Not Going Away

 

The thing in the closet is the reason for the Greenland Gambit, a major distraction.

Awareness

 

Assisted Living

 

Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.

The power of the less power starts with honesty.

Talarico, Shaking Things in Texas

 

I've written about Texan James Talarico, the young Christian progressive running as a Democrat in the primary for US Senate, the John Cornyn seat. Talarico charmed even Joe Rogan. Rogan said to him on air, "You ought to run for president."

So I got a kick out of the Talarico campaign making hay out of something Cornyn said that was supposed to ring alarm bells. It's an old campaign trick to take your opponent's negative jibe and make it a positive.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Is Gonna Crap in Watauga's Hat (and in every other county's hat in the state)

The "One Big Beautiful Bill" is one of the most significant unfunded mandates and one of the largest shifts of administrative and economic responsibility that our state and our counties have seen in generations.”

-- Kevin Leonard, executive director of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners

Paige Masten reminds us today what an "unfunded mandate" can do to state and local government.

One major piece of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress last year, made big changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), both of which are largely administered through local government, especially county commissions that control social and educational programs. The new law has Medicaid work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. Masten: "Those requirements create new administrative burdens and challenges. The state will have to hire and train more staff, update technology and create data systems to handle the new processes." Counties too.

The bill also contains the largest-ever cut to SNAP funding, forcing states to bear more of the financial and administrative responsibilities of administering the program. It also will require states to pay a percentage of the SNAP benefit costs if they make too many payment errors. According to ProPublica, North Carolina will likely have to start paying out an estimated $420 million annually in SNAP benefits under its current error rate. That means that the share of the state budget required to fund SNAP could rise by 352% in North Carolina, an analysis from the Georgetown University Law Center estimates. 

 It’s a mess....

Masten on the obvious and most likely political fallout:

Politically, it’s going to be a particularly big mess for Republicans, who will bear responsibility for any potential disruptions to, or termination of, benefits. That’s primarily the case for congressional Republicans who voted for the legislation. Some Republican members of Congress have a higher percentage of constituents who rely on Medicaid and SNAP, so any loss of benefits could affect their districts deeply.

 

 

 

The Enemy Is Both Lethal and Stoopid

 

If you say that someone is "in the soup," you mean they are in trouble.

--Google A.I.

"We're in the soup... We've got to do 1914 over again."

--H. G. Wells, Holy Terror

Yeah. That's where we are. But those aren't white potatoes and carrots floating around us. Those are members of an armed, secret fucking army of men prone to violence with a broad license from the president, exhibiting total, even fanatical loyalty to Trump (and a notable hatred for the people they brutalize -- "Fucking lesbian!"). It's just a fact that Trump is willing to send that thug force into cities and states that have offended him, and when that frontal attack doesn't work to silence opposition, he sics the blond in the Department of Justice on his enemies.

Suspending the elections this year ain't just his little "sarcasm." It's an idea a-borning. He has the army to perfect it. It's all about the intimidation. They want us afraid. People like Renee Macklin Good aren't afraid. And she didn't see Jonathan Ross coming.

Trump's handmaids like the three on the State Board of Elections (Four Eggers et al.) are eager to help. Where there was a chance to snuff out Sunday voting for Black folks, Eggers & Co. seized it. They also completed Dallas Woodhouse's scheme to squelch the youth vote. Local Republican-controlled boards of elections in several university counties wanted to eliminate established on-campus Early Voting sites at places like Western Carolina, NC A&T, and UNC-Greensboro -- undoubtedly part of Dallas Woodhouse's private "training" of just the Republicans on local boards. Naturally, Eggers & Co. sided with the Republican majorities on Early Voting plans.

For every attempt to make his enemies afraid and cowed, Trump is always capable of stepping on his own dick, looking weak and pathetic and needy, like the little boy whose father never loved him -- so very devastatingly small.

Can he stop the tide that's building?  Maybe not, but they sure as hell can try to baffle the impact of that wave. The assault on Early Voting plans for the March primary is just one example. Think what they'll try to do to Early Voting plans as we approach November.

Their Gestapo cosplay isn't wearing well and has served best to make the people angrier and more determined to resist. The resistance will be our votes, but in the intervening eight months before we get there, we may be called on in other ways to put our bodies on the line, our breathing into the danger zone, and our rest and quiet to rack and ruin. I have my whistle.

Nomenclature

 

They're calling it "Mar-a-Lago Face," the consequences of too much exposure to the divine.

