After legislative setbacks, NC Democrats see opportunity in 2024
When Anderson Clayton became chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party in February, the organization had little to celebrate.
Democrats had lost every major statewide race only a few months prior, including the battle for an open U.S. Senate seat and the races that determined control of the state’s Supreme Court. The party also lost power in the state legislature, where the GOP came one-seat short of a veto-proof majority while more than 40 Republicans ran unopposed.
The performance in the midterm elections prompted internal strife and a shakeup in party leadership. Anderson — a 25-year-old campaign organizer from Person County — rode that wave of discontent, wresting the state party chairmanship from incumbent Bobbie Richardson, a 73-year-old former legislator backed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and others in the state’s Democratic establishment.
In the months since, Democrats lost even more legislative power — sparking a rage that has boosted fundraising, volunteer engagement and interest from potential candidates, a concoction that could deliver a better showing for the party as it heads into the 2024 elections.
The surprise decision by state Rep. Tricia Cotham to join the GOP — after previously serving a Democratic corner of Mecklenburg County for nearly a decade — delivered Republicans the lone seat they needed for a veto-proof majority in the General Assembly. The GOP promptly enacted the most extensive reduction in abortion access in decades, advanced a plan that would allow wealthy families to access taxpayer funds to pay for their childrens’ private school tuition, and introduced bills that would roll back rights for transgender and LGBTQ North Carolinians.
Democrats, who had largely held the GOP agenda at bay since 2018, were left with precious few means to stand up for the 51% of North Carolina voters who supported Cooper in 2020. But the GOP moves did leave Democrats one tool they can use in next year’s elections: anger.
“Every time that Republicans overreach, and that’s what they’re doing right now on so many levels, it invigorates and energizes Democrats to fight back,” said Morgan Jackson, a strategist for Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, who’s running for governor.
Next year’s election will determine control of the legislature, the Governor’s Mansion, several state agencies, and the White House. North Carolina voters haven’t supported the Democratic presidential candidate since 2008, so down-ticket Democrats will need all the help they can get.
That point will come into focus next week, when at least four likely 2024 presidential candidates — including President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — are scheduled to visit North Carolina.
They’ll enter a state where the political climate is already charged and, party leaders say, sending an electrical current through each voter base.
Clayton says the midterm elections left Democrats disappointed. Cotham’s switch — and its ripple effects — left them furious.
“For the first time since 2018, you’re seeing what a Republican state legislature wants to do … which is take our state backwards,” Clayton told WRAL. “Your life is going to be impacted by a Republican policy that’s coming out of the legislature this year.”
Clayton says the party has raised nearly $700,000 since she became party chair in February. That’s about 37% of the state party’s annual operating budget raised in less than three months. Much of that has been done with a skeleton crew and Clayton working the phones every day. Donations picked up considerably after Cotham switched parties, removing Democrats’ veto defense.
“Folks realize that we are actually in danger,” Clayton said. “When we were able to say we had one vote, and that we were holding Cooper's veto power, folks were able to have a little bit of a calmer mind. But I think Trisha Cotham definitely lit people on fire a little bit.”
Clayton is also seeing energy in other ways. Hundreds of people have reached out to the state Democratic Party to volunteer their help, she said, including more than 300 who say they want to run for office themselves. That’s critical for a party that left 44 legislative seats uncontested in 2022. “That number haunts me,” she said. “Forty-four.”
She was also encouraged by turnout to a virtual meeting the party hosted after legislative Republicans advanced their abortion bill. Five-hundred people logged-in on a Monday night, including 200 people who joined about 15 minutes before the meeting started Clayton said.
“Do you know how hard it is to normally get people on a Zoom call — like, to actually show up?” Clayton said.
Republicans, meanwhile, are fine with Democrats highlighting the GOP’s victories. Strategically, they say, the Democratic agenda is too out of touch with North Carolina voters. Republicans think voters will respond positively to GOP legislators’ efforts to restrict abortion and offer private school vouchers to more residents.
