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Gerrymandering in North Carolina

• 1,747,742 votes for Democrats = 3 Congressional seats


• 1,638,684 votes for Republicans = 10 Congressional seats

Example sources: [1], [2]

Are these numbers correct?

Yes, the numbers are correct (within an error margin - probably due to different sources and time of capture).

According to the 2018 House election results (I used this handy Washington Post page), adding up numbers for NC, will give you the total of 1,748,173 votes for Democrats and 1,643,790 for Republicans - very close to the claim.

Ten of the seats went to Republicans and three to Democrats (Districts 1, 4, and 12), with most Republican wins being quite narrow and Democrats wins overwhelming.

district       D          R

  1         188,074     81,486

  2         148,959    167,382

  4         242,002     80,546

  5         118,558    158,444

  6         122,323    159,651

  7         119,606    155,705

  8         112,971    140,347

  9         136,478    138,338

 10         112,386    164,060

 11         115,824    177,230

 12         202,228     74,639

 13         128,764    145,962

Note: One caveat is that the Republican representative for District 3 ran uncontested. That is, it would be more appropriate to say that the result is 9 vs 3, as the total numbers don't include the voters in 3rd district.

This is a community wiki supplement to the other answer, which makes the columns easier to read and shows vote difference for each district. 3rd party or other votes are not included.

District       D          R           Margin       Total Votes   Majority %

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   1        188,074     81,486   (D) 106,588         269,560    (D) 69.8%

   2        148,959    167,382        18,423 (R)     316,341        52.9% (R)

   3              *          *             * (R)     186,353*       100%* (R)

   4        242,002     80,546   (D) 161,456         322,548    (D) 75%

   5        118,558    158,444        39,886 (R)     277,002        57.2% (R)

   6        122,323    159,651        37,328 (R)     281,974        56.6% (R)

   7        119,606    155,705        36,099 (R)     275,311        56.6% (R)

   8        112,971    140,347        27,376 (R)     253,318        55.4% (R)

   9        136,478    138,338         1,860 (R)     274,816        50.3% (R)

  10        112,386    164,060        51,674 (R)     276,446        59.3% (R)

  11        115,824    177,230        61,406 (R)     293,054        60.5% (R)

  12        202,228     74,639   (D) 127,589         276,867    (D) 73%

  13        128,764    145,962        17,198 (R)     274,726        53.1% (R)

------------------------------------------------

Total     1,748,173  1,643,790   (D) 104,383

* = uncontested, no votes are listed, same as Washington Post source.

Democrat candidates received 104,383 more votes than their Republican opponents. However, Republicans received 81,970 more votes overall (1,830,143 total), when including districts they were unopposed in. (Since the there was no challenger for district 3 it is impossible to calculate a meaningful Democrat-to-Republican margin for the total count. More or fewer people may have voted, some of the cast ballots may have gone to a different party, etc.)

Data from Washington Post.

Raleigh is in district 4.

Charlotte is in district 12.

According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement, the results of the 2018 election are as follows. (Parties are ordered by number of votes):

District 1

    Democratic Candidate: 188,074

    Republican Candidate: 81,486

District 2

    Republican Candidate: 167,382

    Democratic Candidate: 148,959

    Libertarian Candidate: 9,427

District 3

    Republican Candidate: 186,353

District 4

    Democratic Candidate: 242,002

    Republican Candidate: 80,546

    Libertarian Candidate: 11,947

District 5

    Republican Candidate: 158,495

    Democratic Candidate: 118,593

District 6

    Republican Candidate: 159,651

    Democratic Candidate: 122,323

District 7

    Republican Candidate: 155,705

    Democratic Candidate: 119,606

    Constitution Candidate: 4,599

District 8

    Republican Candidate: 140,352

    Democratic Candidate: 112,736

District 9

    Republican Candidate: 138,381

    Democratic Candidate: 136,591

    Libertarian Candidate: 5,048

District 10

    Republican Candidate: 164,074

    Democratic Candidate: 112,396

District 11

    Republican Candidate: 177,352

    Democratic Candidate: 115,889

    Libertarian Candidate: 6,078

District 12

    Democratic Candidate: 202,228

    Republican Candidate: 74,639

District 13

    Republican Candidate: 146,062

    Democratic Candidate: 128,830

    Libertarian Candidate: 5,443

    Green Candidate: 2,795

Total

    Republicans: 1,830,478

    Democrats: 1,748,227

    Libertarians: 37,943

    Constitution: 4,599

    Green: 2,795

This graphic from the question leaves off the results from district 3. District 3 cast 186,353 votes for the Republican candidate and none for a Democrat (the Republican was unopposed). That flips the total to 1,830,219 Republican votes to 1,748,018 Democratic votes (a margin of 82,201). That's 50.5% to 48.2%. Presumably the other 1.3% went to third party candidates.

Source: Wikipedia.

Original citation for district 3. As that is the official source, someone could get the rest of the districts from there as well. Javascript required to change districts and view results.

Remember that the original claim was that Republicans won ten of thirteen races with fewer votes. That's demonstrably untrue, as the graphic only includes the votes from twelve of the districts. If it were leaving off the uncontested races, it should only have been nine of twelve contested races.

If the claim is instead adjusted so that it only compares the seat proportion to the vote proportion, there are several other states where it's the Democrats who won a higher seat share than their vote share. E.g. three out of four in Iowa with only 50.38% of the vote; five of five in Connecticut with at most 64.4% of the vote; nine of nine in Massachusetts; or California, where Republicans won more than a third of the vote but no more than half as many seats (two still undecided).

It also may be worth noting that in North Carolina in 2016 and 2014, the Republicans won by about 300,000 rather than less than 100,000. In 2010, Republicans had over 236,000 votes more than the Democrats but only won six of thirteen seats.