The Democratic Primary in Congressional Dist. 5

 

It both hurts my heart and thrills me a little to see bright young people without a political base nor financial backing file to run for high-level Federal offices that they probably can't win. I'm studying today on the example of Kyah Jordan Creekmore, running in a primary against second-time candidate Chuck Hubbard for the nomination to take on Virginia Foxx next fall.

Creekmore's polished website features some very motivational writing. He has a firm grasp on what has happened and continues to happen to our politics, our transformation under the oligarchy of billionaires into a permanently unequal administration of benefits and laws. The puny and feckless politicians who should rein in the oligarchs are too often wholly subservient to them. Kyah projects defiance and a penetrating intelligence with no patience for bullshit:

Most politicians — Democrat & Republican — won’t like me because their loyalty is to big money, not the voters who sent them to Congress. I will call them out. I will hold them accountable. They’re like roaches. They scatter when we shine the light on them. They’ll hate when their AIPAC checks and lobbyist donations go viral, when their votes against their own constituents get exposed for what they are. They posture as moral saviors, but the truth is they care more about campaign ads and donor checks than the people in their districts. That ends when we start shining a brighter light.

Kyah tells a tale of being born to a 15-year-old single mother who nevertheless, through remarkable grit and determination and holding down three jobs simultaneously, managed to get her first-born son through NC A&T.

We moved almost every two years. By graduation I had gone through nine schools. Some had broken trailers for classrooms. Others had shiny new facilities. That constant shifting showed me how unfairly opportunity is divided by nothing more than ZIP code.

He sees the same grinding inequities that (in fairness) motivated many a working-class MAGAite in past elections:

I worked corporate retail jobs that drained my time and dignity. They demanded everything while paying barely enough to scrape by. Those jobs did not just show me hardship. They showed me how a system designed to grind people down really works.

He is preaching solid working-class economics and the crying need for reform:

No one should wake up wondering if they can afford insulin, their child’s medicine, or rent.

No student should be learning in a trailer while politicians cut school budgets.

No worker should clock in full shifts and still need food stamps while CEOs brag about record profits.

Housing is not a luxury. It is a human right. Clean air and safe water are not bargaining chips for corporations. And poor families should not be blamed for conditions they did not create.

This is not abstract to me. It is lived reality.

Creekmore lives in Greensboro, where the most recent outrageous gerrymander of Foxx's district wrapped in some Black precincts in Guilford (with an awkward protuberance that looks like a satyr's broken hoof) -- not to help Foxx but to dilute the Black vote in CDs 6 and 9.

But Creekmore points out that the gerrymander raises the population of college students in Foxx's district to some 63,000 potential voters, not just at AppState but also at NC A&T and at UNC-Greensboro. I don't know about that statistic, and I also don't know if Kyah has the resources and help to actively campaign for those 63,000 before the primary.

Police State

 

Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Morality. The only thing that can stop him does not exist in his human makeup. He's shown us over and over that feeling big is his morality, and profiting, just so's he can wet his beak in whatever scheme is afoot, like any successful Capo di tutti i capo, especially a Boss with a private secret police and a cowed congregation of political yes-men and the adoration of enough of those guys of a certain age who love a leader that inflicts pain on others. Kristi Noem, wearing a big cowboy hat like she just finished bartending all night at Bronco Billy's, was part of the applause in the peanut gallery, leading the charge for smearing a liberal white college educated urban woman as a "domestic terrorist."

If the murder of that woman in her car in the streets of Minneapolis -- we all saw it unfold, from several different angles -- if that horrific police-state action by masked and heavily armed men doesn't awaken a moral qualm in you, then maybe Trump threw open your basement door and terrible things have escaped.

He's made his piggy J.D. Vance claim "self-defense" for ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who shot at the Minneapolis woman three times while she was pulling away from him:

Attorney Jenin Younes, a civil libertarian best known for suing the Biden administration for leaning on tech companies to take down misinformation, demolished this argument of “self defense”:

ICE officers have no authority to search a US citizen or arrest her (unless there’s probable cause to believe she’s harboring undocumented individuals, not a contention here). A woman surrounded by masked, armed men who have no law enforcement authority over her has every right to try to escape. Video shows her steering wheel is turned to the right, clearly an attempt to leave WITHOUT hitting anyone and steer clear of the officer standing towards the front of her car. That officer had time to step to the side, which is where he was when he shot her.

