I looked at the demos for SD18. Doesn't look easy in a primary OR general election with Wake County having the overwhelming share of the district. You know something that we don't? Wouldn't contending for HD-25 be a better bet? One other thing to consider....we don't even know that the legal system will allow the new congressional districts to take effect before next year's elections. If that happens, Franklin is still in NC-02 and I'd give you better odds in a primary with Ellmers (after her debt limit hike vote), than jumping into the State Senate race.
Speaking to the inquiry about whether these districts will apply for this upcoming election, in all likelihood, they will stand. I say this for a few reasons. First, any court battle, even if won by the Democrats, would take several months and would go through the maximum number of appeals with each appeal taking additional time. Even if the entire case is decided in favor of the Democrats and the maximum number of appeals are sorted through, the earliest I could see everything finalized would be April of next year, and that is a best case scenario since I'm sure the GOP will use every stalling technique known to man as an added strategy. Then new districts would need to be redrawn and agreed to, unless the Judge decided to be seriously active and redraw the lines by themselves, which isn't particularly likely. New boundaries would need to be redrawn and agreed to, and in all likelihood, all of the General Election match-ups under the previous districts would be settled, and thus they would be the boundaries for the current election if nothing else and then in two years, everything would reset.
The above, of course, is the speedy scenario. If it is anything like last time, the court challenge will take up to two years or more. My other reason is because these lines have been drawn with the knowledge of what happened last time and they appear much less challenge-able than a decade ago. The GOP may have put together a legal map, and in that case, the districts will stand. In any case, it is the safest option to assume that these will be the districts until we have strong reason to believe they won't be.
Back to your regularly scheduled strategy session! Thank you for reading.
