Signs of Life

 

Jamie Ager, in his element

Last Saturday, the State Board of Elections (SBOE) released new voter registration stats covering the first half of 2026:

Unaffiliated up 4,136, to total of 3,113,007

Democrats up 578, to total of 2,316,541

Republicans up 379, to total of 2,327,131

[The Center Square]

Democrats now rank third in registrations in North Carolina. By a hair, only 10,500 voters behind the Republicans. Perhaps ironically or perhaps prophetically, the only party to register fewer new voters than the Democrats so far in 2026 are the Republicans. Obviously, everyone's fate is in the hands of the numero uno Unaffiliateds. And I like them odds.

That 10k Republican advantage over Democrats becomes irrelevant if pollsters are right that an "enthusiasm gap" has yawned between the two (thank you, DJT!). The most recent right track/wrong track polling I've seen from North Carolina was conducted by High Point University in March and April, questioning 800 registered voters (703 of them considered "likely voters"). More of them thought North Carolina was on the wrong track (47%) than on the right track (31–32%), with a whopping 20% "undecided" because they haven't paid attention and don't know what's been going on.

I was just reading in the Asheville Watchdog about the enthusiasm gap that's opened in the 11th Congressional District, where Democrat Jamie Ager is outraising incumbent Republican Chuck Edwards some 9-1. In the heat of Ager's rise -- on September 11, 2025, the Cook Political Report moved the 11th from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican"; on June 18, 2026, Cook moved the race again, this time from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican" -- Congressman Edwards, lightening ship, sold all his McDonald's franchises. Ager had Pete Buttigieg at a fundraiser out on his farm. One campaign has a funerary aspect; the other pulses with life.

Total registrations by party in the 11th CD (latest numbers):

Democratic 107,989

Republican 180,267

Unaffiliated 164,871

Like I said before, I like them odds.

Alaska, Knocking and Rising

 

Mary Peltola

 

 

Amazing Number: 70,000. The total number of registered Democrats in all of Alaska -- which represents just 12% of the 574,000 total registered voters. About 65% of Alaskans are registered Independent, but the state as a whole has been solidly red. 

Which is why Mary Peltola, the first Alaska Native elected to Congress who is now the Democratic candidate for one of Alaska's Senate seats, has discovered a new (well, no, "new to her") secret weapon for winning an otherwise improbable campaign: Door-knocking with a new purpose (and not just knocking up the Democrats but going strong after the Republican-leaning-but-persuadable Independents, the vast majority). Rather than repeating by rote a "Vote for Mary" message, the "Ground Truth technique" is called "deep listening." (This kind of canvassing, based on good data, is old-hat in my neighborhood of Southern political organizing. But I understand why any brand of door-knocking in Alaska, where there's sometimes -- often? -- great distances between residences and pootie weather to boot, has probably never been pursued as a standard political activity by party organizers.)

Peltola has engaged Swing Left to implement the Ground Truth canvassing program, which is a great move, so long as two other things are true:

1. That Peltola has sufficient volunteers to mount that kind of painstaking and time-consuming voter outreach.

2. That those volunteers are thoroughly trained in listening techniques and can operate a phone to record data.

The Senate seat is currently occupied by carpet-bagger Republican Dan Sullivan, an ex-Marine who moved up from Ohio as an adult and who wouldn't dare deviate from MAGA. Pundits heavily favor Sullivan to hold onto his seat. The Cook Political Report has rated the race "Solid Republican," but more recently Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia moved it to "Toss-Up." Peltola has to overcome the loser label: she only served one term in the House before losing reelection in 2024. True, she had beaten Sarah Palin in 2022, but that was politically "in the Long Ago." Peltola has been "moderate," which in her case means practical and rarely ideological, with the interests of Alaska uppermost. She's been one of the most independent Democrats, and she might just ride the wave into the Senate, especially if she can get a sizable chunk of the independent electorate engaged by simply listening at their doors.

Satisfaction

 

I began working in politics in 1968, canvassing for registered Democrats in Salt Lake City who would promise to attend their precinct meetings and help elect delegates to the state convention who supported the anti-war Eugene McCarthy for the presidential nomination. I was very much of draft age. And I was very unsuccessful. All 20 precincts I was assigned to organize went for Hubert Humphrey. It was my first taste of insurgent politics, with its sweet aftertaste of defeated idealism.

