How North Carolina can help put Democrats back on a path to victory

The national election results were incredibly disappointing for many, with national Democrats searching for answers and a way forward in the aftermath of a devastating loss. There are real and serious conversations that need to be had, as Donald Trump improved his margins across all demographics. Democrats must regroup and chart a new path ahead.

As Democrats look for answers and solutions, North Carolina represents a blueprint that can offer instructive insights for success.

North Carolina was one of the few brights spots across the country, on a night filled with darkness and regret — Democrats were able to accomplish something truly unique. We rejected extremism in our state leadership and elected Josh Stein as governor with the largest margin of victory in over two decades. We elected Rachel Hunt as lieutenant governor, Jeff Jackson as attorney general and Mo Green to oversee our public schools. We re-elected our secretary of State, Elaine Marshall, and broke the Republican supermajority in the North Carolina House.

We also re-elected Congressman Don Davis in one of the most challenging congressional districts in the country that was specifically gerrymandered by Republicans to defeat him. Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs has also taken the lead in her Supreme Court race. Her election will bring the total to six statewide Democratic wins in 2024.

Not only did Democrats win in North Carolina, we defeated a slate of some of the most extreme, abortion-banning, election-denying, social media conspiracy theorists to ever run for office in the state. Even before Mark Robinson’s explicit posts on pornographic forums were discovered, he was losing because of his divisive, demeaning comments, including a rant that “abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers. It’s about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

But the success in North Carolina wasn’t based on Robinson’s inherent weaknesses as a candidate. Democrats in the state have quietly been racking up a long string of victories.

Since 1992, Democrats have successfully won eight of the last nine gubernatorial elections, nine of nine attorney general elections and nine of nine secretary of State elections. No other battleground state in the nation comes close to this record, and we’ve been able to do this at the same time Republicans have carried the state for president every single election outside of 2008. Democrats in North Carolina have been successful because our candidates have campaigned (and later governed) as pragmatic problem-solvers. As we begin to rebuild and regroup our party, we should take lessons from these state-level candidates.

Under the leadership of Gov. Roy Cooper, Democrats have created a playbook of forward-thinking and effective governance that has translated to electoral success. Despite being stuck with a Republican gerrymandered majority for his entire governorship, under his leadership, North Carolina has created 550,000 new jobs, expanded Medicaid (enrolling almost 600,000 North Carolinians), put the state on a path to a clean energy future, and successfully guided our state through the global pandemic, two 500-year floods in eastern North Carolina and the recent 1,000-year storm in western North Carolina.

Gov.-elect Stein ran a campaign focused on making North Carolina safer and stronger, and on his record of eliminating the largest rape kit backlog in the country, tackling the opioid epidemic and combating fentanyl abuse. In doing so, he garnered a significant amount of crossover support from Republicans and won a large majority of unaffiliated voters.

North Carolina is one of the fastest-growing states in the nation and consistently ranks as a top destination for new job creation. The demographic growth favors Democrats long-term as more college-educated voters move to the state and as deeply blue areas in the Research Triangle and Charlotte grow larger and larger every day. This growth will have a real impact on the 2026 U.S. Senate race — and even more so in the 2028 presidential race.

National pundits often categorize North Carolina as a red state, but strong, effective leaders like Josh Stein and Roy Cooper have built something real and sustainable that other states can use as a model for success. Help us continue the progress we’ve made and build on this solid foundation. And to national Democrats looking for optimism and a positive way forward, look to North Carolina as a beacon of light.

Morgan Jackson is a longtime Democratic strategist from North Carolina who helped oversee Gov. Roy Cooper and Gov.-elect Josh Stein’s successful gubernatorial and attorney general campaigns.

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