DURHAM, N.C. — The federal court ruling on Monday declaring that North Carolina’s congressional district map was unfair to Democrats — and might have to be redrawn soon — threw the state’s politics into confusion bordering on chaos. Candidates like Linda Coleman were left struggling to understand what would come next, and how the fast-approaching midterm elections would now be conducted.
The court left open a host of possibilities. Ms. Coleman might have to run in a new Democratic primary, in a newly drawn district with voters who do not know her. Or she might find herself in an open, multicandidate election with no primary at all.
Then again, the old map and her current district, including part of Raleigh and some surrounding communities, might be left just as it is for one last election this fall.
And she may not know the answers for weeks.
“I’m very anxious about this, because we are 70 days out from the election,” Ms. Coleman said Tuesday. “We have been meeting with voters, communicating with them, getting messages out, spending money targeting specific voters we want to go after. That really puts a strain on the direction that you had charted.”
Monday’s ruling by a three-judge panel declared that the current district lines, which have helped Republicans capture 10 of the state’s 13 House seats even though the two parties’ vote totals have been about the same, are unconstitutional and cannot be used in the future. But the panel has yet to decide whether they can be used this year.
In a state already drenched in partisan vitriol, the ruling reinforced the frequent complaint by Democrats that the Republicans who dominate the State Legislature have been constantly, aggressively tinkering with the rules of politics in every way they can think of, to gain advantages both large and small.
Republican leaders in the state said they would petition the United States Supreme Court for a stay, which would freeze the current congressional boundaries in place for the time being. But a stay would require the votes of five justices, and the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in July has left the court divided 4-4 on ideological lines.
A new, more neutral map could increase the number of competitive House races in the state to four or five, from just one or two now. And that could have major national repercussions, with Democrats needing to gain 23 seats nationwide to take control of the House.
For the moment, though, with the court leaving so many possible scenarios up in the air, any prediction seems premature.
The state’s political experts and power brokers had already been expecting a political brawl this year. On Tuesday, with the rule book in tatters, they essentially threw up their hands.
“I think on both sides, nobody knows what to expect,” said Michael Bitzer, a professor of political science at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. “We’re wandering in the political pines, searching for directions.”
Whether they will get it soon from the Supreme Court is not clear. The high court has generally been reluctant to allow major changes to voting procedures to be imposed very close to elections. But the justices may wait to act on a stay application until the lower court panel has decided whether the flawed, existing map should be used one more time. The court called for briefs on that issue to be filed by the end of the week.
If the Supreme Court adds an appeal in the case to its docket, it will have another opportunity to settle a question that it sidestepped twice in June: whether the Constitution bars extreme partisan gerrymandering.
So little time remains before the date in September when ballots must be printed and mailed to overseas and military voters, and other election details must be settled, that the calendar would ordinarily all but dictate that the existing map be used.
But the chief author of the three-judge panel’s ruling, Judge James J. Wynn, left that question open, citing North Carolina Republicans’ own turn-on-a-dime manipulation of state politics.
A new map would mean discarding the results of the state’s May primary. But the judge noted that the State Legislature summarily eliminated primary elections for judicial races this year, so perhaps staging a House election without primaries “would be consistent with the General…
