A reality check is need for North Carolina’s battered democracy

Like in every election year, the North Carolina current political scene is frothy with excitement. The statewide races are high-stakes and tightly contested, with an immensely consequential governor’s race complemented by competitive contests for attorney general, lieutenant governor, and superintendent of public instruction. Vice President Kamala Harris has a serious chance of winning North Carolina — a victory that President Joe Biden craved but lost in the course of a tumultuous campaign. It’s all heady and facilitates a quickening pulse.

But the dramatic campaigns capturing the state’s attention are taking place against a backdrop of unspoken despair. North Carolina’s elections, while competitive at the top of the ticket, have become profoundly limited by anti-democratic policies. The range of electoral outcomes has become stunted and skewed in a completely predetermined direction. And because of gerrymandering, the most consequential parts of the ballot have been rendered essentially superfluous.

Even more so than in other parts of the country, the legislative branch of government constitutes the supreme driver of statecraft in North Carolina. Under the original state constitution, the governor was appointed by the legislature and served in office for only one year. Legislators had unbridled power to pass and repeal laws until former Gov. Jim Hunt pushed through a gubernatorial veto in 1996, and even that veto power was much weaker than the powers enjoyed by other governors and the president of the United States. Legislative elections determine the shape of government in North Carolina.

After 13 years of extreme partisan gerrymandering, those elections are, effectively and fully, rigged. Of the 170 state House districts, only eight—that is, 5%– are rated competitive by nonpartisan analysts. The Senate is a bit more “democratic” with about 10% of the districts potentially swinging between the parties. But the overall picture is so distorted that, even though Democrats could win the governor’s race by a landslide margin, their most realistic aspiration is to break the GOP’s veto-proof majority and contain the damage of future legislatures. 

Furthermore, the process of drawing these almost parodic districts remains rife with corruption and abuse. Representative Terrence Everitt was effectively evicted from his seat in retaliation for calling on the authorities to investigate House Speaker Tim Moore’s ample record of crooked behavior. Everitt wisely gave up on the new seat the GOP drew for him and opted to run for the Senate.

North Carolina will almost certainly have a large Republican majority in its legislature after November. Its congressional delegation will likely feature a cohort of Republicans engorged by extreme partisan gerrymandering, as well. Almost all analysts expect the GOP to win 10 out of 14 districts almost by default.

This fatalism applies even though places like the Sand Hills and suburban Wake County domicile large numbers of independent swing voters whose presence could make those communities competitive in congressional races. They have been disenfranchised, and this affront to democracy has significant national implications because North Carolina has so many House members. The intrigue over military veteran Laurie Buckhout’s challenge to Congressman Don Davis in the state first congressional district has distracted many observers from the fact that our legislature has taken up to three congressional seats off the table in a divided congress. North Carolina’s authoritarianism could be the weapon that allows the right to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

We need a reality check. North Carolina’s democracy is desperately flailing, and the competitive statewide races merely represent a life preserver, or maybe a frayed piece of rope, tossed to the voters from the sinking ship. Authoritarian forces have vitiated democracy in the most important realm of electoral competition—the legislature—and passed so many bills to obstruct the fair operations of elections that I do not have the space to enumerate them here. We can enjoy the drama of the horse race, but the ultimate results of the elections were determined long ago by a few powerful men in a few back rooms on Jones Street in Raleigh.