Even a real police officer would not have the right to shoot at her for trying to flee. This is well-established in the case law; deadly force may not be used simply to prevent someone from getting away. Given that the ICE officers had no law enforcement authority to begin with, AND the video footage shows she was trying to escape a perceived threat, not to kill anyone, the crime is all the more inexcusable.

We have to hope that citizens with their smart phones will always be filming these secret police. We apparently have no video of the shooting of two individuals in Portland last night, and gawd knows what rights were violated. 

Napoleon Would Know

 

“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”

― Napoleon Bonaparte [h.t. Richard Anderson]

 

Trump Has Other Plans for His Private Goon Force

 

Carla Cunningham May Be in (More) Trouble

 

House District 106 is majority Black. Carla Cunningham has represented the district in the NC House since the election of 2012. She's often been unopposed for reelection, and when she is challenged in a primary, she rarely takes less than 70% of the vote.

Carla Cunningham, Democratic Incumbent

Cunningham already had a growing reputation for voting with the Republican super-majority, but she crossed a couple of lines too many last August when she joined the Republicans in voting to override Governor Stein's veto of H 318, a new immigration enforcement law that makes ICE effectively the boss over local sheriffs. It was not just her vote to override, but a downright astounding floor speech attacking the very idea of immigration. Embarrassingly, she first trumpeted her own racial bona fides:

“I am an ADOS (African Descendant of Slaves), a black American, and an American,” she said. “I support House Bill 318 because it’s time for my unapologetic truth to be shared. It’s not just the numbers of immigrants that matter, but where they come from and the culture they bring. Some come and refuse to adapt, but they must assimilate and respect the laws of the country they wish to live in .... We’ve been naive, exploited, and abused [by illegal immigrants] .... All cultures are not equal.”

Meaning (we take it), "They're not equal to me." An odd thing to hear a Black rep say in the age of Trump. In fact, she seemed to be mimicking Trump's "immigrants are garbage" line of thought.

Cunningham has been half-heartedly apologizing for that floor speech, while simultaneously complaining that it was "those people" who had made her feel threatened and intimidated to the point she blurted out a basically racist rant. Cunningham's feeling the heat.

One of her primary opponents, Vermanno Bowman (see below), sez of Cunningham: "She has a record of voting with Republicans over 80% of the time during the 2023–2024 legislative session, joining Republicans in overriding multiple vetoes from Governor Roy Cooper, and missing 332 votes (43%) in the 2021–2022 session." Being perpetually safe in your gerrymandered seat -- applies to Democrats as much as Republicans -- can make you high-handed and arrogant.

Most recently, Cunningham has signed onto a petition to have Meck Co Sheriff Garry McFadden removed from office, saying he threatened her like a mob boss for her vote on House Bill 318. The threat she alleges happened almost six months ago. If indeed the sheriff threatened her, she didn't mention it to anyone until her reelection primary began to look like her first bad election, because Gov. Stein publicly endorsed...

Rodney Sadler, Dem Primary Challenger

Just this past Monday, Gov. Stein issued this endorsement of church pastor and community activist Sadler: “I am proud to stand with Rev. Dr. Rodney Sadler in his campaign to put people first. The people of North Charlotte deserve a representative who will fight for Democratic values, defend our public schools, and keep costs down. Rev. Dr. Sadler will help us build a North Carolina where we can all afford to thrive.” Sadler’s campaign told the Charlotte Observer that he has raised more than $100,000 and has secured endorsements from labor groups and more than 20 local leaders.

Sadler brings impressive academic credentials. He is a graduate of Howard University (1989, B.S. Psychology/Philosophy) and Howard University School of Divinity (1992, M.Div.). He holds a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Biblical Archaeology from Duke University and has also studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Though he is an ordained Baptist minister, he's also done service in Presbyterian churches and is currently associate professor of Bible and director of the Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Charlotte.

Vermanno Bowman

Vermanno Bowman is perhaps headed for that category called "Perennial Candidate," which could make me sad for this ever earnest Gen Z do-gooder who's got an up-by-the-seat-of-his-pants personal story of poverty and struggle. Bowman has run twice before for the NC House, most recently against Carla Cunningham in 2024. He's back in 2026 with little prospect of success. In his first run in 2022 against another entrenched conservative Black Democrat, Bowman didn't quite get to 17% of the vote. In '24 against Cunningham, he took less, 15%.

