Signaling what could be a critical victory against Republican gerrymandering, a federal court overseeing the redrawing of North Carolina's state legislative districts has appointed a nonpartisan "special master" in anticipation of the court rejecting the GOP's new district maps and having to redraw some itself. North Carolina Republicans passed new state Senate and state House gerrymanders earlier in 2017 to comply with a court order invalidating their old maps for illegally abusing race. The court rejecting these new maps would be a major boon to black voters’ rights, and it could consequently see Democrats win more seats in 2018.
While the court has not yet formally rejected any of the GOP's redrawn districts, its order appointing the special master expressed concern that two Senate districts and seven House districts "either fail to remedy the identified constitutional violation or are otherwise legally unacceptable." It furthermore called the possibility of such a finding "likely" when it will soon rule on the validity of Republican legislators' new maps.
Redrawing these problematic districts would consequently involve changes to some of the neighboring seats, too, and this would be the best outcome that the plaintiffs could hope for. The recently redrawn districts were still aggressively gerrymandered to preserve Republican veto-proof majorities, but fairer maps could prove critical to Democratic chances of surpassing the two-fifths of seats in 2018 needed to sustain Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's vetoes. That's a very distinct possibility, since Democrats only need to gain four seats in the 120-member House to do so.
If the district court does indeed redraw some of the districts, Republican legislators may once again appeal to the Supreme Court in an effort to drag things out past 2018. However, the high court previously in 2017 upheld the lower court ruling that struck down the original 2011 gerrymanders, and it may once again uphold a district court ruling that curbs the worst of the GOP's new partisan maps. Ultimately, North Carolina appears to be one step closer to having fairer legislative districts that allow Democrats to place a check on a state Republican Party that has gone to extremes to undermine the democratic process.