We recently met with Justice Anita Earls, one of two Democrats on the N.C. Supreme Court, who is defending her seat in November’s election. In this wide-ranging conversation, she talks about her recent fiery Leandro dissent, the fallout from 2024’s bitterly contested Supreme Court race, her concerns about the state of our democracy locally and nationally, and what’s offering her hope and joy during these trying times.
As we wrote back in September, after several Democrats in the NC Legislature voted with Republicans to override Governor Stein’s vetoes on a series of bad bills, we have updated our endorsements policy. We believe that having the right people in positions of power is critical, and progress depends not just on electing Democrats but on electing the right Democrats who will fight for the people – not give ground to Republican extremists.
This cycle, we are endorsing three Democratic primary candidates who we believe will make a clear and significant difference in the lives of North Carolinians – and who need our support in the upcoming primary elections on Tuesday, March 3.
Tuesday’s election results brought a steady stream of great news as Democrats racked up wins across the country. Democrats won the governorship in New Jersey, retained their 5-2 majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and flipped two statewide offices in Georgia that Democrats hadn’t won since 2000. A large majority of New Yorkers chose millennial mayor-elect Mamdani over the Trump-endorsed Cuomo. Voters in California easily passed Prop 50, designed to answer Republicans’ election map rigging in other states, and Maine voters rejected a vote-restricting ballot measure.
But our eyes were on Virginia, where Democrats flipped the offices of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General – and picked up a whopping 13 seats in their House of Delegates.
Check out this feature to see just how underpaid teachers are in North Carolina. Not only are NC teachers paid over $13,000 less the national average, but their salaries have fallen by over 11% in the past 15 years, when inflation is taken into account.
When we knock on doors, voters tell us that education is the single most important issue to them. And yet, the Republicans in the NCGA are purposely starving our public school system of even the most basic resources.
As the candidate filing period comes to an end and 2018 election campaigns begin in earnest, the NC House maps in Wake and Mecklenburg counties are still being contested in court for yet another election cycle.
Read on for a quick summary of the twists and turns in the legal case, what the NC House maps are likely to look like for 2018, and what this means for Democrats’ chances to break the supermajority or, better yet, to take back the NC House altogether in 2018.
Nervous about canvassing for the first time? Only natural! But when you sign up for a FLIP NC canvass (list of upcoming canvasses and links to RSVP here), we can pair you with someone who is experienced. And you will get the hang of it in no time. Plus, we offer training right before every canvass. Get a head start by reading through these tips ...
At our January canvass in NC-H36, first-time canvasser and “Friend of the Pod” Cecilia Gonzales basically broke progressive Twitter, in the best possible way. This photo (she’s pictured with FLIP NC co-founder Briana Brough, donning the rad fanny pack!) was retweeted by “Pod Save America” co-host and former Obama staffer Dan Pfeiffer and liked by Jason Kander! We’re still not over it.
If Sunday night’s Turn Up, Turn Out: A Launch Party for 2018 was any indication, the blue wave is coming to North Carolina in 2018, and it’s going to be a big one!
Earlier this month, we held our seventh and final canvass of the year in Wake County, and it was our best one yet – the most canvassers and interactions with voters we’ve ever had. Clearly, we are getting the hang of this!
Since the year is wrapping up, we thought we’d take a minute to recognize some of our wonderful canvassers. Here they are … the 2017 FLIP NC Awards!
Virginia has provided the perfect two-step road map for North Carolina. First, we need to run strong progressive candidates in all districts that are even remotely competitive, including many where Democrats didn’t field a candidate in 2016. Second, we need to turn out fired-up Democratic voters in record numbers.
This post is for those who would like to get a little more into the weeds about what the Federal Court’s instructions given yesterday to the Special Master mean for Democrats' chances to break the supermajority in the NC House in 2018. The great news is that the maps should get much better for Democrats – relative to the maps proposed by the GOP – for at least three reasons.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning in the Wisconsin redistricting case. That any of the justices can fail to see that extreme partisan gerrymandering (by either party) completely undermines the democratic process is shocking – and yet it was clear today that Justice Kennedy will cast the decisive vote in this critical case.
Kennedy did not ask any questions of the challengers in court today. Many observers say that bodes well for our side of this. Let’s hope they’re right – the fate of our democracy hangs in the balance.
One of the most striking features of the NC GOP's proposed redistricting plan is their attempt to use the court-ordered redrawing of the gerrymandered districts as a ploy to re-draw much of the legislative map in its favor. By re-configuring county groupings and then redrawing the districts within them, they have reached far beyond the gerrymandered districts and redrawn two-thirds of the NC House map under the guise of fixing the current split counties THEY CREATED.
Less than 36 hours before the ONLY opportunity for public comment on the proposed new legislative maps, the NC GOP finally released the correlating election data. We see why they don’t want the public to have time to see and understand these new maps. We compared the proposed maps to the current, unconstitutional ones: Of the sixteen GOP-held NC House districts FLIP NC had identified as the most "flippable" based on past election results, ELEVEN have been slanted more heavily for the GOP, while ONLY TWO were drawn more favorably for Democrats.