Bowman enlisted in the North Carolina Army National Guard and has served as a military police officer for five or six years. He's been an active Democrat in Mecklenburg County, served on the state exec committee, so it must have hurt when Gov. Josh Stein endorsed the other Democrat.

Schietzelt Will Breeze Through His Primary

 

Part of a series examining the candidates recruited by North Carolina Educators on the Ballot (NCEOB) --  progressives running as Republicans to primary incumbent Republicans in the NC House.

 

The Republican Incumbent in H 35

Mike Schietzelt has been in office barely a year so far and is running hard for reelection in House District 35, which the Civitas Partisan Index rates R+0, or "Toss-Up." District 35 is a jagged carved-up mess across northern Wake County meant to give Republican candidates something more than a zero chance to prevail. Schietzelt barely won it in 2024 with a margin of only 1,800 votes over his Democratic opponent Evonne S. Hopkins (who is back again this year for the rematch, if Schietzelt survives his primary). The Libertarian candidate in '24 took 1,500 votes, which demonstrates a potential to bollox the major party, and there's a Libertarian candidate again in 2026.

To look at Schietzelt's website is to see before your astonished eyes a moderate Democrat from approximately 1978 -- affable family man who finds building community and strengthening public schools the greatest virtues of civic life, an ex-Marine who became a lawyer and who is most definitely not into puritanical cruelty and wedge issues, and besides that, he's fun! He once upon a time played in live bands on cruise ships and took his expert horn-playing with him into the Corps, where he became a member of The Commandant's Own Drum and Bugle Corps stationed at the Marine Barracks in Southeast Washington, where he often performed for dignitaries and at special events including burials at Arlington. 

But you start looking deeper, and you start going uh-oh, we may be in trouble.

Duke Law School.

Clerked for Chief Justice Mark D. Martin of the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Worked for the John Locke Foundation, researching and publishing on issues related to the criminal code.

The first Constitutional Law Fellow of Regent University School of Law's Robertson Center for Constitutional Law.

 A Lecturer at Regent, taught courses on the First Amendment and religious liberty.

Schietzelt wrote one of the amicus briefs in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, advocating for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which is exactly what the Supreme Court did. 

An intellectual conservative with a theological bent! Churches uber alles. He has argued the rights of churches to fire because of gayness and to preach a political message from the pulpit. Schietzelt is medieval like that.

But I'll give him this (and take note of the conditional phrasing): Schietzelt sponsored a bill that would have increased starting teacher pay to $50,000 and provided a 22% increase in salaries, and that language was actually incorporated into the House budget proposal, which the NC Senate has stubbornly refused to accept, which is why North Carolina is the only state in the nation with no budget.

The NCEOB Primary Challenger

Wake County Math Teacher Michele Joyner-Dinwiddie was until recently a registered Democrat, but for purposes of this primary she's a liberal Republican focused on fully funding school maintenance and reinstating salary incentives for teachers who earn more advanced degrees.

She has started a Facebook group but she has no website nor other campaign infrastructure. She's on LinkedIn as Michele Joyner

The Democrat

Evonne S. Hopkins is a North Carolina Board Certified Family Law Specialist with some 20 years experience and the founder of the "boutique" Raleigh Law Center specializing in family law. She is married with two children. She earned joint JD/MBA degrees from the University of San Francisco in 2003 and a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in philosophy from Rollins College in 1998. She volunteers with “The Child’s Advocate,” a project of Legal Aid, representing children in high conflict custody cases, work that earned her Legal Aid’s 2023 Pro Bono Hero Award.

Hopkins appears to be well set up to both raise money and to use it effectively in getting boots on the ground to do door-knocking. Attorney General Jeff Jackson added his weight to her campaign launch way back last April.

Hopkins looks strong. In a Blue Wave year, her contrast to Mike Schietzelt's anti-abortion intellectualism should count for plenty.

This Fast-Food King Serves Only Nothingburgers to Western North Carolina

 

Congressman Chuck Edwards

This unsigned editorial in the Smoky Mountain News pretty much blew me away, so I'm copying the whole thing here. Congressman Chuck Edwards has been taking sustained fire over his failure to deliver adequately on Trump promises of Federal disaster help for the Western counties in his Congressional district 11. He's taking on water, and more eyes are on the prospects that Democrat Jamie Ager might actually beat him in November if the 2026 Blue Wave actually hits our shores.

Western North Carolina pulled into the congressional drive-thru after Hurricane Helene, placed a large order and waited. And waited. And waited.