I did not go back to political organizing until 1990, when we helped carry our rural Western North Carolina county for Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte who was running to unseat Jesse Helms. I was a true believer for Gantt, and I had convinced myself that he would -- could -- win the whole state. Belief is a kind of drug. Gantt lost by 107,000 votes, a sobering number. 

You got to believe to do politics, but you also have to level up on reality. If you thrive on the hunt, you also know starvation. But when the big game is plentiful, fat, and slovenly, you're allowed a certain expectation that this time a big feast will follow.

If I were a young man again, I'd be knee-deep right now in some wholly improbable attempt to topple a Republican monument. The paint is peeling off the Republican Party, and the most improbable Democratic candidate could, in such a toxic watery environment, bring down the buffalo. I expect pleasant surprises.

Anything less will leave me unsatisfied.

Propects As High As an Elephant's Eye

 

Introductory campaign videos from the wave of Democratic candidates who could make Iowa a hot news topic.

Josh Turek, running for U.S. Senate:

  

 

 

Rod Sand, running for Governor:

 

 

 

Lindsay James, running for Congress, Iowa 02:

 

 

 

Christina Bohannan, running for Congress, Iowa 01:

 

 

Sarah Garriott, running for Congress, Iowa 03:

 

When Contemplating the US Senate, Drugs Help

 

Connie Schultz

 

 

I wish I could see into the future. I wish I were a prophet, divinely guided. I would see Ken Paxton winning the Republican runoff for US Senate in Texas next week -- because of the last-minute Trump endorsement. Then I see James Talerico taking the Senate seat in November.

I see Andy Barr, the Kentucky 6th Dist. congressman and all-in trumpist who beat the Mitch McConnell machine last night in the Republican primary for McConnell's seat, easily win in November, join the Senate in January 2027, and become a regular source for jokes about corruption and meanness. 

I see Michael Whatley going into real estate sales.

I see Sherrod Brown returning to the Senate from Ohio. I get to meet his wife, whom I'm in love with. 

I see Graham Platner winning the Senate seat in Maine and then getting into a fistfight with Andy Barr, which sends Barr to Walter Reed.

I see independent Dan Osborn, "The Guy From the Shop Floor," defeating the billionaire Pete Richetts in Nebraska with Democratic Party support. Osborn immediately irritates the Party and often teams up with Maine Senator Graham Platner to demand radical economic reform. 

I see a free-for-all break out over the replacing of Chuck Schumer as Senate Majority Leader in 2027. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland takes it by a hair, proves uncompromisingly tough. 

I see so much shock and surprise in North Carolina following November 3rd, with the veto-proof Republican legislative steamroller gone in both state Senate and House and no Boss Berger in the joint to organize the flabbergasted troops. House Speaker Destin Hall becomes the most powerful member of the General Assembly, but he plays nice(r) with Gov. Josh Stein. They sit down for a beer together and change things.

Ye Fates of Water and Floodtide, thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

Pity the People Left on the Beach

 

I see a lot of ink today amazed at yesterday's Indiana Republican primaries for General Assembly seats. Trump endorsed seven of his dogs against seven stubborn state senate Republican incumbents, and the incumbents got chewed the hell up. Fox News was thrilled to report that Trump Is Still Lord. Others couldn't help but notice the Mafia vibes in the sudden death of politicians who had refused to kiss the ring (re-jigger the state's congressional maps). Many reporters noticed the severed horsehead in the bed. Don't cross boss Trump.

I say "good!" to those Republican primaries. I'm counting on the cult's keeping its politicians firmly in the trumpy mold, under the trumpy thumb, because it will be an ever more convenient target for the Blue Wave, as the opposition to Trump picks up more independents and disgusted lifelong Republicans. There are actually very good conservatives who don't like mob bosses and wide-open corruption. To have a clear and unitary enemy with a brand name and a history is a pure-dee gift for the goddamned Democratic Party.

Otherwise reasonable, logical men and women who hold office as elected Republicans have weighed their choices, and they've consciously chosen to throw in with whatever Trump says or demands or does, because that's the way politics works, at least politics in a democracy that demands votes. We join parties, and even when we can plainly see our party's alienating the majority, or that our leader is fucking wrong, we stick with our party. 'Tis better to die together than hang separately. 'Tis actually better to die for someone's stupidity than never to have taken a side at all and declared our values. (We would have made excellent soldiers in Pickett's frontal attack at Gettysburg, and would probably have considered it both right and fitting pro patria mori.)

