supermajority
After switch, they’re set to party hearty
The forces in North Carolina’s General Assembly aligned with what typically are seen as progressive causes – including strong public schools, fair and adequate taxation, wide access to decent health care, racial justice, elections open to meaningful participation by all qualified voters – began the month of April with their hopes hanging by a thread. […]
Thanks to gerrymandering, the policy stakes in this fall’s elections in NC are much bigger than they ought to be
North Carolina is a deeply “purple” state. That is to say it’s one in which statewide elections between Republicans and Democrats tend to be very close. A classic example: The 2020 contest for state Supreme Court chief justice in which the incumbent Cheri Beasley (the current Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate) lost to Republican challenger Paul Newby (then an associate justice on the court) by 0.00007% -- just 401 votes out of the almost 5.4 million cast.
A requiem for the GOP supermajority, and other post-election thoughts
Ever been to a funeral where no one had anything nice to say about the dearly departed? That’s the feeling today, with North Carolina now weeks away from burying the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly. North Carolina voters handed down a good many split decisions in these elections, which like it or not, were always going to be skewed to the right by GOP gerrymandering.