Let’s celebrate freedom this Labor Day, North Carolina!

Freedom is on the ballot this election in North Carolina. If you want the freedom to thrive, to make your own choices and live life on your own terms, the choice is clear–the Democratic party is on your side.

Democratic candidates want to increase people’s freedom–to read books of their choosing, to have (or not to have) an abortion, to defend them from autocrats like Vladimir Putin, to enjoy unpolluted water and clean air, to provide immigrants the opportunity to thrive in the United States, and to love who you want to love. By contrast, the Republicans are letting Puritan parents block books from schools throughout a state and trashing others, imposing abortion bans, inviting Putin and Russia to do “whatever the hell he wants,” cheering on efforts to end programs reduce pollution and combat climate change, and trying to kick out of the country a half-million immigrant spouses. And the freedom to marry the person you live, no matter your gender and your spouse’s gender, is at risk from Republicans who want to use religion as a bludgeon to end same-sex marriage.

North Carolina’s Republicans are particularly extreme.

North Carolina’s Republican candidate for governor, Mark Robinson, is leading the charge to restrict your freedoms. He wants to destroy the public education system, and led a secret group trying to find evidence of “indoctrination” in the public school system–needless to say, his potentially illegal task force failed.He wants to ban abortion, without exception. The Republican supermajority in the state legislature could only pass a limited 12-week ban because more extreme measures could not have gotten the unanimous support it needed from its legislators, including Democrat-turned-Republican and former abortion rights supporter Tricia Cotham. Rest assured, if Mark Robinson becomes governor, he will sign the more extreme abortion ban that will pass the state legislature.

And the rot extends throughout the Republican candidates. Superintendent candidate Michelle Morrow calls public schools “indoctrination centers” and previously suggested President Obama should be executed and the military used to keep Donald Trump in office after his loss in the 2020 election. Wannabee Attorney General, Dan Bishop, was the author of HB2, the notorious “bathroom bill” targeting the transgender  community that made it a crime for anyone to use a bathroom designated for a gender other than that listed on their birth certificate. It cost the state billions of dollars. The GOP candidate for labor commissioner, Luke Farley, thinks President Biden’s regulations intended to protect workers from to extreme heat are excessively burdensome and will “kill jobs,”  apparently siding with killing people instead.

The judicial races are critically important as well–even more so, since the GOP took control of the NC Supreme Court in 2023 and rapidly began taking away freedoms, ending your right to a real choice in an election and not a gerrymandered system designed to keep Republicans in power. So, this Labor Day, let’s do the work needed to actually preserve freedom in our state.

The Democratic candidates running for state office work to preserve our freedoms and bring prosperity to all American citizens, no matter their race, color, creed, or religion. They are:

• Josh Stein for Governor (our interview)
• Rachel Hunt for Lieutenant Governor
• Jeff Jackson for Attorney General
• Elaine Marshall for Secretary of State
• Jessica Holmes for State Auditor
• Wesley Harris for Treasurer (our interview)
• Mo Green for State Superintendent (our interview)
• Sarah Taber for Commissioner of Agriculture
• Braxton Winston II for Labor Commissioner
• Natasha Marcus for Commissioner of Insurance

The Democratic judicial candidates are Judge Allison Riggs (our interview) for NC Supreme Court, and Judge Carolyn Thompson (our interview), Ed Eldred (our interview), and Martin Moore (our interview) for NC Court of Appeals.