Lord knows how many masts I've lashed myself to over the last 60 years of political advocacy and community organizing, only to see the whole ship go down and me with it. I get the psychology of staying with the sinking ship. It's considered noble -- in a fashion that Falstaff would have mocked as folly, but still. What's the alternative to embracing defeat when it's inevitable? Disengagement? And the blissful aloofness of independents who always piously claim, "I vote for the man, not the party"? That kind of cynical detachment is unthinkable for the likes of us, the eternally engaged and outraged. We are known for the fiber of our spines because we have experienced political death and have returned, often transformed by death, not quite like the phoenix but maybe more like stinkweeds that develop rhizomes.

So I applaud the wholly owned Trump Party, once known as the GOP. Keep the faith, babies, but don't park your beach chairs on the sand. 

 

The Rain in Maine

 

BREAKING NEWS: Governor Janet Mills drops out of the Maine Democratic senatorial primary. She had once been considered a front-runner to take on Sen. Susan Collins this November. 

Something of a political bombshell. Mills had been "aggressively recuited" to run by Chuck Schumer. She was supported by Emily's List and other prominent liberal groups. As governor she was well known in Maine, had a life in politics behind her (attorney general and member of the Maine House) which came with all the money connections she'd ever need (we thought). Plus she was famous for one bit of video. She had been the lone woman who stood up to Trump at the White House when she defied him about trans rights. But what was super cool about a female governor willing to say to Trump's face on that occasion, "see you in court!" curiously did not translate into any groundswell of support, and she said forthrightly today that she was ending her campaign because she was out of money and had poor prospects for raising more.

Renegade Democratic candidate Graham Platner was polling well ahead of her -- by over a whopping 30 points. Platner has been running away with the primary as someone so authentic and so obviously logical that all the mainstream branding as "left-wing radical," compounded by liberals' clutching their hearts over three very old Reddit posts, had not blunted his rise as a progressive hero. Platner incidentally and willingly owns the hotheaded stupidity of those posts, admitting that he had been an angry young man, back from his 4th combat deployment in Afghanistan, alone, and isolated. Those words do not represent who he was deep down even then and certainly not who he is now. Listening to him talk sense, clearly enunciating a philosophy based on a deep historical understanding of how best to wield power for equity and fairness, I see a winner.

I recommend the interview with Platner that John Stewart did for his podcast (YouTube). Stewart prods Platner a little on why someone with his populist and sometimes libertarian instincts, coming out of the Marine Corps with its hyper-masculine warrior culture, why he wasn't attracted to or "captured" by the Alt Right. Platner's response is humbling: "I read a lot of history books." If he's something of a roughneck, he's an intellectual roughneck who has the right understanding that the failures of the Democratic Party are failures of courage and nerve. 

  

Platner was recruited by a group of labor activists looking for other working people to run in key races. They came to Platner -- who was prominent as a Bernie Sanders fan and a local official on the Eastern Shore of Maine as well as a working oyster farmer who knew the lives and needs of working people -- and they offered him an immediate three things to jump-start a senate campaign: a professionally produced "launch" video, access to small-dollar fundraising, and exposure in the press. The launch video alone in August 2025 got over 2 million views in 24 hours (one of those viewers was me), raised a million dollars, and incited almost 3,000 volunteers willing to hit the streets and the phones for Graham Platner. I immediately wrote enthusiastically about what I was seeing.

"The enemy is the oligarchy!" Graham Platner's launch video: 

 

 

Graham Platner scares at least one of the NC Democratic strategists that I listen to, whose opinion I respect, who is more moderate than I in his enthusiasms, and who has already predicted that Platner can't ultimately beat Collins because his "radical" grassroots intellectualism will end up doing him in. That analysis is based on past history of liberal forces getting way out over their skies and ending up massively disappointed. I'm actually more worried, especially after watching the Jon Stewart podcast, about what establishment grinding Graham Platner will undergo as a senator in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac. I'm a little shy about unpolished surfaces ever since John Fetterman made an unconventional pitch for support and promptly got coopted.

On the other hand, perhaps when Platner gets to the Senate he can lead Fetterman gently back to the light. Platner has that kind of serious pastor aura about him, signaling that he would always try to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. He's got true Marine purpose. 