“They listened to the voters of North Carolina,” said Michael Whatley, the chairman of the state GOP. “They understood the issues that the voters are dealing with and put solutions on the table.”
As much as Republicans’ efforts are mobilizing Democrats, Whatley says, the GOP is seeing a similar bump, which is fueling volunteer recruitment and grassroots efforts. “The fact that, in early June, we are getting this type of enthusiasm across the state is absolutely fantastic,” he said.
The Biden factor
In a presidential year, it may prove difficult for the Democratic Party to raise awareness about the GOP’s moves at the state level. Advertisements about the presidential candidates and national issues are expected to dominate the airwaves.
Republicans think President Biden’s performance could be a boon to GOP candidates in 2024, especially as the economy weighs on Biden’s favorability. Republicans are expected to also blame Biden for crime, issues at the border and government spending in what is expected to be a hard-fought battle for North Carolina voters.
“This needs to be an election that is going to be a referendum on his agenda, and on what has happened to the economy,” Whatley said. “... I welcome a conversation on Joe Biden's performance and track record.”
Those themes are likely to be on display this week, when Republicans hold their state convention. Trump and other Republican presidential hopefuls such as former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are scheduled to speak — the first event to feature all three, Whatley said. It’ll be the largest North Carolina convention ever, he said.
Democrats, however, think they can improve upon the Biden campaign’s 1 percentage point loss in North Carolina from the 2020 election.
The Biden campaign spent nearly $50 million on ads in North Carolina during the 2020 election season, making it the fourth most expensive state for campaign, the Washington Post reported. Biden advisers were telling donors and top supporters the state was in play even before Republicans passed the new abortion law, according to CNN. Then the Democratic National Committee worked with the state party to mobilize volunteers against the new abortion law, Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesman, told NPR.
And on Friday, a day after the NC GOP convention starts, Biden plans to visit North Carolina to talk about how his administration’s programs are working. Biden will appear in Rocky Mount to discuss workforce training programs. At Fort Liberty in Fayetteville, Biden and First Lady Jill Biden plan to meet with service members and talk about the First Lady’s program for supporting military families.
Clayton thinks the state party would be wise to emphasize ways the Biden administration has been working to make North Carolinians’ lives better.
Visits from the man himself don’t hurt, either.
“Right now, rural North Carolina is not living. They’re surviving,” she said.
Democrats need to be talking about the Biden administration’s efforts to expand broadband access in rural communities and cap monthly insulin costs at $35 — “the immediate relief that we are giving to communities right now,” Clayton said.
Governor’s race
The Democratic Governors Association, led by Cooper last year, could help elevate state-level issues in North Carolina. The association last year spent millions to defeat Republicans in swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and will likely aid North Carolina’s Democratic candidate next year.
In that race, Democrats are coalescing around Stein. On the other side, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is expected to emerge from a group of Republican candidates that also includes State Treasurer Dale Folwell and former North Carolina U.S. Rep. Mark Walker.
Charles Hellwig, a Republican political strategist, doesn’t think the GOP’s moves on abortion or education will hurt the chances of the Republican candidates he represents in suburban swing districts. Voters will be motivated by the presidential elections, he said, adding that North Carolina’s abortion law and school voucher efforts are “conservative but palatable.”
“[Voters] do not want abortion banned in the Wake County suburbs, but that’s not what the General Assembly has passed,” Hellwig said. “I think they made some reasonable restrictions that most people either agree with or could live with.”
That argument may be overshadowed if Robinson becomes the Republican nominee for governor. Robinson has referred to abortion as murder. And, earlier this year, said he would support a bill banning all abortions — with no exceptions for issues such as rape, or to save the life of the mother.
“If I had all the power right now, let’s say I was the governor and had a willing legislature, we could pass a bill saying you can’t have an abortion in North Carolina for any reason,” Robinson said in February on a radio show hosted by Republican state Rep. Jeffrey McNeely. And when announcing his gubernatorial campaign in April, Robinson said he’d support “common-sense legislation to prevent abortions after a heartbeat is detected.”