What Rep. Chuck Edwards finally handed his constituents was an empty paper bag containing a rather large nothingburger — heavy on branding, light on substance and nowhere near the $60 billion recovery order his storm-famished district actually placed.

Sure, Congress served up a whopping $100 billion continuing resolution/disaster relief bill in December 2024 — Edwards claimed authorship — but for some damn reason, the meat of it wasn’t designated for Edwards’ constituents. Estimates put North Carolina’s piece of the pie at between $9 billion and $15 billion. In fast food terms, that’s like asking for a 10-piece McNuggets but only getting one.

Days ago on social media, Edwards claimed he was “fighting for Western North Carolina” and bragged about the $6.5 billion he says he’s dished out; not exactly a supersized Big Mac meal with large fry — more like a few stray ketchup packets, leaving people who’ve lost their livelihoods and homes asking, “Where’s the beef?”

In Swannanoa and within sight of some of those damaged homes, Edwards famously gave Trump a McDonald’s fry cook pin — a fitting gesture from a congressman who owns multiple franchises and seems more comfortable serving up symbolism than substance.

In the end, Edwards has delivered a master class in empty calories. Big branding. Greasy fealty. Zero nutrition. Western North Carolina ordered disaster relief and got a Happy Meal toy and a few napkins instead.

While somebody should congratulate Edwards on his award by offering him a steaming hot beverage from the McCafe menu, technically, no one can — because coffee is for closers.

Chuck Edwards town hall, Asheville, March 2025

 

Dual Party Primaries in Knotty House District 32

 

Part of a series examining the North Carolina Educators on the Ballot (NCEOB) who are progressives running as Republicans to primary other Republicans in the NC House.

An Open Seat

House District 32 includes Granville County and over half of Vance, directly north of Raleigh. Dave's Redistricting lists it as 53.1% Democrat v. 42.5% Republican. The Civitas Partisan Index rates it as D + 2 "Lean Dem." 

Short story: There's a Dem primary underway. Winner will face the winner of the Republican primary, also underway, both to be decided on March 3rd. The Republican primary is complicated by a third progressive, running as an NCEOB-endorsed brand new Republican against a doctrinaire former Republican house member looking to make a comeback. In other words, it's kind of a clusterknot.

The Republican Primary

Pamela Ayscue

Former House member Frank Sossamon won the seat in 2022, lost it in 2024 by 228 votes to a Dem who didn't last a year in the job before he said he was done. So Sossamon is trying to get back to Raleigh and he's apparently a strong campaigner -- with the style of a preacher, which he is -- but also with volunteer service cred. He's a pentecostal with strong conservative views. I wrote extensively about him in July 2024. At that time I was skeptical that a Dem could beat him. I was wrong, by 228 votes.

Sossamon is being challenged by retired teacher Pamela Ayscue, who's on the same page with all six candidates recruited by NCEOB -- backing "the Leandro plan," a court-ordered plan never enforced for increasing public education spending to deliver to every NC student their constitutional right to a sound, basic education. This case has been dragged through decades of legal blocks and feints since the original lawsuit was filed in 1994. 

Pamela Ayscue taught in Vance County Schools, one of the original plaintiffs in the Leandro lawsuit. She also taught in Granville County before retiring and is now working for the state Department of Public Safety (NandO).

Ayscue has a very active Facebook feed which shows that she's politically engaged on several issues, but I found no other campaign infrastructure -- no website, no other social media.

She's up against a strong former House member who already has a formidable base. She can't beat him, but perhaps she can refocus some Republican moderates on the plight of public education in the state.

The Democratic Primary

Melissa Elliott

Melissa Elliott

Elliott is the mayor of Henderson, the county seat of Vance Co. a town of 15,000. No Democrat had filed for H 32 up to almost the end of the filing period. On Thursday, the day before the end of filing, Melissa Elliott showed up and put her name in for H 32. What she told the reporter for WIZS radio that day carried a negative vibe and peaked my attention:

“I’m going to run a clean race, in spite of all the dirty things they’ve said about me. I’m just going to be Melissa Elliott, and I feel like all of this [past controversy?] was training for me to have super, super thick skin so no matter what people say, I can still fight for people that don’t necessarily fight for me.”

"I’ve been thinking about running for two years. I got sidetracked or derailed with all of the public scrutiny and then I said to myself, you’ve never let anybody or anything stop you before.” 

