Welcome Back!

A look at where we've been and where we're going in 2026.

Welcome back to Carolina Democracy, and I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! Before we dive into our first post of the 2026 cycle…

Bottom Line Up Front: Please support Justice Anita Earls in her re-election campaign. I explain why below, but if you want to just trust me, here’s a donation link. Donate like democracy depends on it, because, well, it does!

Now onward with our content. When I first started the Carolina Democracy effort, I wasn’t quite sure what it would look like. But I knew I wanted two things: (1) to help down-ballot candidates get their message out; and (2) to connect those candidates with this community.

That led to starting the podcast in 2022. I had a great time, interviewed dozens of candidates, and overall it was a tremendous success. I continued the podcast in 2023 and 2024—thank you all for the continued support at every turn—but the political landscape of North Carolina was shifting under us.

As you may recall, in early 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court did something amazing. In a 4-3 decision, they found extreme partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitution. Later that year, they reaffirmed that ruling. At least for a while, 2022 was shaping up as an excellent year.

Unfortunately, that didn’t hold. With rare exception, the party that wins the White House usually struggles the following midterms. North Carolina was no different. We had some successes, no doubt. We ended up with an even 7-7 split in our Congressional delegation after all.

But we lost the U.S. Senate race, narrowly prevented a Republican supermajority in the state house, and ended up with a Republican supermajority in the state senate. In reality, some of those N.C. House Democrats were unreliable in tough votes, so it was a functional Republican supermajority anyways. Still worse, we lost every single state-wide judicial race, including two critical seats on the N.C. Supreme Court held by Democrats.

The Supreme Court flipped from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority. It did not take long for the new Chief Justice to begin dramatic changes across our state courts. That’s a topic for another day.

One of the new majority’s first tasks was to break with long-standing precedent by reopening an already decided and settled case. They reversed the two gerrymandering decisions from the previous year. Then, the General Assembly quickly adopted even more gerrymandered maps than they were already using, giving Republicans a stark advantage for years to come.

I’ll save gerrymandering for a future post, but for now, just know that the Supreme Court’s unprecedented reversal on extreme partisan gerrymandering fundamentally altered the political landscape for at least the rest of this decade.

I’m going to shoot straight with you. Democrats can prevent a supermajority in the State House under the new maps. Democrats may also break the supermajority in the State Senate in a good year. My 2020 BFF even admitted as much. But Democrats have essentially zero chance of taking a majority in either chamber under current maps any time in the foreseeable future.

For our legislative elections to be anything other than a foregone conclusion, we need to elect judges who recognize that our state constitution does not permit gerrymandering. Given Democratic and Republican positions on gerrymandering, this means electing Democratic judges. It should not be a partisan issue, but it is.

There is a path to flipping a 5-2 Republican majority to a 4-3 Democratic majority on the N.C. Supreme Court. It started with re-electing Justice Allison Riggs in 2024. In 2026, we must re-elect Justice Anita Earls. And in 2028, we must flip two of the three Supreme Court seats on the ballot.

For 2026, I’m shifting our focus to providing information and insights about our courts and legal decisions impacting democracy. I’m also converting to a newsletter format. And of course, I’ll be helping our state-wide Democratic judicial candidates raise the money they need to win. I also look forward to launching our 2026 Judicial Slate as soon as candidate filing closes!

While social media accounts may not suggest it (sorry, I’m no Jeff Jackson), there are tens of thousands of you in our Carolina Democracy community. Together, we can make a difference in this fight for more democratic state courts in North Carolina.

In the meantime, the end of the year is quickly approaching, and we know that Justice Earls will need to raise millions of dollars to hold her seat. Even a few bucks today goes a long way to helping her in November 2026. Please support Justice Earls’s 2026 re-election campaign by contributing here!