Tar Heel Electioneering

As the mid-term elections begin to amble into focus, my home state of North Carolina, like many locations around the country, contains elements of blatant fuckery by the majority political party as well as signs of hope that there may be a path through the present miasma. 

I’ve written previously that the birthplace of Vince McMahon, John Coltrane and Michael Jordan is a purple state that’s been gerrymandered and re-districted of late to glow red. Republicans hold a 71-49 advantage in the state house of representatives and 30-20 edge in the state senate. Yet as recently as 2022, the state’s Congressional delegation was split evenly 7-7 with Republicans and Democrats. But the state legislature monkeyed with district maps ahead of the 2024 election and resulted in 10 GOP seats out of 14, despite less than 53 percent casting votes for Republicans. 

Hmmm, you might say, that doesn’t appear to be proportional representation. Fear not: they weren’t finished. After President Reflecting Pool called on Republican-led states to change the maps so that more elephants will be elected to Congress, the state drew new lines last year that will likely result in an eleventh GOP rep. To do so, they carved up all eight of the state’s majority-Black counties, which were concentrated in NC’s First District, and splintered them among several conservative-leaning districts (your counter-argument about blue-state gerrymanders is duly noted). 

Similar moves are being played out in several other Southern, conservative-leaning states, with the tacit backing of the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS has chipped away at the 1965 Voting Rights Act in recent years, most recently in Louisiana v. Callais, essentially ruling that race-based voting districts are unconstitutional, partisan gerrymandering is perfectly acceptable, and good luck proving that race is the cause of any sort of voting or representative shortfall. Meanwhile, Republicans who control North Carolina’s state and county election boards want to move early-voting sites away from college campuses and to reduce Sunday voting. Both could impact student and Black voters, who tend to vote Democrat. 

Boliek. Yeah, this tracks.

A New York Times piece reported that three counties were instructed to move voting sites and one county to eliminate Sunday voting, which is popular among Black voters. Democrats and voting rights groups claim that the changes are the result of pressure from a gent named Dave Boliek, the Republican state auditor of election boards. Boliek has held the position since 2024 after the state legislature stripped Governor-elect Josh Stein, a Democrat, of power over election boards. Boliek subsequently appointed Republican majorities and a Republican chairperson to all 100 county election boards. 

For his part, Boliek claimed that pushback is typical partisan griping from Democrats after power shifted from their party to the opposition. He conveniently omitted that legislative scales were tilted to assure said Republican control. 

So where’s the hope, the glimmer of possibility that me and my Tar Heel State brethren aren’t sentenced to one-party rule and representation? Well, the governor’s mansion is a good place to start. Stein was elected comfortably in 2024, which marked the third consecutive gubernatorial election that a Democrat won. In fact, all three of the state’s top office holders, Stein, Lieutenant Gov. Rachel Hunt and Attorney General Jeff Jackson, are Democrats. The Republican-led legislature has done its darnedest to neuter the governor’s powers in recent years but both Stein and his predecessor served honorably. 

Speaking of his predecessor, two-term former Gov. Roy Cooper is running for the open Senate seat that Republican Thom “Unnecessary H” Tillis will vacate at the end of his term. Tillis last summer chose not to run for re-election after opposing Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill because of its cuts to health care and because of increasing discomfort over being forced into GOP lockstep with all things Trump. 

Cooper gives Democrats a solid chance at flipping the seat and narrowing the Republicans’ 53-47 Senate majority. He is polling ahead of GOP candidate Michael Whatley, the former chair of the state Republican party and chair of the Republican National Committee in 2025, a Trump endorsee who has never held public office. Cooper is running a simple, folksy campaign whose primary slogan is Make Stuff Cost Less. He refers to his campaign schedule as the Make Stuff Cost Less Tour. He doesn’t rail against Trump and keeps the rhetoric lukewarm. A favorite refrain is, “For so many North Carolina families, there’s just too much month at the end of the money,” which is about as close to glib as he gets. 

He governed mostly center-left and without scandal, so attempts to portray him as some sort of radical will likely fall flat. The primary GOP accusation against him thus far is: he’s a Democrat, which for many is disqualifier enough. Republicans will sink a fuckton of money into the fall campaign because it’s a contested seat, and the race figures to be tight because, hellooo, purple state. Anyway, not necessarily sturdy limbs on which to climb, but these days you take what you can get.