The North Carolina defection is rare good news for the GOP

North Carolina sparked some hope for the GOP future this week, after the “historic” defection of a longtime Democratic legislator handed Republicans a veto-proof supermajority in the state’s House of Representatives.

State representative Tricia Cotham, a moderate now-former Democrat, was joined at a press conference by her new colleagues in the state House’s Republican conference and US House representative Dan Bishop, who was on crutches after injuring himself playing pickleball. “I didn’t care if I had to have the leg amputated, I was going to be standing next to Tricia,” he told me. 

Cotham lamented that the “modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and others across the state” — and said that her decision to switch to the GOP was cemented by repeated criticisms aimed at her by the left for using American flag and praying emojis.

Cotham was not an ordinary Democrat, making her defection all the more notable. The North Carolinian has been well known in national Democratic circles since before she could vote. As a twelve-year-old, she started registering people to vote, for which she was thanked by President Bill Clinton, who hosted her in one of his presidential motorcades. Later on, she was the first intern Senator John Edwards brought to Capitol Hill.

Democrats are split on how to treat Cotham. As soon as her defection was completed, her fundraising page on the Democratic Party’s fundraising machine, ActBlue, was deactivated. Locally, some Democrats excoriated Cotham for what they call a “betrayal,” whereas others are more understanding.

State Representative Cecil Brockman, a Democrat from Guilford, said that Cotham’s move is understandable — especially in light of the vitriol Democrats directed her way after she, Brockman and State Representative Michael Wray missed a vote that allowed Republicans to override Democratic governor Roy Cooper’s veto of a gun control bill. 

Some Democrats in the state, such as Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, promised (in a now-deleted tweet) to “unleash hell” on Cotham.

One elected Democrat who won’t lash out is Mecklenburg County Commissioner Pat Cotham, Tricia’s mother. “I’m a mother, I’m not gonna disown you,” she said she told her daughter. While Pat Cotham has been accused of being a closeted Republican herself, she reiterated that she will not leave the Democratic Party.

North Carolina Republicans are quick to point out that Cotham’s defection is a massive embarrassment for Governor Cooper, the former chair of the Democratic Governors Association, and their new, twenty-five-year-old, state Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton. North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley told me that Cooper’s history of purging disloyal Democrats from his caucus, and Clayton immediately “criticizing policymakers [in her own party] who have been in this fight and in this role for a long time” is “short-sighted.” 

“The move by Representative Cotham is a great sign for us as Republicans,” Whatley told The Spectator. “The biggest thing that it shows is that the Democrats right now are so radical they are driving away suburban Republican women like Tricia. That says a lot.”

“Before this year is over, we may have a few more Republicans as well,” GOP House Speaker Tim Moore predicted.

And North Carolina senator Ted Budd told me that he “wouldn’t be surprised if Democrat lawmakers in Washington, DC follow suit.” 

State senator Amy Galey told me that “the Democratic Party pushed out a smart, principled woman because she didn’t play by their rules.”

“Although I’m sure I’ve had my ‘bad hair days,’ nobody in my party has had the audacity to criticize my appearance to my face, as apparently the Democrats did to Rep. Cotham,” Galey said. “I have been insulted, verbally abused and lied about, but it has always been by the Democrats. I guess Representative Cotham and I do have that in common.” 

Cotham’s defection is a logical extension of how horribly Democrats have treated dissidents in their own party. In a column in the Raleigh News-Observer, Pat Ryan argued that North Carolina Democrats set this in motion over four years ago. “In 2019, state Democratic Party-aligned groups launched ‘Disloyal Dems,’ a political hit list of sorts designed to enforce ideological purity,” he wrote. Whatley agrees that this is the latest iteration of Cooper’s strong-arm tactics.

One of the Democrats’ top targets, then-state senator Joel Ford, said that his fellow Democrats “turned on me like a wild pack of dogs” when he would stray from the party line. Ford has been vocal in supporting Cotham’s party switch, although he remains a Democrat himself. “The most dangerous thing a Democrat can be today is an independent thinker,” he said.

Reflecting on the “vicious, bitter, personal, nastiness” Democrats direct towards their opponents, Bishop told me that “if we can’t do politics without sheer hatred, we’re not going to make it.” 

What comes next for Cotham is uncertain. One plugged-in Republican in the state noted to me that “a defining feature of North Carolina politics is that we’ve had new maps for almost every election for a while.” By this summer, it’s possible that both legislative and congressional maps will be torn apart by the state’s Republican-leaning Supreme Court, and that Cotham’s move may actually save her bacon if she ends up representing a substantially more Republican district. 

North Carolina Republicans particularly think that her playing up her ties to Representative Bishop will help her clear a potential Republican primary, because he is by far the most well-regarded party leader in her part of the state. Bishop told me he told Cotham “she would have my support in every way.”