On Thursday, Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel announced he won't seek reelection in 2024, a development that comes after North Carolina Republicans recently enacted a new gerrymander that shredded his competitive 13th District and replaced it with one that is solidly Republican.
Nickel highlighted the GOP's new map as the reason for his decision, saying, "Republicans have rigged the system to favor themselves and I don’t have a path to run for re-election in the 13th district." However, Nickel indicated he plans to run for Senate in 2026, arguing that GOP legislators "can’t gerrymander a statewide election." If Nickel ran and won the Democratic nomination, he would likely face off against Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, whose seat is up then, though Tillis has not yet announced whether he will run for a third term.
Last year, while he was still a state senator, Nickel pulled off a 52-48 upset win against far-right Republican Bo Hines in a congressional district that would have supported Joe Biden 50-48. The old 13th included part of Raleigh and much of its nearby suburbs, but the GOP's new map replaced most of this blue-leaning turf with distant rural areas that are much more Republican. Consequently, the new 13th would have supported Donald Trump 58-41 according to new calculations from Daily Kos Elections.
In the 2022 midterms, North Carolina used a court-drawn congressional map, which elected seven Republicans and seven Democrats, but the GOP's new gerrymander targeted four of the latter for defeat, and three of them aren't running again as a result. In addition to Nickel, 6th District Rep. Kathy Manning is retiring, while 14th District Rep. Jeff Jackson is running for state attorney general. Just Rep. Don Davis, the only one of the four who didn't see his Biden-supporting district turned into a solidly Trump-favoring seat, is seeking reelection, but his new 1st District would have backed Biden just 50-49.
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