 

Paranoia and Panic in Moore County

 

Moore Co. March 2026. Lefist soldiers

are clever with camouflage

 

 

The following paragraph appeared on a MAGA blog and could have been headlined, "Leftist Soldiers Already Operating in Rural NC!" but was actually (and ominously enough) titled "GOP dawdles, radical left making inroads into small-town NC":

While establishment Republicans gaze at their navels and pontificate on nonsense, leftists are moving their soldiers into our communities. They are organizing within our communities. They are taking advantage of low-turnout and *non-partisan* local races to get their people into positions of influence. It’s similar to the strategy behind the flood of illegals streaming across the southern border: move in, out-breed and out-vote the natives. [bolding in the original post]

 

What got this writer so exercised? Why, an immediate threat to the world as it ought to be -- a very large No Kings protest march back in March, organized by "Soros-connected" Indivisible in Southern Pines, the second-largest city in "bright-RED Moore County, where Democrats are usually lucky to get 25 to 35 percent of the vote." In 2024, Kamala Harris eked out 34.69% of the presidential vote. But now, after more than a full year of corruption and incompetence (Trump 2.0), there are a lot of unhappy people in Moore County. Local reports focused on the "large turnout" both marching up and down the sidewalks on Morganton Road in Southern Pines, with even more people lining the sidewalks and cheering on the marchers.

 

To the author of the MAGA blog, those people are analogous to a plague of brown-skinned workers who move in, out-breed and out-vote the natives. 

 

This moment of comedy brought to you by paranoia and panic. (When a tsunami is coming, grab your beach chair and RUN.)

 

Cornyn Shoots the Moon in Texas

 

Holy mackerel! I just saw this commercial attacking Ken Paxton, paid for by a proud Senator John Cornyn. Talk about a frontal assault! That's how mean and personal the Republican Senate primary run-off has gotten in Texas between the bland Senator Cornyn and the poisonous Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn, not so bland after all. He's had to go very negative after Trump failed to endorse him, which according to the entire world of political punditry, Trump promised he would do -- to save Texas from born-again James Talarico, because most Texas Republican operatives think Paxton's baggage is as deadly as a suppressed sulfur fart. The very heavy ethical baggage that Cornyn has just aired in this minute commercial.

The Interesting Political Climate of 2026

 

The closeness of the Phil Berger/Sam Page race is a reminder that, even in an era of nationalized politics, state legislative primaries can still turn on local dynamics. Relationships and local turnout patterns—what political scientist V.O. Key once called “friends and neighbors voting”—still matter, and occasionally they decide who holds power.

--Christopher Cooper, Old North State Politics

 

 

Sam Page, currently 23 votes ahead

 

 

The fact that Phil Berger couldn't win even with the Trump endorsement -- that he couldn't nationalize his importance to the voters of NC Senate Dist. 26 by tying himself to the Trump -- suggests to me that the MAGA base -- at least, portions of it, particularly in rural areas -- are actively trying to look away from Trump like you might drop your eyes or turn away your head when you see your friend embarrassing himself. Country people are always embarrassed for the swaggering braggarts in their own families. So a local candidate tied to what is in so many countless ways a walking ineptitude was of no particular help to Phil Berger on March 3rd. His obvious corruption in trying to force a gambling casino on the good Christians of Rockingham County brought him down. Trump couldn't save him because Trump is now a spectacle of badly staged policy swerves. War? Poorly calculated distractions featuring bad and un-capable people, even though the Noem woman is gone.

 

The lesson for Democrats might be: Find the local, fly the local flag, defend the local. Don't forget that the biggest local issue might, in fact, be the Republican incumbent's own character, his/her votes, his/her trumpian odor, his/her public corruption for the sake of power.

 

Primarily (Dragging My Ass)

 

Keith Kidwell

 

 

My excuse for not being johnny-on-the-spot about what just happened in North Carolina and then Texas yesterday -- I couldn't research nor write anything about that amazing primary primarily because my laptop was in the hospital getting updates and add-ons.

The first thing of note locally came to my attention a couple of days ahead of E-Day, and this local trend turns out to have been true and steady throughout the state. This info goes under the heading, "Enthusiasm Gap":

Some more quick numbers: Watauga County compared to statewide in early voting through yesterday (Friday):

 

-- Statewide 42% cast a Republican ballot during early voting. In Watauga only 25% cast a Republican ballot.

-- Statewide 29% of voters were Republicans. In Watauga 17% were Republicans.

 

Youth vote (18-30) represents 19% of the early vote in this Primary election. That is a significant increase from 11% in 2022 Primary.  

