The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. Leading Off ● NC-02: Democratic Rep. G. K. Butterfield announced his retirement on Thursday, a decision that came about two weeks after North Carolina's Republican-dominated state legislature passed a new gerrymandered map that reduces the Black population of his district in order to make it considerably more conservative. The congressman himself said of the new map, «It's racially gerrymandered. It will disadvantage African-American communities all across the 1st Congressional District. I am disappointed, terribly disappointed with the Republican majority legislature for again gerrymandering our state.» Butterfield's existing 1st District supported Joe Biden 54-45, but the new seat—which takes in a heavily Black stretch of North Carolina's rural north as well as some Raleigh exurbs and is now numbered the 2nd—would have gone for Biden just 51-48 (for a margin of only two points after rounding). What's more, the long-term political trends in the area have been very unfavorable for Democrats, so Butterfield could very well have faced a tough campaign in what's shaping up to be a difficult midterm. Any Democrat hoping to succeed him almost assuredly will. Read more