Supporters watch Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper speak at an election night event in Raleigh, North Carolina, November 3, 2026.
AM STEWART/AFP via Getty Images
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AM STEWART/AFP via Getty Images
The Associated Press called five North Carolina congressional elections for Democrats, all in districts drawn to favor Republican candidates.
Among these districts, four escape Republican control.
As of Thursday, the AP had given nine of the state’s 14 seats in the House of Representatives to Democrats and none to Republicans. It’s a surprising result for a delegation that visited Tuesday with 10 Republicans and four Democrats.
The races called Thursday that flipped from Republican to Democratic control included:
- High Point Mayor Cyril Jefferson faces first-term incumbent Rep. Addison McDowell in the Triad’s 6th Congressional District.
- Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda on National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson in the 9th Congressional District.
- Paul Barringer against incumbent Rep. Brad Knott for his first term in the 13th Congressional District, which surrounds suburban Raleigh.
- LaKesha Womack against first-term incumbent Rep. Tim Moore, who previously served as Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, in the 14th Congressional District.
North Carolina’s congressional map was redrawn in 2023 to significantly favor Republican candidates, and these four districts performed so well in 2024. The 14th District was the closest in that election, with Moore winning by about 16%, while the 6th District was the least competitive, with McDowell winning by more than 38%.
One of the candidates vying to replace Hudson as NRC president is U.S. Rep. Brian Jack, a Republican from Georgia.
He wrote in a letter to his House Republican colleagues that his fellow Republican lawmakers may have contributed to the difficult environment. Former Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, won the race for the open U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina with nearly 20 percent.
“When Senate Republicans withdrew their support from North Carolina a few weeks ago, they created a cascade that likely swept away many of our colleagues in the state,” Jack wrote.
The AP also called on Thursday for northeast North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District to nominate incumbent Democratic Rep. Don Davis.
This is a legislative district that Republicans redrew last year in an effort to make it easier for Republican candidates to win there, by incentivizing Republican-leaning counties in the state’s 3rd Congressional District to do so.
Yet on Thursday, Davis was ahead of Republican challenger Laurie Buckhout by more than 10,000 votes. That’s a larger margin than he won in 2024.
North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District is one of five districts in the state that remain uncontested, with Republican incumbent Greg Murphy leading Democrat Raymond Smith by just 233 votes in a district where Democrats haven’t even fielded a candidate in 2024. That race is likely headed for a recount.
In the 5th Congressional District, Democratic challenger Chuck Hubbard leads 11-term Republican incumbent Virginia Foxx by 99 votes — that’s another race that could face a recount.
If all remaining results hold, the state’s congressional delegation would shrink from 10 Republicans and four Democrats to 10 Democrats and four Republicans.
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