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You are here: Home / 2024 Activism / North Carolina Supreme Court race update

North Carolina Supreme Court race update

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North Carolina Justice Allison Riggs has opened a lead of 623 votes (practically a landslide given where we were this am).

That’s because Forsyth Co. just added its provisional ballots.

Forsyth was 1 of just 2 counties that hadn’t reported its provisionals. Other, Craven, much smaller. Near over.

— Taniel (@taniel.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 9:10 PM

It sure looks like Democrat Allison Riggs has defended her seat on the state Supreme Court.

This win was a necessary but insufficient step to any pathway of a Democratic majority on the court by 2028. The Dems had lost several seats in squeakers over the past four years so winning one in a squeaker is a good thing.

Assuming this leads holds up in the recount, the North Carolina Democratic Party did really well at the state level this cycle.

Reader Interactions

36Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    NC showed positive signs except for the presidential race.

    Hopefully, we can get some Senators out of there soon.

  2. 2.

    dc

    Her opponent is suing the State Board of Elections. Of course there will be a recount, but suing is a different road, the point is to discredit the BOE.

    Separately Monday, Griffin, his campaign committee and the state Republican Party sued the State Board of Elections in state court. They demanded a judge order the board provide immediately voting records that they’ve already requested given that the deadline to file candidate election protests with county election boards is late Tuesday afternoon. Board spokesperson Pat Gannon said that the board provided the requested records Monday, so the “lawsuit is thoroughly unnecessary.”

    https://www.wral.com/story/democrat-keeps-slight-lead-for-north-carolina-supreme-court-as-counties-finish-count/21728400/

  3. 3.

    Princess

    I’m sitting next to my husband and just as I turned to this post, he, looking at his phone, turned to me and said Riga’s had a lead of 137 votes. That was from the NYT. The fact I can get a more up to date and accurate count reading this blog is one reason why traditional media is dying.

  4. 4.

    Barbara

    Simon Rosenberg made supporting the NC Democratic party and candidates one of his key priorities this cycle. I hope this holds up.

  6. 6.

    AM in NC

    We worked our asses off here in NC.  And this race is the one that crushed me when it looked lost.  Our only hope for real representative government in my state is re-flipping the court back to non fascists and un-gerrymandering our legislature.

    So proud of all of my friends who did. the. work.

    And kudos to Anderson Clayton, our new very young state Democratic Party Chairwoman.

    Let’s build on this, people!!

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    Thanks for this welcome news.

    Speaking of good Democrats, ICYMI, Fallows’s latest substack thing is worth a click:

    […]

    But let’s move beyond the things that editors and headline-writers might directly influence. Let’s move on to the much larger threat—which is apparently beyond control by anyone who might want to change it in a positive way. That threat is the death-cloud of misinformation, ignorance, lies, myths, fears, stereotypes… or any other terms to describe the gulf between “reality” as human beings have evolved to understand it, and the artificial reality playing out in the minds of citizens.

    —This is not a new challenge in human experience, as Plato’s ‘shadows in a cave’ is just one reminder.

    […]

    Worth a click.

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  12. 12.

    dc

    @AM in NC: Exactly, we worked very hard and had the resources, so this result is the best that was possible at this time given all the circumstances. It disappoints me because Durham County participation was just below the state average (72.93% versus 73.74%) while there are counties like Chatham that had a superb 84.04% participation result. Harris won Chatham 55% to 43%, but Durham and other very Dem counties could have given Harris the victory, but came out below or at the state average for participation. We could not have done better in Durham this year. We had the resources and we busted out butts. This result was the best possible.

  15. 15.

    cmorenc

    @David Anderson:

    The Dems had lost several seats in squeakers over the past four years so winning one in a squeaker is a good thing.

    Those squeaker losses in NC SCt races are why the GOP has a squeaker majority in the US House of Reps w/ Johnson as Speaker instead of the Ds with Jeffries as speaker.  When the Rs took over the NC SCt they overruled a previous then-recent decision about redistricting that had balanced the congressional districts giving Ds and Rs a 7-7 split, fairly reflecting the partisan split of the state.  When the R court majority took over, they re-heard the case and the result was a fresh redistricting giving Rs 3 of those seats via gerrymandering.

  16. 16.

    AM in NC

    @dc: That surprises me about Durham.  I was canvassed twice here and I am a never-misses-an-election Dem Voter (although, this was my first election in Durham Co.), so I know volunteers were out and about in a serious way.

    I kept volunteering this cycle in my old Orange Co. precinct, since we just moved.  I was happy to see that the county and our precinct actually increased turnout from 2020.  We made a concerted effort to reach our people out outside of regular election season, and we hand-wrote postcards to every single newly registered Democratic and Independent voter over the past 4 years, welcoming them and giving them info about elections and the Democratic Party.

    Regular, meatspace contact is going to have to be the way to go in the future, I think. Because we have lost the media “infosphere” for who knows how long.

    I am now looking to get hooked in to Durham Dems moving forward. Hopefully we’ll meet IRL!

  17. 17.

    cmorenc

    @dc: Harris lost NC by 183k votes.  There were *that* many D-leaning voters in Durham and a couple other places to make that up had they showed up?  Or do I misunderstand your post?

  18. 18.

    catclub

    vote by mail– who knew?

