeup of the district, if we vote enough, we actually can flip this seat,” Remington said.

Indeed, the Center for Politics recently shifted NC-3 from “Safe Republican” to “Likely Republican,” according to a September 29 report. Early voting tracked by Vote Tracker, a project of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, shows a strong performance from blue voters in District 3.

As of Tuesday, October 27, about 47,600 Democrats have early voted, while Republicans have cast around 29,500. In addition, 29,760 unaffiliated voters have cast ballots. This is taking place as voter turnout has surged across North Carolina—up by about 50 percent from the last midterm election cycle.

Remington said he has noticed particularly high turnout among students. “In 2024, we were fighting for every vote we could get to go to........

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