North Carolina Republicans gained a supermajority and the ability to override vetoes from the state’s Democratic governor last week, following a surprise defection by a Democratic lawmaker. State Rep. Tricia Cotham, who was elected as a Democrat in 2022, announced at a Wednesday press conference that she was joining the GOP, shifting the balance between the Republican legislature and the state’s Democratic governor.
Cotham’s 112th district, which includes part of Mecklenburg County in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city, is a Democratic stronghold in the purple state, which former President Donald Trump won with less than 50 percent of the vote in 2020. North Carolina, however, has been carved up by partisan gerrymandering, and state Republicans have attempted to limit Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s power since before he took office. Now, they have another powerful tool to do so.
Cotham on Wednesday framed her decision to switch parties as a personal one, spurred by alleged attacks and threats against Cotham and her family, as well as bullying from Democrats. However, it’s a dramatic departure from the platform on which she ran for office — and part of a larger trend of disproportionately limiting the influence of Democrats in the state.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Cotham told the crowd that she no longer recognized the Democratic Party, despite having campaigned as a Democrat and accepting donations from Democratic groups just months before. Democrats, including Mecklenburg County Democratic Party chair Jane Whitley, have called for Cotham to return recent donations; some have referred to Cotham’s switch as fraud and have called for her resignation.
Cotham first joined the General Assembly in 2007, when she was appointed to fill a vacant Democratic seat for Mecklenburg County, Whitley told Vox. Both her parents are well-known figures in local Democratic politics, and those deep ties have caused a sense of bafflement…
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