Democrats should change priorities and the campaign battlefield

They should emphasize judicial races as much as legislative ones and support non-traditional candidates challenging Republicans

A few weeks ago, Bryan Anderson published a list of North Carolina general election candidates along with partisan lean in Congressional and legislative races. (You should subscribe to Bryan’s substack, Anderson Alerts.) The numbers provide a look at the devastating impact extreme gerrymandering has on electoral competition. Republicans have effectively ended democracy in all but one of the races for Congress in the state. It’s a political strategy to control government by making elections irrelevant.

Republicans used what is called “packing and cracking” to insure that voters don’t have choices or that the choices don’t matter. A look at the Democratic Congressional districts is startling. In the Second Congressional District where Democrat Deb Ross is the incumbent, the partisan lean is 35%, meaning she will likely win the district by 35 points. In NC-04, where Democrat Val Foushee is the incumbent, the partisan lean is 46%. In NC-12, Democrat Alma Adam’s district, the partisan lean is a full 50%.

That’s packing. Republicans have put as many Democratic voters in as few districts as possible, watering down their ability to influence other Republican-held districts. To achieve their goal, they split Democratic areas in counties like Wake, Chatham, and Cumberland. That’s the cracking part.

As a result, Republicans were able draw ten districts where the Republican partisan lean is between 11% and 18%. While GOP wins will be narrower than the obscene margins for Democrats, Republican success is all but guaranteed nonetheless. No swing in the electorate will make the districts competitive, especially not in a high-turnout year like 2024.

The only district that’s competitive is NC-01 where Democratic Congressman Don Davis is slightly favored based on a 1% partisan lean and his incumbency. The district is predominantly rural with a significant African American population but the counties within it are trending more red than blue. Democrats will have to fight to keep it in their column for years to come even if they hold it in November.

We got here because North Carolina’s Supreme Court has become openly partisan, ignoring precedent and respect for previous courts. Chief Justice Paul Newby’s newly elected conservative court took up cases that had just been decided and overturned them, destroying institutional norms that provide certainty and trust. Newby has decided the court should operate more like a legislative body than judicial one.

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow partisan gerrymandering runs counter to the intent of the Founding Fathers and to the state’s constitution. The electoral system was designed to provide choices, not protect power. Ignoring precedent and destroying institutional norms erodes confidence in our judicial system and exacerbates the hyper-partisanship driving our politics today.

That said, Democrats need to play by the new rules. They should put a serious emphasis on judicial races, especially at the appellate level. They might not be able to gain a majority on the Supreme Court in 2024, but they can make progress by electing Allison Riggs to whittle down the conservative majority. They can also elect three candidates for Court of Appeals, Ed Eldred, Martin Moore, and Carolyn Thompson. Republicans need to know that North Carolinians are watching and want a check on their power.

While taking back the Supreme Court is the long term strategy to address the constitutionality of the grievous gerrymandering, Democrats should look at changing the playing field. In NC-09, Shelane Etchison is running for Congress as an independent in a district designed to protect Republican incumbent Richard Hudson from a Democratic challenge. The district has as many unaffiliated voters as Republicans and Etchison’s ties to the district are arguably stronger than Hudson’s. Democrats should get on board and give Hudson a run for his money.

As Republicans have taken increasing control of state government, they’ve changed the rules to limit democracy. They used extreme gerrymandering to lock in their partisan advantage in deeply skewed districts and then wrecked the norms of the Supreme Court to remove any checks and balances to their power. Democrats are still playing by the old rules. They need to put as much emphasis on judicial races as they do legislative ones and they need to change the layout of the campaign battlefield, supporting and recruiting alternative candidates like Etchison instead of sending symbolic, sacrificial candidates into the general election.

By now, Democrats should know what doesn’t work. They should try something different.