redistricting

With the election in the rearview mirror, one thing we know is that Republicans won most of the races in North Carolina for both state and federal seats. It's not a surprise that redistricting shaped the outcome. But  the margins of victory for both Democrat and Republican winners is so wide critics from both sides are making new attacks on gerrymandering.

In the state House, of those races that had more than one candidate, the average margin of victory was 25 percent. It was slightly better in the state Senate, where the average margin of victory was about 23 percent.

That's up only about one percent from 2010's result – the last midterm with districts drawn under control of Democrats. But the number of races without a challenger rose from 12 to 20 during that span.

In all, of 170 legislative seats, only 32 had campaigns decided by below-landslide margins.

Those wide margins have even some Republicans wondering if the lines are fair.

The conservative-leaning John Locke Foundation has spoken out against skewed maps for more than 20 years now. Mitch Kokai with the Locke Foundation says they started when Democrats were still drawing the lines and they're continuing that fight even when the power has shifted.

"The way the process works now the elected officials get to choose their voters, which is completely the opposite of what we should have," he says. "We should have voters choosing their elected officials."

Kokai says he'd like to see the maps drawn by professional staff and not by the elected officials who stand to benefit from how those lines are drawn. He says an abundance of uncontested and one-sided districts hurts the democratic process, forcing parties to decide on just a few races close enough that they're worth fighting for.

"I've never liked gerrymandered districts but the fact of the matter is when the other side was in control for the last thirty years they seemed to have no problem," says Gov. Pat McCrory.

On Wednesday, the justices took up a redistricting case from Alabama that explores the question of which kinds of political gerrymandering are acceptable and which are not.

Republicans have captured 10 of North Carolina's 13 seats in Congress. This solidifies the party's hold over the state's representation in the U.S. House.

November's general election is still more than a month away, but many races were already decided months ago.

Several states are moving or looking to move to a new primary election system that could force members of Congress to pay more attention to general election voters than to their base voters on the right or left.