One seat could determine Republican supermajority in North Carolina state House elections

By Lara Bonatesta for Ballotpedia

All 120 seats in the North Carolina House of Representatives are up for election on Nov. 5, 2024. Heading into the election, there are 70 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and two vacancies in the House. Three incumbents — one Democrat and two Republicans — lost in the primaries. Click here to learn more.

After the 2022 elections, Republicans had a 71-49 majority in the House and a 30-20 majority in the Senate. The House majority expanded to 72-48 in April 2023 when Rep. Tricia Cotham announced she was switching parties from Democrat to Republican, giving Republicans veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the legislature. North Carolina requires a three-fifths vote from both of its legislative chambers to override a gubernatorial veto. Assuming no vacancies, that amounts to 72 of the 120 members in the state House and 30 of the 50 members in the state Senate. This means that as Republicans are looking to expand their supermajorities in both chambers in 2024, Democrats are one seat away from breaking them.

Because Gov. Roy Cooper is a Democrat, North Carolina is one of 10 states with a divided government and one of four states with a veto-proof state legislature and an opposing party governor. North Carolina has had a divided government since Cooper assumed office in 2017. Because Republicans also control the Senate, the outcome of the House elections alone can not change North Carolina’s trifecta status. North Carolina will also hold its gubernatorial election on Nov. 5.

The 2024 elections are the first state legislative elections after the General Assembly adopted new district boundaries following the 2020 census.

Ballotpedia identified 22 House battleground districts. Of those, Democrats currently hold 10 and Republicans hold 12.

The primary was March 5, 2024, and the primary runoff was May 14, 2024. The filing deadline was December 15, 2023. The North Carolina House of Representatives is one of 85 state legislative chambers with elections in 2024. There are 99 chambers throughout the country.

Five N.C. Senate seats out of 50 may change N.C. political dynamic

By David Mildenberg for BusinessNC

The North Carolina State Senate is now split between 30 Republican members and 20 Democrats, providing the three-fifths supermajority that has enabled the GOP to pass legislation and override Gov. Roy Cooper’s vetoes on repeated occasions.

The N.C. Democratic Party is pinning its hopes on gaining at least one Senate seat in the November election, taking away the supermajority power. The GOP also has a supermajority in the N.C. House, 72 to 48, with Democrats needing to pick up four seats to gain influence.

There are three hyper-competitive Senate seats, plus two more that could be in potential play, says Alex Baltzegar, executive director of the N.C. Free Enterprise Foundation, or NC FREE. Three seats are held by Republicans, two by Democrats.

More than $2 million is being spent on some of those races, mostly from the two party’s fundraising organizations, he says. Attorney General Josh Stein, who polls show is likely to trounce Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson in the gubernatorial campaign, has shifted $3 million to the House and Senate caucuses to support Democratic candidates.

These are the competitive races:

• District 18, where Democratic candidate Terence Everitt is facing Ashlee Adams in what Baltzegar says is the most competitive Senate election. The district covers Granville County and a slice of Wake County. Everitt is a lawyer who served three terms in the N.C. House. Adams runs an event planning business in Wake Forest. Incumbent Mary Willis Bode, a Democrat, is stepping down.
• District 11, which pits Republican incumbent Lisa Barnes versus Democratic candidate James Mercer. Barnes’ family operates a farming business, while Mercer is a retired military officer who runs a nonprofit. The district stretches from Rocky Mount to Henderson and the Virginia state line.
• District 7 has Republican incumbent Michael Lee facing Democratic challenger David Hill. a pediatric physician. The district includes Wilmington. Democrats have spent about $1.25 million on the Lee-Hill race, less than in other ones where they may feel they have better chances, Baltzegar says.

Two other potentially tight Senate races are in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, Baltzegar says.

• District 13, which covers fast-growing southern Wake, has Democratic incumbent Lisa Grafstein facing challenger Scott Lassiter. He gained fame for suing House Speaker Tim Moore over the fallout of an extramarital affair. Lassiter later dropped the suit. Grafstein is an employment lawyer. Lassiter is a public school administrator.
• District 42 in southeast Charlotte. The district has been represented by Democrat Rachel Hunt, who is running for lieutenant governor against Republican Hal Weatherman.

Hoping to succeed Hunt are two first-time candidates: Democrat Woodson Bradley and Republican Stacie McGinn. Bradley is a residential real estate broker, while McGinn was among a senior Bank of America attorney from 2004-11 and a former partner at two large New York law firms.

The nominees’ stands on issues, such as abortion, public school funding and tax policy, mirror their respective parties. Woodson stresses her advocacy for rights of domestic-abuse victims and increased school spending.

McGinn has focused her campaign on Bradley’s participation from 2008-13 in Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, a direct-sales company that was placed into receivership after investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and several state attorneys general, including Roy Cooper. (He held the post for 16 years before being elected governor in 2016.)

Bradley noted she was among Fortune Hi-Tech’s largest earners, according to a now-deleted LinkedIn post. Bradley says she was an independent contractor and had no management authority

The district leans Democratic and has not received major party funding, Baltzegar says.

Editor’s note: for more information, one would be well-served by reading the North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation’s “Partisan District Scores” and the John Locke Foundation’s “Introducing the 2024 Civitas Partisan Index.”

The preceding articles “One seat could determine Republican supermajority in North Carolina state House elections” and “N.C. Senate seats out of 50 may change N.C. political dynamic” originally appeared on August 24, 2024 at Ballotpedia’s website and on August 25, 2024 at BusinessNC’s website, respectively. These articles are made available here for educational purposes only and do not imply CLC’s support for any opinions or political candidates. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Photo above: The Legislative Building in downtown Raleigh NC, and the North Carolina state seal.