The Democrats’ Shrinking Tent

In January 2020, state Rep. Cecil Brockman rose from his chair at a banquet table to the sound of applause. James Adams, then the president of the High Point NAACP, presented the lawmaker with an award recognizing his political involvement and work on voting rights.

It’s a distant scene from where the five-term legislator stands today. 

In September, three affiliated groups representing Democrats age 35 and younger blasted Brockman and four other House Democrats, directing them to “start acting like Democrats and stop helping NC Republicans pass some of the most brazenly anti-Black legislation” in years. The Young Democrats, College Democrats, and Association of Teen Democrats of North Carolina ended their statement by saying the primary would come “sooner than you think.”

Put on alert, Brockman knew he would be challenged in the primary. He didn’t know that the person to do it was the same person who commended him for his political work just a few years ago. Adams filed to run against Brockman in December. 

“This is a guy I know very well,” Brockman said, adding that Adams was a supporter until recently, which Adams confirmed. “People have obviously been in his ear, wanting him to do this.” 

Brockman is one of four state Democrats who have voted with Republicans on key issues who now face primary challenges. Three of them are Black. As they fight for reelection, they wonder if their supposedly “big tent” party still welcomes Democrats who sometimes vote with conservatives on major issues. 

The four House Democrats—Brockman of Guilford County; Michael Wray of Northampton County; Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County; and Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg County—have voted with Republicans more than nearly every other Democrat running for reelection.

Republicans control the House. The typical Democrat voted with the majority 66 percent of the time in 2023. But these four Democrats sided with Republicans at a much higher rate—ranging from 75 percent for Brockman to 84 percent for Wray in 2023.

Their districts are so strongly Democratic that no matter who wins the primary, Democrats are likely to hold on to the seats. The incumbents say they’re being punished for working with Republicans to help their districts; other Democrats say they’ve sold out party principles to curry favor back home.

They’ve helped override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of several bills, leading to new laws that restrict medication for transgender youth; give approval of charter schools to a review board instead of the Department of Public Instruction; increase fees and interest rates on consumer loans; and extend timelines for power companies to use coal. 

At other times, they helped Republicans override Cooper’s veto by being absent during votes. In March 2023, Brockman, Wray, and then-Democrat Rep. Tricia Cotham didn’t attend the vote to override the veto of Senate Bill 41, lowering the threshold to 71 House members needed to revoke the state’s pistol-permit requirements. 

Rep. Robert Reives, the Democratic House leader, said that it’s important for Democrats to stand together while Republicans have a supermajority. But he told The Assembly the party is not behind efforts to challenge the four incumbents. 

Todd Barlow, his chief of staff, pointed out that several moderate House Democrats are not being challenged in the primary. And he said a fifth Democrat, Rep. Amber Baker, who is slightly more liberal than the typical House Democrat, also faces a primary opponent. “Each of these races’ circumstances are different and do not fit into a single narrative,” he wrote in an email. 

But Anderson Clayton, Democratic state party chair, sounded a different note about the Democrats who voted for the state budget. 

“We want Democrats this election cycle that are going to uphold our fundamental values as Democrats…,” she told reporters recently. “And if you’re not doing that, I think that you deserve a challenge this year.”

To Brockman, a 39-year-old Black man and the state’s only publicly gay male legislator, the primary challenge seems petty and short-sighted.

“I work with Republicans because they’re in power—they have the power to get me what I want for my district,” Brockman said. “I’m not the person they should be trying to take out. I agree with the party 90 percent of the time, and they want to take me out for getting stuff for a poor, Black district.”

At Odds With the Caucus

Brockman began working in Democratic politics in college, interning at the Democratic National Committee, and working on campaigns for Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, former state Sen. Doug Berger, and former High Point state Rep. Marcus Brandon. Brandon recruited Brockman to run for the state legislature when he ran for Congress in 2014. 

Brockman, who owns a consulting firm, has said that parents shouldn’t have to send their kids to a failing public school. In his freshman term, he co-sponsored a school voucher bill for special education students and voted to expand charter schools. In 2017, Republicans appointed him vice chair of the House’s K-12 education committee.

He takes issue with being pegged as a moderate, calling himself “progressive but pragmatic.” “You can’t afford to go out there and bring home nothing,” Brockman said. “The organization getting kids off the street would get no money, the food pantry would close.” He said he secured $29 million in funding for his district.

But voting yes on the Republican budget last year along with a few other key votes went a step too far for the Young Democrats.

