My hot take on the new Congressional map proposal

It looks pretty clean. A toss-up district and a safe Republican seat become two roughly even districts that lean red — but aren't sure things

The General Assembly just released its first draft of new Congressional lines, and my hot take is: It’s not a bad map. At first glance, it doesn’t look any funkier than the version we used in the last cycle.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, though I wrote in the Observer that I’m generally against the exercise in squeezing out another House seat mid-decade. I still am, though the proposal alleviates some of my concerns.

And honestly, Democrats might secretly prefer the new map.

Here’s the new map, compared with the old.

As I expected, only Districts 1 and 3 change materially.

In the new proposal, NC-01 keeps the classic northeastern North Carolina grouping and then slides south along the Pamlico instead of reaching inland into Nash and Wilson. The 1st District is now a northeastern and north/central coastal district.

NC-03 shifts the opposite way. With Carteret, Pamlico, Craven, and Beaufort moved to the 1st District, it consolidates inland around Pitt, Wilson, and Wayne, while still t…