Last year, Republican lawmakers decided that, despite their best efforts, North Carolina just wasn’t gerrymandered enough. So they took it upon themselves to draw yet another map that would supposedly guarantee their party an additional congressional seat. The expectation was that, in the 2026 midterms, the map would yield an 11-3 majority.

Well, that 11-3 majority did happen — just not in the way Republicans had hoped. As of Wednesday, North Carolina is poised to send 11 Democrats and three Republicans to Washington, a stunning collapse of one of the most aggressive gerrymanders in the entire nation.

Provisional ballots tallied on Tuesday tipped the race in favor of Democrats in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District, making it the sixth Republican-held seat flipped in the midterms. Incumbent Greg Murphy conceded Wednesday after prematurely declaring victory a week prior. Provisional ballots also extended Chuck Hubbard’s lead over Virginia Foxx in the 5th Congressional District, though she has not conceded yet.

What makes the collapse especially stunning is that nobody saw it coming. While some districts were targeted by national Democrats from the start and others became targets in the final weeks of the campaign, several of the seats Republicans lost were considered to be safe up until Election Day. Many Democratic candidates were significantly outraised and outspent by their opponents, and some hardly raised any money at all.

LaKesha Womack, who upset incumbent Tim Moore in North Carolina’s 14th District, raised just $56,000 for her campaign and received no money from national Democratic groups. Moore, on the other hand, raised around $2 million. In October, Moore told reporters that he was “not worried” about his race and that he “probably wouldn’t have to” put effort into campaigning if he didn’t want to.

In the 6th District, incumbent Addison McDowell lost to High Point Mayor Cyril Jefferson, who he outspent roughly 5-to-1. McDowell claimed last year that Jefferson had “a better chance of winning the lottery” than winning the race.

Even in the three districts that Republicans did win, the results were incredibly close. Their largest victory — in a district that Donald Trump won by 19 points in 2024 — was just 1.8 percentage points. With just a few thousand more votes, they could have lost the state completely.

Above all, it’s a remarkable showcase of greed. Had Republicans been less aggressive in their gerrymandering, they may not have lost as many seats as they did. Dave Wasserman, a top election forecaster, said in an X post on Tuesday that Republicans “could have easily drawn a 9R-5D or even a 10R-4D map that would have withstood a blue tsunami” if they had chosen to do so. Instead, they got gluttonous, and suffered a humiliating defeat.

North Carolina Republicans have long tempted fate as the most ardent and audacious gerrymanderers in the country, but they couldn’t escape accountability forever. Let’s hope they’ve finally learned their lesson.

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Deputy Opinion Editor Paige Masten covers politics and elections for The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer.

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