On Wednesday, Reuben Jones and Charles Duncan reported for local Spectrum News 1 that Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) will announce on Thursday that he will not seek re-election. The seat is considered D+3 by the Cook Partisan Voting Index, but has become increasingly tighter due to redistricting. Further, the House Democrats only have a majority in the single digits and numerous other Democratic House members have announced their retirement, setting off even more panic ahead of the 2022 midterm election.
As the reported noted:
After redistricting, Butterfield's political future became uncertain. The Republican-led General Assembly approved maps that changed the congressman's political map, taking Democratic-leaning Greenville out of his district.
Earlier this month, the National Republican Campaign Committee added Butterfield to its list of seats it will target to flip to GOP control. The NRCC also lists Wake County Democratic Rep. Deborah Ross as another Democrat they consider vulnerable in the 2022 elections.
According to Steven Shepard and Burgess Everett, in their reporting for POLITICO, there's actually a lawsuit going on:
Republicans in the state legislature shifted the lines to make the seat less Democratic, however, in the new map, which was enacted earlier this month. Biden would only have won the seat by 3 points under the new lines, and the National Republican Congressional Committee has identified the 74-year-old Butterfield as one of its top targets next year.
Democrats are suing over the new map, arguing that it dilutes the influence of Black voters in his district, which is currently divided roughly evenly between white people and Black people. But the party, in the immediate term, will be looking for another candidate to keep the seat in Democratic hands: The filing deadline for the early-March 2022 primary is Dec. 17.
The 74-year old Butterfield first starting serving in June 2004, when replaced fellow Democrat, Rep. Frank Ballance, who resigned due to health issues.
His electoral history has been all over the place. In 2006 he ran and won unopposed. During the 2012 election he had his highest margin of victory against a challenger, beating Republican Peter DiLauro 75.3 percent to DiLauro's 22.9 percent.
However, for the past 2020 election, Butterfield only won by 54.2 percent to Republican Sandy Smith's 48.2 percent.
Republicans are very much expected to regain control of at least the House in 2022. As a matter of historical trends, the president's party loses seats in Congress, and again, Democrats only have a single digit majority in the House of 221-213.
Further, not only are Biden's approval ratings particularly low, poll respondents give him bad marks while favoring Republican congressional candidates. As Guy highlighted on Monday, a Washington Post/ABC News survey shows Biden with a 41 percent approval and 53 percent disapproval rating, as well as 51 percent of voters favoring a Republican congressional candidate over the 41 percent favoring the Democratic congressional candidate.
Ballotpedia notes that 15 Democratic House members are not seeking re-election.