While I’m sure you receive countless emails telling you to vote for some robotic and generic candidate, I want to give some context about why it is truly so important this year as someone who has been working in local politics since 2016.
The streak of era-defining elections is set to continue with the quickly approaching Nov. 8 midterms. This midterm is set to define the future of President Joe Biden’s term, Governor Roy Cooper’s term and the future of North Carolina.
As a nationally renowned “purple state,” North Carolina is usually split directly down the middle of the ballot. With a Democratic governor and Republican legislature, we could be in for real changes this year.
One of the biggest policies at stake in North Carolina this year is Governor Cooper’s veto. In the North Carolina legislature, a party needs 60 percent of the seats in both the House (72 of 120) and Senate (30 of 50) to have a supermajority capable of overturning governor vetoes. This year, the Republican party has a fair chance at achieving that.
Currently, the Republican party in North Carolina has 69 seats in the House and 28 in the Senate, fairly alarming numbers when you learn what this will mean for the state if they are successful this November.
In the midterm, Democratic candidates like Rep. Ricky Hurtado in Alamance county and Sen. Sydney Batch in Wake county are competing in tight races— only made tighter by gerrymandering— that will determine the state legislature’s actions in 2022.
Cooper has used his governor’s veto about 75 times, more than any other North Carolina governor in history, due to the extreme nature of bills Republicans in the legislature have tried to pass.
Cooper has vetoed bills surrounding abortion restriction, requiring local sheriffs to work with ICE, exempting some concealed carry permit holders from taking safety courses, and taking funding from election administrators along with moving up vote-by-mail deadlines in an effort to restrict voting.
The N.C. Supreme Court is also up for grabs with a 4-3 Democratic majority that looks uncertain with two Democratic justices up for election. Lucy Inman is running for one of the seats and Sam Ervin is running for another term. The elections of Justices Inman and Ervin will decide whether or not the state has fair voting maps, abortion rights and protected voting in the coming years.
As an example of how powerful a small number of votes can be, Cheri Beasley, the current Democratic Senate candidate lost her 2020 race for Chief Justice of the N.C. Supreme Court by only 401 votes. If five more people in each North Carolina county voted for Beasley, they would have flipped the outcome of an important statewide election.
All this is to say, don’t disregard your local races or the power of a single vote. This year, only a few seats will make the difference for the protections and rights we are given by the state.
Photo Courtesy of Tiffany Allen
