What a night. Blog Bloggers were watching the results roll in with glee and amazement. We’re not happy about the amendments, but we are chuffed about just about everything else.
Some quick takes from a TBB contributor:
- Republican enthusiasm was in the dirt, Democrats and unaffiliated voters were tremendously angry.
- The president’s approval was at -20, we had the war in Iran, ICE raids, high gas prices, and no fixes to most of the cost issues that drove the 2024 election results.
- Fielding candidates in long-shot races meant there was someone on the ballot to win in many districts we had no reason to expect to flip. (Lots of credit should go to Anderson Clayton, the 28-year-old chair of the NC Dems who since defeating the incumbent in 2023 has emphasized recruiting and supporting candidates in every race in every election, because you never know when a wave like Tuesday will occur.)
- Lowest impact, but still relevant to every close win: lots of voters received information about how to vote and who to vote for thanks to canvassing, in-person events, and prolific new media.
- Anita Earls won her re-election in numbers too big to contest. No repeat of the Griffin list. We will need more judges in the Supreme Court (several seats are up in 2028), but this checks the list. (Plus, Democrats kept all three of the appeals court seats that were on the ballot yesterday).
- We have a Democratic US Senator who can prioritize the interests of all North Carolinians, and not just the big Republican funders. Congrats to Roy Cooper on extending his unbeaten election streak.
We’re not going to post the results. If you haven’t seen them yet, we would be deeply concerned! Many of you were anxiously refreshing the NCSBE website just like us. The big items that make us happy are:
- The NC House has swapped from a Republican supermajority to a Democratic majority, maybe even a supermajority! It is hard to overemphasize how big a deal that is. For the last 16 years, Republicans have controlled the schedule of the state house and senate and that means they control every piece of legislation. Great pieces of legislation from Democrats that would protect abortion rights, strengthen public schools, invest in transit, and better reflect our values as a state have all been sent to committee to die. They never get a vote. With the Democratic majority, it’ll be the Democrats setting the agenda, making this the first chance to make real progress on Democratic priorities since 2010. (It looks like the Dems will fall just short of capturing the NC Senate, but there are still lots of opportunities for progress.)
- Democrats captured the majority of state US House seats, months after the GOP lackeys in the legislature jammed through an unprecedented mid-cycle redistricting at the behest of the Trump regime.
- Republicans set it up so that they could win 11 of the 14 House seats, but hoo boy did their plans backfire. Democrats are on pace to win 10 of the seats! Among the losers is Tim Moore, who as speaker of the NC House artisanally crafted the borders of NC-14 so that he could shuffle from his perch atop the state House to a sinecure in the Congress. Hope you enjoyed your one term, Tim! Another big-time loser is Richard Hudson, a member of the Republican House leadership and a representative since 2013, who lost to someone whose name we’d never heard of before last night. And the odious Virginia Foxx, a representative since 2005, is down by 79 votes and hopefully on her way into retirement.
There’s lots of work to do, but take a moment to celebrate a great night.
The candidates we helped get elected will continue to need our support, and like it or not, we will have to do this again in two years. This election proves the work is worth it.
Some fun factoids:
- Chatham had the highest percentage of voter turnout in the state (52.4%) Just for reference, Orange County was 48.9%
- The number of mail-in votes looks to have declined compared to previous election years. We assume that concerns that mail in votes might get rejected probably led to some who could to vote in person to skip the possibility of losing their vote.