“State budgets are meant to use our public dollars to fund things the public needs,” Dorian Palmer, the president of the Young Democrats of North Carolina, said in an email. “It is anti-Black to save money in our state budget by dismantling public education.”

He noted the budget failed to fund the Leandro plan to improve K-12 schools, and pointed to financial problems that come from cutting taxes and expanding vouchers. 

“Rep. Brockman and Rep. Wray come from deep blue districts. These districts are not at all moderate,” said Daniel Patterson, 16, co-president of North Carolina’s Association of Teen Democrats.

Brockman and Willingham have sided with Republicans and against Cooper’s veto on two charter school bills. Wray, who has voted to override the governor’s veto more than any other Democrat, voted to limit transgender teenagers’ access to medication and to womens’ sports. Wray, Willingham, and Cunningham helped to override the governor’s veto on the coal power bill. 

And Brockman has been absent for crucial votes throughout the legislative session—missing 179 out of 610 votes, more than any other Democrat seeking reelection. “You cannot legislate effectively when you’re not there,” Patterson said.

Brockman said his absences are due to an “extremely major” medical issue he wants to keep private, and found it “offensive” that members of his party could use his health against him. Reives said Brockman never told him, or others in House leadership, that he had an ongoing health issue. 

While white Democratic moderates have brought legislative spoils to their constituents by working with Republicans, Brockman said those representing higher concentrations of Black voters don’t get the same privilege without being challenged.

“It’s so sad to see that it’s the Black districts they want to put in their place,” Brockman said. 

‘The Political Machine Will Take You Out’

Kirk deViere, an Army veteran and Fayetteville small business owner, was first elected to the state Senate in 2018, beating a four-term Republican incumbent by a mere 433 votes. 

In his first term, deViere voted with Republicans slightly more than the typical Democrat. He sided with Republicans to reopen arcades and houses of worship a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, and to allow his constituents the freedom to celebrate the Fourth of July. 

In his second term, deViere became the Democratic state senator most likely to vote with Republicans. DeViere believes his desire to reopen schools during the pandemic—breaking with many legislative Democrats—put a target on his back. 

Early in the pandemic, Cumberland County sent Wi-Fi-equipped school buses into neighborhoods for remote learning. But in a county where 40 percent of families with kids receive welfare assistance, deViere said that wasn’t enough. He heard from constituents-–working parents and teachers—about the need to bring kids back to school, especially those who were already behind.

“I work for the people of Cumberland County, that’s who elected me,” deViere said. “Sometimes that aligned with the party, and sometimes that didn’t.”

In a move that jolted Democratic legislators, Cooper endorsed deViere’s primary challenger, Val Applewhite, in 2022. “Many times I stood shoulder to shoulder with the governor and leaders of my caucus, but yet I was made an example of,” deViere said. 

Cooper’s endorsement of Applewhite was the first time he had publicly endorsed the opponent of a Democratic incumbent. But deViere said similar, more covert acts had emerged in the last six to eight years, with independent expenditure funds set up to launch attack ads against incumbents.

“You don’t do what we say and what we want you to do, the political machine will take you out,” deViere said.

The governor’s endorsement opened the doors for groups like the Young Democrats to do the same, deViere believes. Some House Democrats appear to be working behind the scenes to unseat incumbents. State Rep. Laura Budd, a freshman from Mecklenburg County, unwittingly texted Brockman, “Do we have a candidate running against brockman.”

Will Marshall, president and founder of the center-left Progressive Policy Institute, noted that conservatives and moderates outnumber liberals, showing the need for a coalition with a broad base. 

“You can’t offer some sort of social justice catechism and expect to build an electoral majority outside of college towns and deep blue districts,” he said. The Washington, D.C.-based group describes itself as “radically pragmatic.”

Black and Latino voters with a high school education or less lean more conservative than the Democratic Party as a whole. Marshall said Democrats need to reach across the diploma divide and work with working-class voters. “We have to build a bigger tent,” he said. 

But certain issues, like diverting taxpayer money to private schools and reducing background checks for guns, apparently fall outside the tent. In May, Cooper declared a state of emergency for public education days after a bill for universal school choice passed in the state House.

Challenging incumbents can hurt a party. While state Sen. Applewhite won in November 2022, it isn’t always a safe move in moderate districts.

Kimberly Hardy, a Fayetteville State University professor, ran in 2020 against 11-term incumbent Democrat Elmer Floyd, who had voted for House Bill 2 (often called the “bathroom bill”). She defeated Floyd, but Republicans won the general election and have held the seat since.