The enthusiasm gap means different things to the two major parties. For the Democrats, enthusiasm seems particularly generational in its vision of the future -- young people are showing up as serious candidates and some of them outstandingly have prospered, and because the future looks both younger and more progressive, candidates out-of-step with the majority are no longer tolerated. Carla Cunningham, Nasif Majeed, Shelly Willingham -- those three Democrats had voted with the GOP to override Gov. Stein vetoes, and all went down to defeat in their primaries. Michael Wray, a former Dem House Member who made a habit of defying both Gov. Cooper and his caucus, lost his bid to take back the seat he lost in 2024 from the man who beat him.

What does the apparent lack of enthusiasm mean for Republicans? You tell me. The main connective thread I see is possibly just a sudden surge of hatred for encumbents of whatever stripe, for both mean-eyed old Keith Kidwell, head of the NC House Freedom Caucus; and a Phil Berger, a corporate establishmentarian if I've ever seen one, who's in it for himself and his brazen family. Somehow 2026 has turned into a dismal year for Republican honchos. Someone soon will have calculated just how much each vote cost Phil Berger and his web of big money. I see totals calculated above $10 million. Berger got just a third of the votes in his home county of Rockingham -- that's worse than what Virginia Foxx's home county thinks of her -- while it was the portion of gerrymandered Guilford in his newly drawn district that got him within two votes of actually tying Sam Page. Oh the humiliation.

Colin Campbell lists at least four more Republican incumbents, some with longish records, who didn't survive their primaries. Why? I would love to hear informed opinions.

And meanwhile, Texas was almost feverish with heat.

More later (but I have to tell you, Brethren, I'm outside in the garden most of the time).

 

Democratic Primary in NC-03 (What's Up, Doc?)

Thomas Mills published something today that perked me up: "If 2026 becomes a big Democratic wave year, both NC-01 and NC-03 could be Democratic after the votes are counted." I've looked more at NC-01 because of the travails of Democrat Don Davis, trying to hang on to the seat that Republicans gerrymandered anew and at the behest of Donald Jethro Trump just to get rid of him. So I'm a little surprised to hear NC-03 mentioned so optimistically. Republican Greg Murphy's historically very safe seat, immediately next door to Don Davis's, had to become just a little less Republican in order to torture Davis. Mills is alert for surprises, like what just happened in a special election in Texas for a state senate seat. The Democrat beat the Republican there by 14 points, in a district that Trump won in '24 by 17 points. In Texas!

I felt called to educate myself a little about the Democrats running in the NC-03 March primary.

Raymond E. Smith Jr.

Raymond E. Smith Jr.

He's an impressive candidate on paper, a former member for two terms of the NC House representing Wayne and Sampson counties and a member at large of the Wayne County Board of Education. He likes to go by "Dr. Raymond E. Smith," displaying a degree he earned the hard way. He's proud to have earned actually three degrees from North Carolina HBCUs -- Bachelor’s Degree in Supply Chain Management, a Masters in Public Administration, and a Doctorate in Education Leadership. Leadership and civic service runs in his family. His father was a Marine and served with distinction, and his mother was herself an 18-year veteran on the School Board. Raymond Jr. is a decorated Gulf War combat veteran, former military policeman, and a statewide transportation planner for the NCDOT. Among other impressive things.

He recently got a huge boost. The Congressional Black Caucus in DeeCee endorsed him, which means more than just money -- and the money ain't nothing to sneeze at -- for there's tactical support as well. “It means access to resources. It means that our base can be energized by the thought that they have a legitimate candidate in this race,” Smith said.

Smith filed to run on December 15, some two weeks after the opening of filing. Was he recruited by the Congressional Black Caucus?

I looked closely at his record and found a couple of things he doesn't go into on his website.

2018 -- 1st election to NCH-21, took 52.65% of the vote.

2020 -- reelection, took 53%.

2022 -- did not run for reelection to NCH-21 but elected to run for NCS-4 in the Democratic primary against incumbent Democratic Senator Toby Fitch. Fitch got 54.5%; Smith, 45.5%.

2023 -- ran for Mayor of Goldsboro and lost by six votes. That's the kind of loss that can actually energize and count as a kind of moral win.

Allison Jaslow

Beginning my research into Jaslow, I immediately encountered a very disturbing sentence in a press article (which I certainly hope is a misprint). This passage appeared in Reflector.com and prominently featured the Republican opinion that the Democrats are whistling Dixie if they think they can win NC-03, so I'm wary of a bias here:

Democrat Raymond Smith, a U.S. Army veteran and former member of the North Carolina House of Representatives from Goldsboro, filed to seek the seat on Monday. Then on Thursday, the party fielded Allison Jaslow, a former Army captain and Iraq War veteran who touted her military background in an announcement. Jaslow currently has Cary and and Washington, D.C., addresses, but her campaign said she will relocate to District 3.

