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5 North Carolina legislative races to watch after abortion ruling

Abortion laws will be a priority for GOP legislators next year, top Republicans said after the Supreme Court's decision last week to overturn key abortion protections. Here's where increased voter turnout could tip the scales in the closest races.

Posted Updated

By
Paul Specht
, WRAL state government reporter

Voter reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn key abortion protections is expected to influence closely watched legislative races in North Carolina, where Democrats are trying to fend off the prospect of a Republican supermajority in the General Assembly.

In the Dobbs v. Jackson case, the high court on Friday ruled 6-3 to uphold Mississippi’s ban of most abortions after the 15th week. Justices in the majority wrote that the issue can be regulated by the states, and that the landmark Roe v. Wade case wrongly granted people a constitutional right to an abortion. The ruling will have an immediate effect on abortion laws in states where conservative lawmakers had previously set up so-called trigger laws, which activate tighter restrictions if Roe were to fall.

North Carolina doesn’t have such a law. While it has some controversial abortion regulations, North Carolina still has fewer restrictions than many other southern states. It allows abortions during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy and after the 20th week of pregnancy when certain medical emergencies arise.

The laws can only be changed if the state General Assembly changes state statutes and the governor signs that legislation into law—or if a gubernatorial veto is overridden. However, state lawmakers are in a stalemate. Republicans have a majority in the legislature, but don’t have enough members to override vetoes from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

So after the high court’s decision on Friday, top Republicans said they’ll wait until their legislative session next January to consider new abortion laws. If the GOP picks up two additional seats in the senate and three more seats in the House, they’ll gain the supermajority they need to fast track their agenda.

The decision also raises the stakes for state Supreme Court races, which could ultimately decide the future of abortion in North Carolina. North Carolina justices are chosen in partisan elections. If new abortion restrictions are passed, they could be challenged in state courts, where many of the state’s recent political battles have been fought. Justices who are registered as Democrats currently have a 4-3 edge. Two of their current seats are up for grabs in November.

Eye on turnout

Political scientists believe economic conditions in the U.S. will be the top consideration for many voters this year, likely offering an advantage to Republicans. Polling shows, though, that the Supreme Court’s rollback of abortion rights could lead to an increase in Democratic turnout.

Most North Carolinians want abortion laws to stay the same or become less restrictive, according to a poll this month by WRAL and SurveyUSA before the court’s ruling. Forty-five percent of respondents didn’t think Roe should be overturned, and a plurality of state residents also don’t think states should have the right to determine whether abortion is legal.

Recent polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed nearly 40% of likely voters would be more motivated to vote if the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe decision. And 20% of all voters said an overturn would prompt them to only vote for candidates who campaign on protecting abortion access, KFF found.

Political insiders say they believe the decision could primarily boost turnout in densely populated areas, which tend to have more liberal voters.

“That can have a huge impact on statewide races as well as suburban swing legislative ones, Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist, told WRAL News.

In the WRAL News poll, 36% of urban voters thought the state should further restrict or outlaw abortions, compared with 31% of suburban voters and 35% of rural voters.

North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Richard Burr may generate a significant amount of campaign messaging about abortion. Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, the first female U.S. Senate nominee since 2016 and the first black nominee since 1996, is campaigning on preserving abortion as a constitutional right in her race against Republican U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, an anti-abortion businessman who touts a masters degree from Dallas Theological Seminary.

“In the light of what we know about the mid-term fundamentals at this point in the cycle—the president’s approval, inflation measurements, the nation’s right/wrong track direction—certainly issues like the Supreme Court’s abortion decision could sway some marginal districts in one direction or the other,” said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College.

Races to watch

WRAL reviewed election map analysis from Bitzer, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, the conservative John Locke Foundation, and consulted Democratic and Republican political insiders about which races might be affected most by the Dobbs decision. Here are five districts where increased turnout on either side could tip the scales.

NC Senate District 17: Democrats hope to protect a southern Wake County seat currently held by state Sen. Sydney Batch, who was appointed in January 2021. Batch won an election for state House in the area in 2018. She lost her reelection bid in 2020 and was then chosen by Cooper to replace Democratic Sen. Sam Searcy, who chose to step down.

District 17 sweeps horizontally across Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina and favors Democrats on paper. But could be in play for Republicans in a wave year.

Batch faces Republican Marc Cavaliero and Libertarian Patrick Bowersox. Batch recently won an award from Emily’s List, a women’s advocacy group, for standing up for reproductive rights.