    When voters are automatically mailed their ballots several weeks before the election — enabling them to vote from the safety and convenience of their home — and are provided multiple ways to easily return their ballot, voter participation increases significantly. During the 2020 election, 46% of all voters received and voted their ballots this way, and turnout was the highest it has been in over 120 years. A recent study of mail-ballot use and voter participation found that turnout increased an average of 5.6% during the 2020 presidential election in states that mailed a ballot to every registered voter. The effects of mail-ballot delivery were even greater in jurisdictions with historically low mail-ballot usage, boosting turnout by as much as 8%.

    link: https://voteathome.org/voter-participation/

  19. 19.

    New Deal democrat

    It looks like Trump brought about 4%-6% low propensity voters out of the woodwork in NC.

    Total D+R votes in various races:

    Presidential: 5.713 M

    Gubernatorial: 5.310 M

    S. Ct.: 5.541 M

    Congressional: 5.422 M

    The Congressional results are disappointing. The average D+R vote per district was 387k. In districts where D’s won it was 383k; where R’s won it was 391k. So it wasn’t like turnout suffered significantly in the non-competitive districts. D’s got 46.6% of the total D+R vote; R’s got 53.4%. Disappointing.

    Had NC not been gerrymandered, D’s probably would have won an additional 2-3 seats.

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    @catclub: +1

    There are still too many barriers to voting.  The pandemic voting changes showed what’s possible.  We desperately need the federal voting rights bills to be enacted to increase participation, and have to keep pushing for them, while also pushing for similar legislation at the states levels.

    It’s a slog.  We have to keep pushing and not let the monsters win by default as a result of them tilting the playing field.

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    cmorenc

    @New Deal democrat: That was also the story in 2020 – Trump’s last-couple/of-weeks rallies in places like Robeson County drew out collectively another 100k low-propensity voters statewide and Trump won the state by 77k votes over Biden.

    Seems the Rs nationwide did a better job of turning out their low-propensity voters in 2024 than we did – and that was supposed to be our duper-strength with our ground game.  Their social media and propaganda game was better than ours at turning out lower-propensity voters.

  22. 22.

    TBone

    Wonkette enters the chat:

    Donald Trump’s popular vote margin is teeny tiny and embarrassing, it turns out it is smaller than his hands even. 237,000 votes in three states went the other way? Woulda been President Harris. Also the House majority is tiny and Donald Trump is a tiny little weenus man. [The New Republic]

  23. 23.

    TBone

    @TBone: also too, Philip Bump at Digby’s place:

    In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote but won 57 percent of electors — thanks to fewer than 100,000 votes nationally. In 2020, Joe Biden won 57 percent of electors, thanks to a slightly larger number of votes in several states. Now, in 2024, current data indicate that Trump will win 58 percent of electors, thanks to 233,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Take those away (or see improvement to that extent for Harris) and Trump’s victory vanishes.

    https://digbysblog.net/2024/11/18/more-mandate/

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    There is another close election up in Alaska. A referendum to repeal the state’s new Open Primary/Ranked-choice Runoff system is trailing by 192 votes with a few thousand absentee ballots left to be counted. Absentee votes are running in favor of keeping the system, so it looks like it will remain for at least one more cycle. The person behind the referendum says he’ll try again because Alaskans just don’t like Ranked-choice voting.

  26. 26.

    Fair Economist

    @Geminid: Alaska keeping ranked choice would be great news. It’s really improved the quality of state government. It breaks the stranglehold kooky Republicans get over government in a Red state.

  27. 27.

    Geminid

    @Fair Economist: I also like this system. It seems better than California’s and Washington’s Open Primary/Two Candidate Runoff models. Overall, I am a Ranked-choice sceptic but if I had to choose such a system, Alaska’s would be the one.

  28. 28.

    dc

    @cmorenc: I think they add up, Mecklenberg (Charlotte) had even less participation than Durham Co. Clearly, Durham on its own could not have done the job, but with the other big (population) Dem counties, yes I think so. Not to mention the Council of State races we did not win (auditor, labor, agriculture, etc.) and the State Appeals Court candidates, we did not get one, yet again!

  29. 29.

    JML

    @Another Scott: agreed. there’s no real reason to be afraid of making it very easy to vote…unless you’re afraid of your voters. And if you’re afraid of what happens if you make it easy for people to vote for or against you then you don’t belong in office.

    Large scale voter fraud is insanely hard to perform, even hard not to get caught doing it, and the rewards for it are basically never worth it for the people performing it, while the consequences for it are quite severe. It simply doesn’t happen at scale. And even most of the cases of “fraud” that actually do occur are done out of ignorance rather than malice (voting in the wrong place, trying to vote before your rights have been restored, etc). The cases of voter impersonation are very rare, frequently caught…and mostly republican these days.

    The days of dead people voting in significant numbers is gone.

  32. 32.

    Geminid

    @[email protected]: I’m hoping Roy Cooper will run against Tom Tillis next cycle and knock him out. The second part of my North Carolina Senate dream is Attorney General Jeff Jackson running against that non-entity who replaced Richard Burr, and beating him in 2028.

  33. 33.

    [email protected]

    @Geminid: Ted Budd.  As a representative he voted against Presidential certification in 2021. He should be tossed out on that account alone. Richard Burr retired and Budd ran against Cherrie Beasley. He beat her by around 145,000 votes.

  34. 34.

    Sheila in nc

    I don’t know what effect this had on low-info voter participation, but one other thing that happened in NC this cycle is the explosion of third-party options. Of course not every race had candidates in those parties, but when people register now, they can choose not just Dem or Rep or Green or Libertarian or Unaffiliated, but No Labels or Constitution or the We the People party or the Justice for All party.

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