"The party fielded Allison Jaslow"? Holy crap. If that's true, then someone important considers Smith a loser (perhaps based on his last two outings? or who knows what else?), for Jaslow is pretty much a star in her own right, a combat veteran with two tours in Iraq, a chief of staff on Capitol Hill to a congresswoman, served in the Obama administration as part of the White House communications team, and is currently CEO and spokeswoman for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). She's been on CNN and MSNBC panels numerous times and handles herself well. The fact that she doesn't -- or didn't -- have a residence in NC-03 also strongly suggests some third-party recruitment. Dunno, but I'm suspicious.

Jaslow is clearly a ball of fire, an accomplished political operative, and extremely confident of herself. Whatever the outcome in less than a month, I'm going to be following up.

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.

Target One for Ending the Republican Super-Majority in the NC Senate

 

Weeks ago the Democratic Minority Leader in the NC Senate, Sydney Batch, identified Lisa Stone Barnes in Senate Dist. 11 (Nash, Franklin, and Vance counties in north-central NC) as the prime target for ending the Republican super-majority in the NC Senate. Batch and other top Democrats, including Associate Justice Anita Earls, were on their way to a campaign roll-out in Rocky Mount to anoint and give their blessings to the Democratic candidate they think can take out Barnes -- mega-church founder James Gailliard, who previously served two terms in the NC House in an overlapping Nash Co. district following the Blue Wave of 2018. 

That was the first time I heard that Barnes was Dems' best shot at flipping a Senate seat and ending the Republican super-majority.

Then, in one of the most bizarre moments during the December candidate-filing period, Barnes's fellow Republican Senator Amy Galey of Alamance traveled north to Rockingham to beg Sheriff Sam Page not to file against Sen. Phil Berger, because (Galey wrote in a several-page letter that became public) if Phil Berger is distracted by a nasty primary, he won't be able to funnel money and other help to three vulnerable Senate Republicans, namely Lisa Stone Barnes (and two others I'll get to presently in subsequent posts). Amy Galey happens to be a Majority Whip in the Senate, a true lieutenant to Phil Berger's president pro tempore. So it's practically Republican establishment gospel -- Lisa Barnes is in trouble.

Which is surprising to this admittedly far-off observer. Barnes has looked like an immovable institution in Nash County. Her husband Johnny Barnes owned and operated the biggest multi-county sweet potato growing operation probably on the East Coast (and incidentally used migrant labor -- a bracero died of heat exhaustion on his farm in 2024). Always well turned out (Republican country club chic) and infallibly attracted to business interests and the connections that come with them, Lisa Barnes rose on civic volunteerism. Her political ambition also asserted itself. She won a seat on the Nash County Commission in 2012, followed in 2018 with beating incumbent Democrat Bobbie Richardson for an NC House seat, the only blue-to-red flip in 2018 in the whole state in what was otherwise a blue wave year. Lisa Stone Barnes was suddenly a genuine Republican princess in the General Assembly.

She spent only two terms in the NC House before she saw an opening to run for the NC Senate in 2020, where she's now in her third term. 

But into every life the rain must fall. First, in late 2024, a Superior Court judge placed Barnes Family Farms Corp. into receivership after it defaulted on $40 million in loans from Rabo AgriFinance, a unit of Netherlands-based Rabobank which specializes in agriculture financing. "The court-appointed receiver takes over the businesses, with wide-ranging duties that include paying utility bills and insurance premiums, obtaining bank and other documents, changing locks and negotiating the sale of assets. The Barnes can’t interfere with the receiver, who is authorized to seek help from the sheriff’s offices in Nash, Edgecombe and Wilson counties."

Then an unkinder cut just six months later. Johnny Barnes died in July 2025. He was only 61.

Despite the heaviness of losing financial and emotional props which might deter most of us, Lisa Stone Barnes showed up on the first day of candidate filing -- December 1st -- to make her run for reelection official and coincidentally become the Number One target for every Democrat in Raleigh and elsewhere in what may turn out to be Blue Wave 2026. She has always projected pro-business moderation while following her Republican crowd to vote for every anti-abortion measure that comes down the pike, but you won't find MAGA spikiness or trumpist braying on any of her social sites. Whether the fines for violating migrant-labor laws charged to Johnny Barnes seriously damage her pro-business image -- that's an open question.

