Democrats Won-- Republicans Steal
Many North Carolinians were paying attention this year. Although Trump beat Kamala 2,898,428 (51.0%) to 2,715,380 (47.8%), Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein did far better than Trump and won the open gubernatorial race, beating Lt. Gov., MAGA lunatic Mark Robinson 3,069,506 (54.9%) to 2,241,308 (40.1%). 657,120 Trump voters chose to not vote for the Republican candidate for governor.
Congressmen Jeff Jackson and Dan Bishop faced off in a contest for the open Attorney General office. Jackson, a moderate Democrat, beat Dan Bishop, a neo-fascist Republican ideologue by nearly 3 points. Democrat Rachel Hunt won the open Lt. Gov. office against Republican Hal Weatherman by around 2 points. And one of the most important races was a challenge by Republican Jefferson Griffin to Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs (D). She’s leading narrowly in a race that will be recounted and litigated.
Long time Secretary of State Elaine Marshall was reelected against Republican challenger Chad Brown by 2 points and dangerous Nazi crackpot Michele Morrow was rejected by voters who opted for Democrat Mo Green by around 2 points. Republicans weren’t wiped out though. GOP candidates were elected Treasurer, Labor Commissioner, Insurance Commissioner (incumbent), Auditor and Agriculture Commissioner (incumbent).
The most vicious gerrymandering in the country had given the Republicans a super-majority in the Assembly. This cycle, 2,694,525 North Carolinian voters (51.1%) opted for Democratic candidates and 2,510,491 (47.6%) voted for Republicans— that’s 184,034 more voters who picked Democrats. And yet… the Democrats won only 49 seats to the Republicans’ 71 seats. Totally outrageous and anti-democracy, pure GOP. Still, it was enough to break their super-majority.
In the 2020 presidential election, Trump won 70 North Carolina House districts, while Biden won 50. As the 2024 election approached, Democrats held three districts where Trump won: district 35 in suburban Raleigh, district 73 around Concord, and district 115 in rural Buncombe County. Republicans, controlled five districts where Biden led: district 5 in Eastern NC, district 24 in Wilson County (flipped blue), district 25 in Nash County, district 32 in Granville and Vance Counties (flipped blue), and district 98 in northern Mecklenburg County (flipped blue). Democrats also won a new district (the 112th).
More North Carolinians also voted for Democrats in the state Senate races— 2,707,588 (50.0%) to 2,636,122 (48.6%) but because of gerrymandering, Republicans won 30 seats to the Democrats’ 20 seats (no change, with the GOP maintaining its super-majority).
So will the Republicans now graciously sit down to work on behalf of North Carolinians with the new executive brand? If you know anything about the North Carolina GOP— a fully fascist operation— you know what that’s an absurd question. Yesterday, Patrick Marley reported that the Republicans “are rushing a bill through the legislature before they lose their supermajority to give their party more control over elections, eliminate the jobs of judges who have ruled against them and limit the authority of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general.”
Now that they’ve lost their veto-proof supermajority, the response is what you would expect from an authoritarian, fascist power: flexing it “while they still have it. They loaded up a $227 million Hurricane Helene relief package with an array of provisions that weaken the hand of Stein and other Democrats in the battleground state. After unveiling the new proposals Tuesday, the state House passed the bill Tuesday night.” The Senate passed it yesterday.
“The lame-duck bill,” wrote Marley, “will shift the ability to appoint members of the state and county elections boards from the governor to the state auditor. That will mean Republicans instead of Democrats will control those boards, which oversee ballot tallies, set voting rules and decide how many early-voting locations to open.” The state Republicans have a sordid history of election fraud and of outright stealing elections
“It’s really one of the more blatant partisan power grabs for authority over elections that we’ve seen in recent years,” said Megan Bellamy, vice president for law and policy for the nonprofit Voting Rights Lab. “And the fact that it’s packaged into a bill that’s meant to provide much-needed hurricane relief and support there is beyond the pale.”
…The bill tightens the time frame— from nine days to three— for voters who don’t have a photo ID with them at the polls to ensure their votes count. Voters who don’t have their ID with them or have other issues that prevent them from casting ordinary ballots can cast provisional ballots that are counted if they later clear up any problems. Under the bill, they will need to act much faster in future elections.
Provisional ballots have proved crucial in this month’s race for state Supreme Court, where the Democratic incumbent leads a Republican challenger by several hundred votes.
Another provision would require officials to review and tally absentee ballots that arrive on Election Day that night. That would add many hours of responsibilities to already overworked election officials, said Gerry Cohen, a Democrat on the Wake County Board of Elections.
“I think it would result in election directors resigning,” he said. “Who would want to administer a process if there’s some legal liability where it’s impossible to actually carry out the law? Impossible.”
Under another section of the bill, the governor must fill any vacancies on the state’s top courts with appointees recommended by the political party of the departing judge. That will prevent Stein from appointing Democrats to fill future openings on the state Supreme Court, where Republicans hold a majority. In addition, the bill will eliminate the jobs of two judges who have ruled against lawmakers.
Republicans’ last-minute move to hamper the power of Democrats echo their efforts in 2016 to limit the authority of Cooper in the weeks between his election as governor and his inauguration. Two years later, Republicans in Wisconsin’s legislature took the same step before Democrats were sworn in as governor and attorney general.
The latest North Carolina bill will also give lawmakers the authority to block the governor’s choice to lead the state highway patrol. And it will curb the power of incoming Attorney General Jeff Jackson (D) by barring him from arguing in court to invalidate state laws— such as the lame-duck measure itself.
Republicans in North Carolina have failed in repeated efforts over the past eight years to take control of the state elections board. Their attempt started with a provision in the lame-duck legislation that stripped power from Cooper just before he took office. A court blocked the change to the state elections board included in that legislation, and the North Carolina Supreme Court later struck down a modified version of the GOP plan.
In 2018, GOP lawmakers asked voters to amend the state constitution to reshape the elections board. Voters rejected the idea.
Most recently, Republican lawmakers passed a measure in 2023 to change the makeup of the board. That bill, too, was blocked by the courts. An appeal is ongoing.