Repeat after me: North Carolina is in play.
North Carolina is a voter-suppressed state, and BIPOC Youth are going to make a difference. We’ll find in just a month or more, but they may make not just “a difference”, but THE DIFFERENCE.
Ballot Curing in North Carolina
Our partners in North Carolina (NC Black Alliance and NCAAT in Action) have, with our help, flooded North Carolina campuses with canvassers and “ambassadors” to register, educate, and turn out the newly-energized BIPOC youth vote. With their other in-state partners, they’re working together to avoid duplication of effort. This fundraiser will also continue to support this effort.
But mostly with this effort we are helping with Election Protection in NC.
Our NC partners predict that there will be 150,000 ballots in November that need “curing” to correct minor things that must be fixed in order for a person’s vote to count. Not a typo: 150,000 ballots!
There is so much work to be done post-election in order for people’s votes to count: identify, contact, and assist voters whose ballots are challenged as deficient by the Republican voter-suppression juggernaut.
Here’s an NPR article explaining “ballot curing.
In an election likely to have razor-thin margins, these challenged votes could change the outcome!
We’ll have separate thermometers for NC Black Alliance and NCAAT in Action.
Key Candidates in North Carolina
There is a lot of money sloshing around in North Carolina. So we asked our NC partners for a short list of candidates who could really use our money and whose election would make a difference in the lives of North Carolinians and protect the state from its corrupt and overreaching Republican party. They had one question for us: Candidates at what level? My answer was “any level; we want to support the most strategic races.” Based on their recommendation, it clear that their focus was on the courts.
Allison Riggs – NC State Supreme Court Justice (KEEP)
The seven-justice NC Supreme Court has a 5-2 Republican majority. The MAGA court threw out a voting rights case and allowed the legislature free reign to gerrymander the state. Justice Riggs is a social justice attorney who was appointed by Governor Roy Cooper, and is up for partisan reelection against a Republican challenger who ruled that life begins at conception while on the Court of Appeal. More about Judge Riggs here.
Carolyn Thompson – NC Court of Appeals (KEEP)
Incumbent Judge Thompson is also up for partisan re-election. She is African-American and focused on victims of domestic violence while in private practice. As a state legislator, her opponent, Thomas Murry, tried to exempt NC from the ACA and pushed draconian voter ID laws. More on Judge Thompson here.
Raymond Smith – Challenger, State Senate (FLIP!)
Raymond Smith is an African American Gulf War veteran and former NC state Assembly member. Smith was drawn out of his district (total coincidence, I’m sure!) so he is running to flip a Senate seat in the Goldsboro area and shatter the Republican super-majority. Let’s hope the Republican power move backfires on them. His opponent, with the Republican-sounding name of Eldon “Buck” Sharpe Newton III is Chair of the Judiciary Committee. Good ‘ol Buck championed outlawing public mask wearing in protests and shepherded a performative measure limiting voting rights to citizens. More on Raymond Smith here.
We trust our engaged and on-the-ground NC partners to recommend candidates, but we’ll also revisit other potential candidates in NC and elsewhere after Q3 fundraising totals are released (shortly).
Again, no thermometers just yet, but I wanted to let you know about one of the directions we’ll be heading to this week.
There’s just too much going on for a *single post.
*Not if I want anyone to actually read it, that is.
Whomever
Not to be a ghoul, but I wonder what the mess from Helene will affect this? Hopefully people will be pounding on the 2025 plan to defund NOAA…
Ryan
We’re also an early voting state, so the more vote we can bank early, the more targeted our efforts can be up to election day.
Yutsano
#phrasing
I don’t know what it is, but I have weird hope for North Carolina this year. It’s been predicted based on demographic trends that NC would eventually start going purple, it just wasn’t certain when. This election cycle would be a good start for that.
Nukular Biskits
Just a flyby but I wonder how much damage from Helene will impact the elections processes in FL, GA, NC and other states impacted by the storm.
rikyrah
NC is in play 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Gabe Nichols
Could we add one more, Dr. Sarah Taber for NC Ag Commissioner. Not a race many people think of but it controls a lot of policy around agricultural policy as well as environmental and labor standards on farms. Dr. Taber is a good one and while polling in the race is light she is running against a 20 year republican incumbent who has just sat on the post and done nothing for the citizens of NC
https://twitter.com/sarahTaber_bww/
Ryan
@Nukular Biskits: Good question. You’d hope the prompt response would be a factor, but I dunno. Western NC isn’t as R as it appears.
cmorenc
@Whomever: Other than blue Asheville plus the very modest blue edge ASU in Boone gives in an otherwise reddish Watauga county, most of the affected areas where turnout may still be affected by the residual flooding damage when voting sites open are in very red areas in the foothills and westward into the Blue Ridge mtns. The eastern 2/3 of NC went mostly unscathed. True, there were parts of blue Mecklenburg county (Charlotte) that had flooding from the storm, but not severe enough to be a lingering problem for turnout by time early voting sites open in nc.
in effect, the effects of the storm will likely be a net wash insofar as disadvantaging either side, at least in statewide races.
