Wake’s Rep. Wiley Nickel won’t run for reelection. He’s making plans for 2026 instead.

Rep. Wiley Nickel announced Thursday afternoon that he will forgo running for reelection and instead get ready to run for the U.S. Senate in 2026.

Nickel, a freshman from Cary, is one of several Democrats who had their congressional districts redrawn by state lawmakers to favor Republican candidates, leaving him with little hope of winning reelection.

The Republican-led General Assembly redrew North Carolina’s congressional maps from an evenly split map providing for seven Republican and seven Democrats to one likely to produce at least 10 Republican seats. Nickel addressed the maneuver during a news conference Thursday afternoon.

“They know what it means to draw these districts the way they did, and they did it on purpose,” Nickel said. “They did it for one reason: to hold on to power no matter what the voters want. They did it for themselves, not for the people of North Carolina.”

Already, 10 Republicans have filed to run for Nickel’s seat in the 13th district, which now includes Caswell, Franklin, Harnett, Johnston, Lee, Person and parts of Granville and Wake counties.

The National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a news release Thursday morning celebrating Nickel’s announcement as a win.

“Wiley Nickel just gave Republicans an early Christmas gift with another pickup in the battle for the House majority,” said Delanie Bomar, the organization’s spokeswoman. “Democrats’ climb out of the minority is getting steeper every day.”

Many speculated over what Nickel would do now that his district favors Republicans. He scheduled a news conference for Thursday afternoon to announce his plans to run for Senate.

Nickel told his supporters in Cary Thursday he would spend the next year educating people about the effects of gerrymandering and helping Democrats secure wins in 2024. In January 2025, he plans to launch his campaign for Senate.

“In January I’m going to look to flip our U.S. Senate seat blue,” Nickel said. “Phil Berger and legislative Republicans can’t gerrymander a statewide election.”

Currently, North Carolina is represented in the Senate by Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, both Republicans, from Mecklenburg and Davie counties, respectively.

Budd, a freshman senator, isn’t up for reelection until 2028, but Tillis will face reelection in 2026, meaning if Nickel were to win the Democratic primary and Tillis gets the Republican nomination, they would go head-to-head in the general election.

Change at the Capitol

Nickel’s announcement marks the fifth of North Carolina’s 14-member House delegation to announce they will not seek reelection.

Like Nickel, Reps. Jeff Jackson and Kathy Manning, Democrats from Charlotte and Greensboro, did not see a path forward after state lawmakers redrew their congressional districts to favor Republicans. Jackson, a lawyer, has announced he would seek election as the state’s attorney general.

Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican from Waxhaw, is also running for state attorney general, though his decision to leave Congress was his own choice.

The most surprising departure came from Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from Lincoln County, who announced he would retire after 20 years. In October, McHenry served for three weeks as interim House speaker after Republican infighting led to the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Rumors followed his speakership that he would leave the chamber, but he had immediately announced his reelection campaign, making the about-face as candidate filing got underway a bit of a stunner.

North Carolina’s other nine representatives have said they will seek reelection.

Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat from Snow Hill, remains in North Carolina’s only true swing district.

Voters filed a federal lawsuit challenging the 1st, 6th, 12th and 14th congressional districts for diluting the votes of Black and Latino voters.