The "dirty things" people were saying about her appear to have turned up in a commissioned survey of city employees about their job satisfaction. I have to conclude that the never specified "allegations made by various individuals" concerning Elliott's role as mayor of Henderson bordered on libel. The law firm that conducted the survey, in a formal letter to the town council, seemed to disavow its own report, sending a full refund of the money the town had already anted up for the work -- which might suggest an admission that the "allegations" against Elliott were, as she said, "unverified statements, opinions, and hearsay, primarily originated from individuals with different political or personal perspectives."

After Elliott won the Mayorship of Henderson, following what must have been a contentious runoff, she was recognized as an outstanding Black woman in politics by her alma mater, St. Augustine University in Raleigh. Receiving the award, she said, "Today, I stand on the shoulders of my African and Jewish ancestors as the first Black Woman to be sworn in as the Mayor of Henderson." Henderson is over 60% Black.

Some of the dirt on Elliott is hidden from me behind local press pay walls. There's something about a shady real estate deal and accusations from fellow council members. All-in-all, not a good look for a political candidate at any level, even in a "Lean Democrat" environment. Maybe especially in that environment.

Curtis McRae

Curtis McRae

McRae is a former Marine and a member of the Oxford, NC, city council. From his website: "He served 25 years in federal law enforcement with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, retiring after a distinguished career that included leadership roles as Associate Warden and Warden at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina." Curiously, the same website is silent on his service in Oxford town government.

McRae was first a working member and then an endorsed candidate for DownHomeNC.org, a multi-racial, working-class advocacy group that does "deep canvassing" and surveys rural people. He should have a very good handle on door-knocking and political organizing from that work.

In announcing he wouldn't be running for reelection to H 32, Bryan Cohn, the Dem who beat Frank Sossamon, endorsed McRae, who was also his colleague on the Oxford city council.

Tricia Cotham's Rap Sheet Earns Her a Republican Primary

Tricia Cotham with Dan Bishop, announcing
her party switch

She defected to the enemy in April 2023. By switching parties, she betrayed the Democratic majority that had elected her as a Democrat in her "Safe Democrat" NC House Dist. 112. She quickly became the most unpopular former Democrat in the state: 

EqualityNC: "Tricia Cotham sought ENC's endorsement in 2022 affirming that she held values consistent with our own. Since then, she has betrayed those values, voting against equality by supporting legislation that targets the rights of marginalized communities." The NC League of Conservation Voters said in a statement that Cotham's party switch was "an act of betrayal." CarolinaForward tweeted: "No matter how your morning is going, just remember that you -- unlike @triciacotham -- didn't wake up the most hated and distrusted person in #ncpol." EQV Analytics tweeted: "Big payday, I guess. In just 5 months NC-112's @triciacotham went from opposing 'attacks on our democracy,' 'inequitable funding of public schools,' 'Republican attacks on our health care' & 'Republican attacks on LGBTQ+ youth' to being a Dan Bishop GOPer. Wow."

There had been indications that she had hatched a deal with Republican Speaker Tim Moore, perhaps even before the election, that she would defect the minute Moore needed her to override a Cooper veto. For his "honor escort" to the Speaker's chair when the House reconvened in January of 2023, there was Tricia Cotham, the only Democrat chosen to be at Moore's elbow. A full ten days before making her party-switch official, she cleaned out her desk on the Democratic side and moved her stuff over to a desk on the Republican side. As a notorious defector she quickly voted with her new pals to chisel away at abortion rights and open a bigger pipeline to funnel public education money into private schools where accountability doesn't exist.

Prior to the elections of 2024, everyone knew she wouldn't survive another go in Dist. 112, so redistricting honcho Destin Hall and his committee obligingly drew Cotham's home into a new District 105, which was said in 2024 to be 51.3% Republican vs. 46.5% Democratic and 2.2% "Other" (Dave's Redistricting). Those numbers indicated a close contest. She beat the Democrat by only 213 votes that November. Currently, the Civitas Partisan Index rates Dist. 105 as R+0 or "Toss Up." 

