North Carolina’s redrawn 1st Congressional District has drawn $7.99 million in advertising, while Inside Elections rates its Nov. 3 House race a toss-up despite the map’s Republican vote-share goal.
North Carolina enacted the map on Oct. 22, 2025, for the 2026 election. The legislature’s published criteria said only the 1st and 3rd districts would change and named increasing the Republican vote share in the 1st District as the main objective.
Inside Elections estimates President Donald Trump would have carried the new 1st District by about 12 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election if its current boundaries had been in place. The estimate applies 2024 votes to boundaries adopted later. Inside Elections rated the 2026 race Lean Republican on May 8, Tilt Republican on Sept. 17 and Toss-up on Oct. 15.
AdImpact data analyzed by the Wesleyan Media Project show $7.99 million in advertising in the 1st District from Sept. 28 through Oct. 11. Outside groups accounted for $5.02 million, and the tally includes spending across the contest rather than only the candidates’ campaigns. Democratic Rep. Don Davis faces Republican Laurie Buckhout for the House seat.
Florida approved a new congressional map for the 2026 elections on May 4. Over the same period, advertising reached $10.76 million in the 14th District and $11.50 million in the 25th, Wesleyan reported. Inside Elections rates both Florida contests as toss-ups.
Inside Elections notes that North Carolina also drew new congressional districts for the 2016, 2020, 2022 and 2024 elections. The current criteria focus the latest changes on two districts, with a stated vote-share objective for one of them.
The legislative objective concerns a higher Republican vote share under the new boundaries than under the previous map. The Nov. 3 result will decide the House race, but one election cannot establish how voters would have behaved under the old lines. The North Carolina State Board of Elections schedules polling-place hours from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Nov. 3.
