North Carolina's 4th congressional district

The Fourth Congressional district of North Carolina is located in the central region of the state. The district stretches from Burlington to Fayetteville. It includes two-thirds of the state capital, Raleigh, all of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough, and portions of Durham.

The district is currently represented by 11-term Congressman David Price, a former political science professor at Duke who was first elected in 1986, ousting one-term Republican incumbent Bill Cobey.^[3] Price was reelected in 1988, 1990, and 1992, but he was defeated in his bid for a fifth term in 1994 by Republican Fred Heineman, the Raleigh Police Chief, in a generally bad year for Democrats in North Carolina. Price came back to defeat Heineman in a rematch in 1996, and has been reelected each time since then by large margins, usually with more than 60% of the vote. In 2008, Price received 63% (265,751 votes) to defeat Republican challenger B.J. Lawson, who received 37% (153,947 votes).^[4]

According to research by Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post, the district is the third most gerrymandered Congressional district in North Carolina and seventh most gerrymandered district in the United States.^[5] In contrast, its predecessor was the most regularly drawn of the state's 13 districts.

History

From 2003 to 2013 it contained most of the area commonly known as The Triangle. It included all of Durham and Orange counties, part of Wake County and a small section of Chatham County. The 4th district picked up the most Republican areas of Wake County, such as Apex, Cary, and much of North Raleigh in order to help make the neighboring 13th and 2nd districts more Democratic. For instance, Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the Wake County portion of the district in 2008 by 51–48%, a difference of less than 8,000 votes in between the two candidates.^[6] In contrast, Obama won Wake County overall by a much greater margin of 56–43%, and Obama swept the 4th district as a whole by 63–36%. The Republican influence in the district's Wake County portion was more than canceled out by the two Democratic strongholds of Orange and Durham counties, where Obama received 72% and 76%, respectively, his two best counties in the entire state. The 4th district had a Cook PVI of D+8, which made it the most Democratic white-majority district in the entire South outside of South Florida and Northern Virginia.

The district became even more heavily Democratic as a result of 2012 redistricting, in which the more Republican areas of western and southern Wake County were removed, along with northern Orange County and most of its share of Durham County. They were replaced by heavily Democratic portions of Alamance, Cumberland, Harnett and Lee counties. Additionally, the district was pushed further into Raleigh. Like its predecessor, the district is one of the few Southern districts with a significant concentration of progressive-minded white voters—similar to areas around Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, Nashville, Memphis and Austin. The presence of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Duke University, as well as a large African-American population in Durham and Raleigh help contribute to the liberal nature of the 4th district.

The district is just barely contiguous; the northern and southern portions are connected by a barely-discernible strip of land along the Lee/Harnett line.

Voting

List of representatives

Representative	Party	Years	District Residence	Note
John Steele	Pro-Administration	April 19, 1790 – March 3, 1791		Redistricted to the 1st district
Hugh Williamson	Anti-Administration	March 4, 1791 – March 3, 1793		Redistricted from the 2nd district
Alexander Mebane	Anti-Administration	March 4, 1793 – March 3, 1795
Absalom Tatom	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1795 – June 1, 1796		Resigned
William F. Strudwick	Federalist	November 28, 1796 – March 3, 1797
Richard Stanford	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1797 – March 3, 1803		Redistricted to the 8th district
William Blackledge	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1803 – March 3, 1809
John Stanly	Federalist	March 4, 1809 – March 3, 1811
William Blackledge	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1811 – March 3, 1813
William Gaston	Federalist	March 4, 1813 – March 3, 1817
Jesse Slocumb	Federalist	March 4, 1817 – December 20, 1820		Died
William S. Blackledge	Democratic-Republican	February 7, 1821 – March 3, 1823
Richard D. Spaight, Jr.	Crawford D-R	March 4, 1823 – March 3, 1825
John Heritage Bryan	Jacksonian	March 4, 1825 – March 3, 1827
	Adams	March 4, 1827 – March 3, 1829
Jesse Speight	Jacksonian	March 4, 1829– March 3, 1837
Charles B. Shepard	Whig	March 4, 1837 – March 3, 1839
	Democratic	March 4, 1839 – March 3, 1841
William H. Washington	Whig	March 4, 1841 – March 3, 1843
Edmund Deberry	Whig	March 4, 1843 – March 3, 1845		Redistricted from the 7th district
Alfred Dockery	Whig	March 4, 1845 – March 3, 1847
Augustine H. Shepperd	Whig	March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1851
James T. Morehead	Whig	March 4, 1851 – March 3, 1853
Sion H. Rogers	Whig	March 4, 1853 – March 3, 1855
Lawrence O'Bryan Branch	Democratic	March 4, 1855 – March 3, 1861
Civil War and Reconstruction
John T. Deweese	Republican	July 6, 1868 – February 28, 1870		Resigned
John Manning, Jr.	Democratic	December 7, 1870 – March 3, 1871
Sion H. Rogers	Democratic	March 4, 1871 – March 3, 1873
William A. Smith	Republican	March 4, 1873 – March 3, 1875
Joseph J. Davis	Democratic	March 4, 1875 – March 3, 1881
William R. Cox	Democratic	March 4, 1881 – March 3, 1887
John Nichols	Independent	March 4, 1887 – March 3, 1889
Benjamin H. Bunn	Democratic	March 4, 1889 – March 3, 1895
William F. Strowd	Populist	March 4, 1895 – March 3, 1899
John W. Atwater	Independent Populist	March 4, 1899 – March 3, 1901
Edward W. Pou	Democratic	March 4, 1901 – April 1, 1934		Died
Harold D. Cooley	Democratic	July 7, 1934 – December 30, 1966		Resigned
James C. Gardner	Republican	January 3, 1967 – January 3, 1969
Nick Galifianakis	Democratic	January 3, 1969 – January 3, 1973		Redistricted from the 5th district
Ike F. Andrews	Democratic	January 3, 1973 – January 3, 1985
Bill Cobey	Republican	January 3, 1985 – January 3, 1987
David Price	Democratic	January 3, 1987 – January 3, 1995
Fred Heineman	Republican	January 3, 1995 – January 3, 1997
David Price	Democratic	January 3, 1997 – Present

Historical district boundaries

2003–2013

See also

• North Carolina's congressional districts
• List of United States congressional districts

References

1. ↑ United States Census Bureau. "My Congressional District". Retrieved 8 September 2016. 
2. ↑ "Partisan Voting Index Districts of the 113th Congress: 2004 & 2008" (PDF). The Cook Political Report. 2012. Retrieved 2013-01-10. 
3. ↑ http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=1398
4. ↑ "Local and National Election Results - Election Center 2008 - Elections & Politics from CNN.com". CNN. 
5. ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/15/americas-most-gerrymandered-congressional-districts/
6. ↑ http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p7Hn_T5RBt3R5n9TlVGs0EQ

• Martis, Kenneth C. (1989). The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 
• Martis, Kenneth C. (1982). The Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 
• Congressional Biographical Directory of the United States 1774–present

External links

Coordinates: 35°37′28″N 78°59′43″W / 35.62444°N 78.99528°W / 35.62444; -78.99528