James D. Gailliard (D)

James Gailliard is impressive by several metrics, and he's been running against Barnes since last July. He is the founding pastor of Word Tabernacle Church in Rocky Mount, a genuine megachurch "serving thousands of families from ten North Carolina Counties and six Virginia counties. In 2013, Word Tabernacle was named amongst the 100 fastest growing churches in America." Gailliard is a native of Philadelphia, a graduate of the Central High School for Boys and Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he was an honors student. He worked in corporate America before feeling called to the ministry.

Gailliard's civic volunteerism and leadership are a match to Barnes's. He was named the 2016 Distinguished Citizen by the Rocky Mount Chamber of Commerce, and most recently was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Joe Biden. Gailliard is the founder Chair of The REACH Center, Inc.; a member of the Board of Trustees, Elizabeth City State University as well as the Board of Preachers, Morehouse College, his alma mater; and he is the former Chairman of the Board for the North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus Foundation. He was also named to the Board of Visitors at NC Wesleyan College.

He posted on Twitter a sort of apologia for his combination of religious/political activism: "If pastors avoid politics, we aren’t being neutral—we’re being negligent. The Bible speaks to laws, land, labor, and leadership. To ignore policy is to ignore people—and that’s the opposite of shepherding." And only naturally, he started a podcast, Until All Thrive, last July.

Intimations of Drowning in Blue

 

A few things of note happened yesterday, December 9th:

Miami Mayor run-off election: Democrat Eileen Higgins was elected mayor with 60% of the vote, the first woman in the city’s history to hold the job and the first Democrat in 28 years. Higgins, a former county commissioner, defeated Republican Emilio González, an ex-city manager who had the endorsement of Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Georgia House District 121 special election: Democrat Eric Gisler defeated Republican Mack Guest IV in this lean-Republican district. Gisler’s victory is a major upset, as Trump won the district last year by 12 points.

Georgia House District 23 special election: In an all-party election featuring five Republicans and one Democrat in this very red district, none reached the 50% required to win, so there will be a run-off Jan. 6th between the Democrat, Scott Sanders, who polled yesterday at 26.74%, and Republican Bill Fincher (27.4%).

Florida House District 90 special election: Delray Beach Vice Mayor and City Commissioner Rob Long defeated Republican candidate Maria Zack with 63% of the vote. This was not a red-to-blue flip, but the winning margin was impressive.

ADDENDUM: Night of the Dummymander

More on Georgia House 121 from The Status Kuo:

The heavily gerrymandered House District 121 was part of a four-pronged Republican gerrymander that had split Athens, Georgia, into four districts and attached three of them to rural red counties to dilute their votes. Here you can see how HD-121 took a “cracked” Athens population from the southeast part of the city and mixed it in with a bunch of red votes—but it wasn’t enough! This Trump +12 district moved 13.8 points bluer, and Gisler won in a close race.

Looking at these results from last night, GOP map drawers have cause to worry. Did they unintentionally create a “dummymander” that wrongly assumed there wouldn’t ever be a double-digit shift against the GOP? That assumption just lost them HD-121, and it could lose the neighboring districts as well.

 

So Much Depends on the Recruiter

 

He’s a former Catholic who supports abortion rights; he has been a hunter since he was 12 but advocates gun-safety legislation. He’s a decorated warrior who’s wary of war; and perhaps most important, he sympathizes with some of Trump’s supporters but thinks the president threatens American democracy.

--Description of Rep. Jason Crow (Colo., 6th CD) 

Representative Crow makes a strong impression. He can flat-out stare down a camera. He projects granite -- integrity that ain't messing around, a high intelligence, a b.s. detection system unimpressed by status, wealth, or pure cussedness. Crow earned that mensch character growing up in a working-class family. His grandfather was a bricklayer. Jason himself did construction to afford college, joined the National Guard and ROTC programs for the same reason -- financial need. But we know, intelligence will out! 