Cotham's Primary Challenger

Kelly VanHorn was recruited as a member of North Carolina Educators on the Ballot (NCEOB) to give Cotham a Republican primary. I'm indebted to Carli Brosseau's September 2025 article in The Assembly for clueing me into NCEOB's project of convincing stand-out educators, most of whom were former Democrats, to infiltrate and subvert the NCGOP -- changing from Democrat or Unaffiliated to Republican on the ballot. Such a tactic I take to be the logical reaction to the continued abuses of power by the Republican hegemony in the General Assembly. When one political party gets too entrenched and self-serving, what else to do but dress as a wolf and walk among the wolves, pretend to join them in order to reform them. The NCEOB might look like wedge-driving, a campaign of disruption. But I consider it a wake-up call to moderate Republicans who've let their party dismantle public education.

Patricia Saylor, the founder of NCEOB, a Democrat, and the person who recruited six NCHouse candidates including Kelly VanHorn, is realistic about overcoming the gerrymanders that Republican members of the General Assembly have drawn for themselves. You don't get anywhere running as a Democrat in most districts. Saylor saw that the only path to influencing education policy would have to be done under the GOP banner. "Running in Republican primaries is the strategy of playing the ball where it lies," said Saylor. She recruited mainly registered Democrats to change their registrations to Republican and to run with a unified pro-public education message.

VanHorn issued a statement pleading with Tricia Cotham to sustain Gov. Stein's veto of H 87, a bill that would "sign North Carolina up for the new federal school voucher program authorized by President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill." Stein vetoed it as just more "hollowing out" of public education, and VanHorn publicly praised Stein's veto: "As a fiscal conservative and a math teacher," she said, "I look at the numbers, not the political narrative. Siphoning millions from our public schools to subsidize private tuition for families already paying it—without reducing our fixed operating costs—is bad math. It inevitably forces local property taxes up to fill the gap. We cannot claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility while funding unaccountable private vendors at the expense of the taxpayer." Sounds like what ought to be Republican gospel.

Despite my hard-headed doubt about the ultimate success of NCEOB candidates, I can't wait to hear Cotham complain about someone who used to be a Democrat changing her party affiliation for the convenience of the moment. Ha! So far, Cotham is being totally quiet about her primary challenger. She's depending on the NCGOP to make the attack, which they're doing. But if VanHorn gets enough funding to build up some steam....Katy, bar the door!

The Democrat on the Ballot

I try to be a practical political operator, so I'm immediately wondering how Democrat Ken McCool's strategists and advisors are navigating a strange world in which you might be hoping that the other Democrat in the race would win her primary against Cotham. That might ultimately pose a dilemma, but that's probably not going to happen.

McCool ran for Matthews Town Commission in 2019 at the age of 20, came in 7th in a very crowded scrum, but only missed snagging one of six at-large seats by some 14 votes. When a vacancy opened up in February of 2020, the Commission recognized his showing in 2019 and appointed him to fill out the term. He was reelected a couple more times, including earning himself mayor pro tem as the top vote-getter. He and his father own Ken's Sports Cards and Collectibles in Indian Trail, which is a suburb of Matthews. According to LinkedIn, he also does subcontractor painting.

He appears to have been both very active and effective as a pro-development member of the town board. He brags about bringing Acceleration Advanced Manufacturing Campus to Matthews, which plans to occupy a large site on the I-485 loop south of Charlotte. Acceleration looks to be a subdivision of Hendrick Motor Sports, which builds high-performance vehicles among other things. McCool also claims ownership for expanding affordable housing in Matthews, delivering tangibles like a new fire station, and making "the largest investment in parks in a generation."

McCool needs an army of volunteers to start doing canvassing all over the district as soon as the weather allows, and his service to Matthews might actually produce the boots on the ground he needs. Cotham ain't gonna be a pushover. She's proven to be a survivor so far.

The Haughtiness of Virginia Foxx

 

Republican Sen. Chris Measmer's Hefty Baggage

My last two entries (below) were prompted by the contents of a letter Sen. Amy Galey of Alamance County, a Majority Republican Whip in the NC Senate, wrote to Sheriff Sam Page, begging him not to run a primary against Phil Berger, because it would endanger the reelection of three sitting Republican senators. Sen. Lisa Stone Barnes was No. 1. Sen. Michael Lee of New Hanover was No. 2. Chris Measmer is third and last of this series (which has been both passing strange and highly interesting to research).

A Democrat -- April Cook -- is registered to run to replace Chris Measmer in the NC Senate (Dist. 34), but she's probably the least of his troubles going into 2026, because 1st-term Senator Measmer has his own primary, and he's dragging a lot of bad juju.