Robinson has left a long trail of controversial statements since entering office in 2020, not only on abortion but also education and the LGBTQ community. Robinson’s divisiveness may make him a bigger target for Democrats than Republican gubernatorial candidates in other states.
“Mark Robinson is a very poor general election candidate for the Republicans,” Steve Greene, a political science professor at N.C. State University, said in an interview that aired Saturday on WRAL’s “On The Record” program.
“Strategically, pragmatically, Republicans would almost surely be better off without a candidate who is so divisive and so leaning into the culture wars,” Greene said.
Robinson’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Cooper unseated Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in 2016 in part because voters thought the GOP pushed its agenda too far right in North Carolina, said Jackson, the Cooper strategist. Democrats pointed to HB2 — the law that regulated public bathroom use — as the prime example of how they think Republicans were taking away people’s rights. It was seen as discriminatory toward transgender people.
Jackson says Democrats can do the same in 2024 by talking about GOP efforts to restrict abortion and promote private school vouchers.
Seizing the moment
Clayton and other new officers within the state Democratic party campaigned for their leadership positions on the idea that North Carolina is home to voters who can deliver Democrats big victories—but that the state party didn’t do a good enough job of getting those people to the polls or of coordinating with county-level leaders. Election data show that turnout among regular Democratic targets — young voters, Black voters, and voters in metropolitan areas — last year fell short of participation levels in 2018.
Clayton is also doing everything she can to overcome the number that haunts her — the 44 legislative seats that went uncontested. She hopes her campaign organizing work — helping Democrats win seats on the Roxboro City Council — shows that Democrats can still win in Republican-heavy areas. “We're trying to find people from every corner in every county to run for office this year,” she said.
By running in races in the reddest part of the state, Democrats can stretch the resources of Republicans, who will have to spend a little more to compete. The strategy also helps get the Democrats’ message out — on issues such as public school funding and censorship in schools — in places where the party is underrepresented.
Indeed, Democrats’ election outlook could be limited by Republican redistricting efforts. State legislators typically only draw new election maps at the start of each decade. Republicans — who are in charge of drawing the new maps because they control the legislature — are expected to soon take advantage of a series of court rulings allowing legislators to revise districts for the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislature.
That doesn’t faze Clayton. “Districts are going to be unwinnable for Democrats,” she said. “But we need somebody to give Democrats choices.”
“I want Democrats to have somebody to vote for,” she added. “I want somebody in that community saying, ‘We don't have to do this. There's another way.’”
Now, Clayton’s team is doing its best to raise money and build off this energy while the party is short-staffed. It’s been operating without an executive director since Meredith Cuomo stepped down in December, and without a communications director since Kate Frauenfelder stepped down to join Stein’s gubernatorial campaign last month.
Clayton said the party, which launched a national search for a new executive director, anticipates hiring for both positions in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, she and Cooper have stepped into the spotlight that was pointed at North Carolina after Cotham’s party-switch and the GOP bills that followed.
In Cooper and Stein, Democrats have elected leaders who know how to raise money and run winning campaigns in a swing state. And in Clayton, Jackson says, the party has a chair focused on organizing to a degree that “I don’t know that we’ve seen before … not only in urban areas and with young voters, but in rural areas.”
With her at the helm, Jackson said, “the party is perfectly matched to take advantage of this anger and this enthusiasm.”
Clayton, for her part, is drawing on her experience as a young woman from rural North Carolina to appeal to voters who, she says, haven’t been enough of a priority for the state party. She has been featured in numerous media outlets, from the New York Times to Teen Vogue.
On WRAL’s “On The Record,” Clayton said her personal story shows that young people can make a difference. So she wants to empower them. When it comes to turning out voters on college campuses, for example, she wants to provide young people with the training they need to play significant roles for the party.
“I want young people out there talking to young people,” Clayton said.
“And I also want them to see that young people in this party are rising in positions of power," she said. "And I want them to see the 25-year-old state party chair and say 'Hey that can be me one day. And I have to get involved to make that happen.’”
WRAL anchor Lena Tillett contributed to this article.