His service in the National Guard moved to active duty as a private after 9/11. He quickly became an officer, a paratrooper, and a Ranger — "perhaps the pinnacle of the U.S. Army," said David Ignatius, who knows Crow well. Crow was deployed to Iraq in 2003 with the fabled 82nd Airborne Division. There's no denying the congressman's smarts, or his gumption. Ignatius:

After Iraq, Crow joined the Joint Special Operations Command, perhaps the nation’s most elite combat team, composed of Army Rangers and Delta Force operators and Navy SEALs. He deployed with JSOC twice to Afghanistan as a member of the Joint Strike Force assigned to capture or kill “high-value targets” in al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Much of his work involved intelligence missions against the Haqqani network along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

After his service in the Army, he went to law school in Denver, and was heavily recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to run for Congress in Colorado's 6th Congressional District, a slice of real estate that had never before elected a Democrat. He rose to prominence in the House as quickly as he had in the Army. He was named a House manager for Trump's first impeachment, and I remember his manner on TV as riveting. Early this year Crow was named a co-chair of the DCCC's candidate recruitment, in charge of making the Blue Wave of 2026. I can't imagine a better man for that job.

Crow showed off his first class of recruits recently at a training session in Washington: "The gathering ... was a snapshot of how Crow thinks the party can return to its working-class, pro-defense roots — while also mobilizing young voters seeking change. The group ... included a farmer, a part-time waitress, an emergency room doctor and a half-dozen veterans." Crow stood before them dressed in jeans, boots, and an open-necked shirt. He urged them to campaign next year as if they were running for mayor: "Be local, be authentic, don’t listen too much to campaign consultants, and be ready to separate from an often-unpopular national Democratic Party brand." (We all have our own lists of shit we wish never to hear from another Democratic candidate. Fill in the blanks yosef.)

Crow told Ernest Luning at Colorado Politics how brutally honest he was when pitching a run to a possible candidate: "Listen, this is not going to be easy. This is going to be really hard. It might be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. But you know, I’m not asking you to storm the beaches of Normandy for our country. I’m asking you to step up and throw your hat in the ring for a race. Your country needs you.”

Rebranding

 

Prominent Democrats ... have been explicitly rejecting tenets of liberal orthodoxy in high-profile ways, often in venues that might attract independent or pro-Trump listeners.

--Naftali Bendavid

Item. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in the first episode of his new podcast, said it was “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports, breaking with the Democratic Party. More recently Newsom traveled to Tennessee to appear on a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan, "a conservative, tattooed former Navy SEAL, who opened the show by handing Newsom a Sig Sauer pistol that the Democratic governor proclaimed 'too cool' ” (Bendavid).

Item. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro joined a podcast hosted by Ted Nugent, the pro-Trump activist and onetime hard rocker, to discuss his support for allowing hunting in the Keystone State on Sundays.

Item. Former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel appeared on the Megyn Kelly Show, where he said that a man cannot become a woman — then joked that given the likely reaction of his fellow Democrats, that answer would cause him “to go into a witness protection plan.” (We remember this asshole, how he treated Howard Dean. That's cause enough to need a protection plan.)

What's going on is a party rebranding that, if not necessary, was inevitable. I won't get into every previously fringe thing that has gotten itself written into Democratic hymns of community, but starting with all the gender dysphoria and the hyper-correct way to address her/them/him/yourn -- hyper-correct, if you know what's good for you -- all the so-called "cancel culture" that actually does exist and from which conservatives have their stereotypes of liberals. I agree with some of that criticism that the creeping loopiness on the Left does not a practical (winning) campaign make. I very well know how far some members of my tribe will push their personal crusades. I lived through the civil rights/anti-war/up-against-the-wall-m-effers street action of the 1960s.

I want to win back our democracy enough to allow actual good Democrats to piss off some sector of our coalition. Including me. If they are otherwise the best alternative to an ass-kissing trumpster, I don't care about orthodoxy. I don't care if they do some blatant pandering. I want them to win. I want them in office. I want the other side out of power. Decisively.

Bellwether in Pennsylvania?

 

The tides may be turning faster than we thought. It's either the tides or the omen in the large number of crows I just saw picking through my compost.

Lifted from coverage by The DownBallot:

Democrats pulled off an astonishing upset in a special election for the Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday night, as East Petersburg Mayor James Andrew Malone defeated Republican Josh Parsons by a 50-49 margin to flip a district Donald Trump carried by 15 points last year.

Those toplines, however, don't tell the complete story of just how ancestrally Republican Pennsylvania's 36th District is. Since taking its present form in Lancaster County 40 years ago, the district has always been held by the GOP, and the county as a whole has gone for a Democrat at the presidential level just once since 1856 (Lyndon Johnson just barely won it in 1964).

Local Democrats, however, were undeterred, taking heart—and advice—from their counterparts in Iowa, who flipped a comparably conservative legislative seat in January. That district, though, had gone blue as recently as 2018; the 36th never had.