On Friday, Batch tweeted that the Dobbs decision placed women in two worlds: “One where they have control over their bodies and the other where their reproductive freedom will be dictated by the government. This is not just about abortion rights, it's about our human rights and those rights are under attack.”

Cavaliero is an anti-abortion businessman and former Marine whose campaign website says: “Unwanted pregnancies should be reduced through education, voluntary family planning, and contraception” and that the issue of abortion “should be approached with compassion.”

Senate District 18: Newly drawn voting districts this year created an open state senate seat in District 18, a rectangle that stretches from northern Raleigh through Granville County to the Virginia border.

Democrat Mary Wills Bode faces Republican E.C. Sykes, the 2020 GOP Secretary of State nominee, as well as Libertarian Ryan Brown. The district slightly favors Democrats. However, the race may end up closer than data show because there’s no incumbent and election conditions favor Republicans.

Sykes has put the issue at the forefront of his campaign. In a campaign newsletter, he recently praised lawmakers in Texas and Oklahoma—states whose bans of abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy are among of the strictest in the nation—as models for “standing up for sanctity of life.” He added, according to the Associated Press: “I want North Carolina to join in on the fight to protect those who can’t fight for themselves, the preborn child.”

In an email newsletter Friday, Bode warned that Sykes and other Republicans will push to outlaw abortion services in North Carolina.

“As a result of this decision, at least eight states across the South are expected to outright ban or severely restrict access to reproductive care. … If the Republicans are in the supermajority next year, North Carolina will likely join those Southern states,” her email said. “We must do everything we can to protect the health and well being of women in North Carolina.”

House District 35: Incumbent Democrat Terence Everitt hopes to hold off Republican Fred Von Canon in District 35 for a second time in a row. The northern Wake district includes Wake Forest, a historically conservative town that’s home to a seminary but has elected more Democrats in recent years.

Abortion was at the center of the duo’s last race. The North Carolina Values Coalition, which opposes abortion, ran ads for Von Canon in 2020 alleging that out-of-state donors were helping Everitt because they wanted to protect Planned Parenthood. In recent months, Von Canon has shared another account’s tweet calling abortion “indefensible” and in November posted on Facebook that lawmakers need to protect the unborn.

“We need to change the thinking that abortion ‘fixes’ things; it doesn’t. Healing can take a lifetime. I know. We need to do our part, particularly men, to support moms,” the post said.

Everitt is among the most vocal House Democrats, tweeting on Friday: “Roe v. Wade has been the settled law of our land for 50 years and the court is wrong to take away these rights that generations have counted on. I oppose the politicians in D.C. and here in N.C. who are obsessed with making criminals out of women and their doctors.”

House District 20: The redistricting process left incumbent Republican Rep. Ted Davis Jr. in a highly competitive district. He’ll face Democrat Amy DeLoach in District 20, located to the east of Wilmington along the coast in New Hanover County.

On Friday, in a Facebook post, DeLoach described the Dobbs decision as a “devastating blow to reproductive rights and Americans’ fundamental freedom to make their own health care decisions.”

“For now, the fight for bodily autonomy has returned to the state level. Remember that abortion remains legal in North Carolina, and we must fight to keep it that way,” the post said.

Davis, on his campaign website, touts his record trying to limit abortion in North Carolina. He supported legislation to prevent abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy “unless it is necessary to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother.”

House District 98: In House District 98, a Mecklenburg County district north of Charlotte, a pair of legislative foes are squaring-off for the third election in a row.

Incumbent Republican John Bradford will face former Democratic Rep. Christy Clark, who he beat in 2020 and lost to in 2018. The district is considered competitive with a slight Democratic lean. Clark—like Batch, Bode and DeLoach—is running in a district targeted by Lillian’s List, an advocacy group that supports progressive, pro-abortion candidates.

In a tweet Friday, Clark claimed that Bradford “will undoubtedly lead the charge to ban abortion,” adding: “Our district is flippable, but it’s going to take everyone.”

Bradford last year led an effort to ban abortion providers from performing the procedure for women who based their decision on the unborn child’s race or a Down syndrome diagnosis. As the bill was being considered, Bradford said: “I understand abortion is a very heated and partisan topic,” while describing the bill as “very narrowly tailored.”

“The idea of terminating the birth of the baby that never had a chance just because it has Down syndrome … to me just is heartbreaking, because these individuals have so much to give our society,” Bradford said, according to the Associated Press.

Cooper vetoed the bill after it passed through the GOP-controlled legislature, saying the bill was unconstitutional and “damages the doctor-patient relationship with an unprecedented government intrusion.”