HOUSTON, United States

A panel of federal judges ruled Wednesday that the US state of North Carolina is allowed to use a newly-drawn congressional map in next year's midterm elections, according to media reports.

The US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina unanimously approved the new voter map, which could potentially add one extra Republican seat to the US House of Representatives. Each congressional seat is crucial in the upcoming 2026 midterms because the Republican Party holds a slim six-seat majority in the US House, which they are fighting to retain.

North Carolina's ruling could be appealed, but several other cases are already pending before multiple federal courts and the US Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump urged Republican-led states to change their maps to give the party an edge in the midterm elections, but critics of the gerrymandered congressional districts argue that they are racially and ethnically biased, discriminating against minority communities.

Texas was the first state to generate national attention earlier this year, when the Republican-controlled state legislature quickly passed a bill that would redraw a voting map which could potentially generate five new Republican seats in the US Congress.

Gov. Greg Abbott immediately signed the bill into law without voter approval, but lawsuits alleging that the map was racially gerrymandered to discriminate against Blacks and Hispanics brought a federal ruling that the new Texas map could not be used in the 2026 elections.

Instead, the previous 2021 congressional map must be used. Texas Republicans appealed that ruling, and the matter is now before the Supreme Court as to whether the new map can be used in the midterms.

A recent court decision focused on a challenge to districts under North Carolina’s 2023 map, which a three-judge panel upheld last week, dismissing claims that they illegally discriminated against Black and Latino voters.

Opponents had claimed that the map diluted Black voting power in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee called it "one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country."

The panel of federal judges Wednesday, which was composed of Republican-appointed judges, argued that the map’s opponents "have not made clear" if the redrawn map would "minimize or cancel out the voting potential of black North Carolinians" and that the plaintiffs "have offered no reason to believe that the speed of the 2025 process indicates an intent to discriminate on the basis of race."

In addition to the Supreme Court case in Texas, the nation's highest court is already reviewing several cases of newly-drawn congressional maps in the states of Alabama, Louisiana and North Dakota.

California was the first Democratic state to counter Trump's plan for Republican-led states to change voting maps to add more conservative seats in Congress. Gov. Gavin Newsom, along with the Democratic-controlled state legislature, put the new map before voters on Nov. 4, which was approved for the 2026 midterm elections. The new California congressional map could potentially add five new Democratic seats to the House of Representatives.

California Republicans and the Trump administration have filed a lawsuit against the state's new voting map, claiming that it is racially gerrymandered to favor Hispanic voters.