In each of the districts where an incumbent is being challenged, representatives owe their support to Black voters, who for decades have been the most dependable group for the Democratic Party. The districts have been solidly Democratic with margins ranging from 9 to 40 percentage points.

But, like any demographic group, Black voters aren’t a monolith. 

Hardy, who is now the second vice chair for the state Democratic Party, has spent the past five months on a listening tour of Black voters in the state’s eastern counties and said that some Black voters feel their vote has been taken for granted. Others don’t see what’s happening in Raleigh as affecting them.

“Cheri Beasley lost by 401 votes,” Hardy said of the former Democratic state Supreme Court chief justice’s bid for reelection. “That’s the equivalent of four people per county that didn’t show up. And everybody in this room knows four people who did not show up.” 

Name, Staff, Money 

Nationwide, incumbents get knocked out infrequently. A viable challenger needs name recognition, campaign staff, and money to do so, Susan Roberts, a political science professor at Davidson College, told The Assembly.

Roberts sees just two of the four challengers having enough support to mount a serious challenge: Adams in High Point and Rodney Pierce, a lauded social studies teacher and historian challenging Wray in a district northeast of Raleigh that borders Virginia. 

The other two races pin older legislators who have been in the state House over a decade against younger candidates who have previously run for office unsuccessfully.

Willingham is being challenged in his Eastern North Carolina district by Abbie Lane, who ran for the seat in 2020 with the Green Party, winning 1.7 percent of the vote. Cunningham, who represents northeast Mecklenburg County, is opposed by Vermanno Bowman, who won 16.5 percent in a state House Democratic primary in 2022. 

“If they were recruited by anyone, they had to regard these individuals as sacrificial lambs to send a message,” Roberts said of the four challengers. 

In one of the competitive primaries, Wray is a 10-term incumbent who says he’s a “conservative/moderate.” He voted with Republicans to weaken the state Department of Environmental Quality’s power to enforce federal laws like the Clean Water Act, limiting the agency’s ability to challenge swine permits on civil rights grounds. He did not respond to requests to comment. 

Pierce, 45, previously ran for Halifax County school board and has lined up endorsements from progressive group Carolina Forward, local elected officials, former state Sen. Erica Smith, and influential business owners.

“How can you do that if you represent the county that was the birthplace of the environmental justice movement?” Pierce said of Wray’s DEQ vote. “They’re going to build that stuff where the Black people and the minorities live.”

Pierce listed other issues where Wray voted with Republicans: repealing the pistol permit; reducing the state income tax, which he said most benefits the wealthy; delaying building code upgrades that can help homes withstand flooding and storms; and passing a budget that approves universal vouchers for private schools.

“If your voting pattern is like that over the past six years where you’ve voted with Republicans more than any other Democrat in Raleigh, why not just run as a Republican?” Pierce said.

Elections on Parade

Adams, the former president of the High Point NAACP, said he had not planned to run against Brockman. But when state Democrats, whom he wouldn’t name, presented the former National Guard member with information on Brockman’s voting record, he changed his mind. 

Adams spoke to Brockman about his absences and votes on education bills and wasn’t happy with his answers. “You don’t miss that many votes without somebody in your ear, or a reason in your ear to play the other way,” Adams said. 

The money Brockman’s across-the-aisle work brought to High Point doesn’t make up for funding that will be taken away from Guilford County’s 25 public schools due to school vouchers, Adams said. “When you take [money] from the poor part and give it to the rich part, there’s a problem,” he said. 

On a cold and windy January morning, Brockman donned long underwear beneath a blue checked button-down shirt as he zigged and zagged from one side of High Point’s Main Street to the other, speaking to people at the city’s Martin Luther King Day parade.

One of them was Shirrell Williams, a High Point resident who came out to support her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters in the parade. Williams didn’t say if she would vote for Brockman or Adams, but knew about Brockman’s repeated absences in Raleigh. She was upset that he missed the gun-safety vote.

“In the real world if you’re absent from work, you don’t have a job,” Williams said. “If they’re expecting us to be out to vote, we’re expecting them to be present.”

Decked out in her sorority’s colors from her knit cap down to the racing stripe on her pants, her Alpha Kappa Alpha sisters easily spotted her, calling her to join the parade. She caught the eye of Adams, who was slated five spots behind members of the historically Black sorority. 

“I like that pink and green,” Adams called out to Williams, as he smiled and waved from a yellow Triumph TR6 convertible. 

The two candidates crossed paths twice. They said nothing to one another.