@Whomever:
Ryan
@Yutsano: We have Anderson Clayton in charge of the DNC this year. She is the most inspiring DNC head I can imagine (she’s only 26!), and she has a plan to compete in every county. Shave the margins, and you can win statewide. And hopefully locally as well.
Baud
@Ryan:
👍🤞
Sure Lurkalot
@Ryan: Great news and I think the strategy to shave off votes in every district in statewide races is the way to go. Go Anderson Clayton and NC Dems!
Ryan
@Sure Lurkalot: I am so excited. I am hoping we can reprise 2008, even though it’s a longshot. At the least. It’ll mean the fucker has to spend money defending home territory.
John H. McDonald
I highly recommend getting involved in ballot curing after the election, if it’s needed for a close race in your area after the election. When you do door-to-door canvassing, or phone banking, or postcard writing, you have to trust the studies that show that for every X contacts, you get one vote, where X is a pretty big number. But with ballot curing, you can knock on one door, say “You forgot to sign your ballot–fill in this form, and your ballot will get counted,” and boom, you’ve just added one more vote. It’s extremely rewarding and can make the difference in a close race.
Redshift
@Ryan: I loved Chris Hayes interview with her where she talked about how her dad, a former Republican, is running for county commissioner (I think) in the very red rural area where she grew up. And also how the NC Dems under her leadership are heavily into campus organizing, since she got her start successfully opposing efforts by Republicans to shut down on campus polling locations.
Ryan
@John H. McDonald: 100%
Jackie
Have any of you seen N. Carolina’s Democratic chair, Anderson Clayton? I’ve seen her multiple times on both CNN and MSNBC. She’s a “baby”* and rocks with enthusiasm and is a joy to watch!
* I’m not insulting her age – frankly the Democrats could use some more youth and enthusiasm!
Ryan @ #9 beat me. Glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed her!😊
Suburban Mom
@Ryan: Asheville is pretty darned blue. They have a weird mix of hippies and retired Yankees. My daughter went to school there.
Raven
@Suburban Mom: Asheville and the rest of Western North Carolina is absolutely devastated. My friends live in Brevard and they can’t get out. They say 2 weeks for power to be restored. People are trapped all over that part of the state.
Mousebumples
I read earlier today that the NC voter ID law has a carve out for people impacted by a natural disaster within 100 days of Election Day.
That’s good. The wreckage is not.
I wonder if voters will be able to vote for local races at further away polling places? Though I’m also not sure how many polling places are still intact as previously planned.
Jackie
@Mousebumples: Just thankful there’s a month plus to Election Day! At least there’s time for alternate plans for those displaced!
Suburban Mom
@Raven: I know, we still have friends in the area, and I get updates from the school via email. The pictures of the Arts District near the French Broad River were terrifying. Are you okay? Atlanta got quite a bit of rain too.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I heard her on a podcast and she was very upbeat and impressive. A force of nature, in the best way!
kalakal
Our neighbours (sadly – they’re really nice) were due to move out on Friday to their new home to be in NE Tennesee, they were going to drive up through Georgia and North Carolina. They’ve been able to stay on here for a while but are in a real fix. Their new home is unreachable due to flooding, their stuff is nearly all in storage and they have 40 odd parrots, macaws etc
Jeffro
we are ABSOLUTELY going to win North Carolina this year!
(and not just because I finished my 300 North Cakalacky-bound “Postcards to Swing States today, either! I mean, that’s definitely PART of it, but still 😉😁)
GO BLUE, TARHEEL STATE!!! 💙💙💙
DougL
@kalakal: I think you may have buried the lede. 🤣
ETA: not to make light of the seriousness of the situation, but 40 odd (phrasing!) parrots etc.!?!? Taking a long distance drive in a hurricane? Sounds like a John Irving novel.
kalakal
@DougL:
True, it was all arranged weeks ago, before the hurricane was announced. We thought it was a bit of a weird plan even then but they’re the bird experts. Ironically one of the reasons for moving was to get away from hurricanes
The 40 odd is English Idiom = 40 something I’d guess. I agree it does read ambiguously
raven
@Suburban Mom: Pretty late but, yea, Athens is fine.
Gvg
@kalakal: ? Wow that is a challenging problem. Are there any parrot rescue social networks that they can connect with like dog breed rescue groups where people know people and link up to pass dogs to good vetted homes? I say that because birds need special care and equipment and places to stay, so linking to a network of other bird lovers might help. They need to find a long way through road from point a to point b and know the electricity is on at point b plus all the way stations are safe for the birds along the way….
kalakal
@Gvg: As far as I can tell they have a while to get things together. They can stay here for a while yet. The original plan had a stop off, a lot depends on the state of access to the new place, apparently it’s fine
Jean
@DougL: Or West with Giraffes, historical fiction about two giraffes who survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic–they are to be delivered to the San Francisco zoo. 40 “odd parrots” may be more riveting than that.
karen marie
@Gabe Nichols: I follow her on Mastodon. She seems very knowledgeable about issues around farming and helpfully points out that the guy in that office has been there for decades and allowed problems to fester.