North Carolina – Democrats
Kate Barr For the Win
Kate Barr’s campaign slogan is “Kate Barr Can’t Win.” Barr is a Democrat running in North Carolina Senate District 37, Mecklenburg and Iredell counties, which the legislature gerrymandered into a safe Republican seat. Barr flipped the script. She says: “District 37 is so gerrymandered that I don’t stand a chance. But we deserve to have…
Read MoreDemocrats Show Up
Democrats are fired up. Republicans are fleeing the fight. Democrats have candidates competing for 168 of the 170 state House and Senate seats. Republicans fielded candidates in only 137 races. It’s clear which party has energy and enthusiasm going into 2024. When Anderson Clayton was elected state Democratic chair last February, she pledged to contest…
Read MoreCoopercare
Some 600,000 North Carolinians will get quality, affordable health care now – thanks to the tenacity of one man: Governor Roy Cooper. When Medicaid expansion took effect last week, some headlines called it “bipartisan.” But Republicans had fought it since Obamacare passed in 2010. They supported expansion only after seven years of patient, persistent prodding,…
Read MoreOblivious on Abortion
It was THE story of Tuesday’s elections, but Wednesday night it took NBC 90 minutes to ask Republican presidential candidates about abortion. Their answers were tortured, because Republicans know they’re in trouble on the issue. But why didn’t NBC ask them sooner and push them harder? Why is big media so oblivious to the power…
Read MoreThe Donkey Kicks Back
Polls don’t predict. And media chatter don’t matter. Democrats across the country – and North Carolina – showed yesterday what matters: abortion rights, good candidates like Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and the hard work of organizing, raising money and communicating with voters about issues that matter. And democracy matters. As a wise old Democrat…
Read MoreThe River
When I introduced Chair Anderson Clayton at a Democratic Party fundraiser this week, I told the crowd about her first meeting with Governor Jim Hunt. I told them how Hunt and Clayton connected despite the 60 years between them. It took me back to when I was about Clayton’s age, and working to elect Hunt…
Read MoreCorruption Fighter
Jeff Jackson began his campaign for state attorney general by punching the political bullies right in the nose. In his announcement video, he climbs into a boxing ring and trades punches with an opponent. He calls North Carolina Republicans “corrupt politicians” and tags their gerrymandering, which drew him out of his congressional district, as “blatant…
Read MoreGhost of Gerrymanders Past
When I blogged last week that North Carolina Republicans are guilty of “the most extreme and egregious gerrymandering in American political history,” they responded: Democrats did it, too. No, they didn’t. Not like this. Democrats last drew maps after the 2000 census. The elections that followed were close, so close that one legislative session had…
Read MoreThe Final Nail
North Carolina Republicans have given Democrats our crowning issue for 2024: their cynical, corrupt, hyper-partisan gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts. They’ve packed and cracked and sliced and diced a 50-50 state – the most closely divided state in the country, where fairly drawn districts produced a 7-7 congressional split – in a blatant effort…
Read MoreA Sign for the Speaker
N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore’s petty vengeance backfired. Moore exiled Rep. Terence Everitt, a Wake County Democrat, to a tiny office in the basement of the Legislative Building. Everitt posted this sign (photo) in his new office: “I asked prosecutors to open an investigation into credible allegations that Speaker Tim Moore used taxpayer money to…
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