A Big Blue Earthquake hit North Carolina Last Week...

A massive political earthquake that just hit North Carolina – we are – if votes hold – sending 11 Democrats to Congress this year and NC Democrats now have the majority in the state house for the first time in over a decade. 

 

North Carolina is a heavily gerrymandered state and this outcome is startling (an understatement.) And this will have national implications in that NC congressional winners have contributed to the massive shift to Democrats in the US House, eliminating Mike Johnson's speakership. 

 

When I moved to North Carolina in 2011, NCGOP had solidified all power in the state house - soon after I arrived, GOP super majorities kicked in both the state House and state Senate - our governor was Republican – our US senators were Republicans - our elected state judges were predominantly Republicans. 

 

After SCOTUS scuttled VRA protections with the Shelby ruling back in 2013, NCGOP immediately started passing laws that targeted Black voting patterns with "surgical precision" (language from a federal court ruling.) 

 

In 2022, the NC congressional map, developed after years of litigation and a court-ruling ordering a non-partisan group to create the map, was responsible for a 7 GOP-7 DEM map. 

 

Because NCGOP gained control of the NC Supreme Court, they then legalized maps that gave NCGOP power into infinity. My own rep, Virginia Foxx, was the beneficiary of their maps. In 2024 as a result of extreme partisan gerrymandering, the congressional map shifted to 10 GOP-4 Dems (remember than when you think about how slim Mike Johnson's majority was in Congress.) 

 

In 2026, Senate President Phil Berger, Sr. redrew the map in a mid-decade gerrymandering held behind closed doors with no Democratic input in order to gain Trump's endorsement. He and his cronies created an 11 GOP-3 DEM map. 

 

But poor Phil, Sr.! He lost in his PRIMARY by less than 50 votes. And now DEMS will be sending 11 reps to Congress! It's truly astonishing and voters are the reason for this massive shift. 

 

(Maybe a lesson to be learned by state officials is to PASS THE STATE BUDGET instead of letting it twist in the wind for more than a year after the deadline, as Phil Berger, Sr. chose to do.) 

 

So this year, NC voters had other ideas than to remain victim to GOP gerrymandering. Now NC Democrats have a slim majority in the NC House – this is MONUMENTAL, given how gerrymandered the state is. Democrats ran in many races across the state even knowing how the odds were stacked against them. And they won.

 

Our local commission was gerrymandered by a STATE bill targeting ONE county - ours – a couple of years ago. In 2024, it went from Democratic majority to 100 percent Republican thanks to the shenanigans in state government. This year, I was not able to vote for ANY commissioner, thanks to the GOP gerrymandering of my county.

 

(The party of "small government" likes to pass laws impacting just our county - it has been quite remarkable and eye-opening to watch, as someone who hails from Illinois, with its own history of corruption and Machine politics.) 

 

Now NC is sending Democrat Roy Cooper to the US Senate to replace Republican Thom Tillis. The Watauga Commission has two Democrats on board (instead of 100 percent Republican.) We are likely sending a Democratic rep to the NC House. And Virginia Foxx, our longtime US rep in Congress seems poised to retire and head back to her mountain home, where she can squabble with her neighbors to her heart's content (after Helene, she refused to let her neighbors use her private road when theirs was destroyed.) 

 

Voters want budgets passed; they want government to be the solution, not the problem. And so in NC this year, they voted for huge changes.