The vibe Chris Measmer gives off is pure trumpist -- bullying, ignoring the rules, corrupt and self-serving. He says on his website that his family has been in Cabarrus since 1810 and that he's the proud second-generation owner of a very venerable family business (also a very active member and lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business), but nowhere can I discover what business.

Measmer was only just appointed to the Senate in April 2025 to fill out the term of Paul Newton. There was a big cloud over Measmer's appointment. The retiring Sen. Newton, who was decamping to an administrative role at UNC, signaled to the Cabarrus Co. Republican executive committee his preference for his replacement, a woman (probably Harrisburg Mayor Jennifer Teague), but after what was apparently a very contentious four-hour interview with some seven total office-seekers -- who all thought they'd make splendid and useful state senators -- the exec comm defied Paul Newton and chose Chris Measmer, the chair of the Cabarrus Co Commish who had already exhibited a wheeling-and-dealing streak that put him in a harsh spotlight.

As the new chair of the CoCommish, Measmer took a trumpist axe to experienced county employees who he perceived to be in his way. He terminated both the county manager and the county attorney, enabled by a slim majority of two other Republicans (one of which is Larry Pittman, formerly of NC House fame). Measmer wanted Sean Newton of Charlotte as the new manager. Newton (no kin of the retiring Sen Newton) had never worked in local government and had a thin resume, but Measmer made sure he got the job. Only then did it become known that Newton -- and by extension Measmer -- had concealed a major conflict of interest. Measmer and Newton had partnered in a new "food manufacturing" business that registered with the Secretary of State and then dissolved a couple of years later, an apparent dream that died.

Measmer's chief antagonist on the CoCommish, Kenny Wortman, raised holy hell in March 2025 over what Measmer had done, moved to rescind the appointment of the new manager (a vote which failed 3-2), and then made a principled statement about how once conservative Republicans viewed public integrity: “The way this looks now is horrific. It looks like the headline is going to be ‘the county fires a 63-year-old man with 38 years of experience and replaces him with somebody under 40 because he’s your friend and former partner.’ ” Measmer got his way for county manager, then quickly bulled his way through the political jawboning to replace Paul Newton in the Senate, and even then he wasn't through abusing power: He engineered and participated in the quickie vote on the co commish for his own replacement, "the most extreme replacement possible," according to the NCDP, a flagrant abuse of power that was soon overturned in court.

Measmer's Primary Opponent

Kevin Crutchfield

Kevin Crutchfield was one of the other seven contenders who wanted the appointment to Paul Newton's seat, so he may well have a longstanding grudge against Measmer the incumbent. Crutchfield had succeeded Larry Pittman in a Cabarrus Co house seat in 2022, and then got ousted in 2024’s GOP primary by slick operator Brian Echevarria, about whom I spilled some digital ink in Feb. 2024. WBTV reported in December that Crutchfield later sought a job in Gov. Josh Stein’s administration.

Echevarria only beat Crutchfield by 167 votes, and Crutchfield is pretty well embedded in the Cabarrus business community. He lists (unlike Mr. Measmer) all his business interests on his website. He is president and CEO of The Crutchfield Group Ltd.,  a residential building and equipment leasing operation, and president and CFO of Casco Signs Inc. with some 45 employees.

There's every reason to think Crutchfield could make his comeback against such a tarnished incumbent as Measmer. Whoever wins this primary will be up against...

April Cook, Democrat

Dave's Redistricting offers discouraging numbers for NC Senate 34: 54.2% Republican v. 43.6% Democrat. But the Civitas Partisan Index ranks it only R+2, "Lean Republican," and in a blue wave ... well, you do the math. Plus, if Chris Measmer wins his primary, and even if he doesn't, the Republican brand seems somewhat tarnished in Cabarrus County.

April Cook has 20 years of experience and a base in the world of charitable health care and community clinics. She was the co-founder with her husband Dr. David Cook of the Lake Norman Community Health Clinic (now owned by Atrium Health and Novant Health and renamed the Cook Community Clinic in honor of April and David). Dr. David Cook remains the medical director but April has moved on to the Board of the NC Association of Free and Charitable Clinics (NCAFCC), a network of 65 free and charitable clinics providing free healthcare to uninsured patients. April's is eleemosynary work of the highest order.

In other words, she could be a contender if she has the volunteers and the backing to put boots on the ground and get her name and her dedicated work known. In a time when Trump's Big Beautiful Bill is decimating healthcare for the poorest of citizens, April Cook would seem to have the juice to draw a distinction between herself and what the policies of the Republican Party have wrought.