The Caucus: Election Day

What’s in Your Ballot?

The Greensboro City Council Is About to Get A Lot of New Faces

More than half the Greensboro City Council will turn over at one time in this year’s election, with a number of longtime members not running again. It could be the largest shift in city leadership in living memory.

— Joe Killian, Greensboro editor

In Politically Diverse Cary, Nonpartisan Town Council Races Split Along Red and Blue Lines

Cary municipal elections are officially nonpartisan, but this election cycle, the three town council races have lined up neatly along partisan lines, with one Democrat and one Republican running in each, and all candidates endorsed by their respective county parties.

The races feature a mix of newcomers to Cary politics and incumbents fighting to hold onto their seats, and in a politically diverse town where more than half of registered voters are unaffiliated, there are no clear frontrunners.

— Sarah Willets, Indy Week editor in chief

Bell and Williams Square Off in Mayoral Debate

Anjanée Bell and Leo Williams met last week for Durham’s only mayoral debate, going head-to-head to appeal to voters ahead of Election Day. Development was front and center.

— Sarah Willets, Indy Week editor in chief

Fayetteville Council Delays Talks About State Audit in What Critics Call a Pre-election Power Move

Incumbent Mayor Mitch Colvin dominated the Oct. 7 primary against Mayor Pro Tem Kathy Keefe Jensen, perennial candidate Freddie de la Cruz, and seven other challengers. While critics have bashed Colvin for the city’s crime, support for gunshot detection technology ShotSpotter, and six troubled construction projects, he’s also won by large margins in the past. Will Colvin dominate again?

— Maydha Devarajan, CityView editor in chief

Thanks for reading The Caucus, a politics newsletter anchored by Bryan Anderson. Reach us with tips or ideas at politics@theassemblync.com.

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A Private School Parent’s Casus Belli

Conservatives have made a show of eradicating “woke ideology” from public schools and other government bodies. Less well known is their crusade to do the same to private schools. 

Charlotte entrepreneur Doug Turpin, who contends his family was victim to “cancel culture” by one of the state’s most prestigious private schools, is at the forefront of that effort. He founded a nonprofit, the Coalition For Liberty, to lobby for limits to private schools’ autonomy on matters like expulsion policies, while supporting the founding of new schools that comport with his vision of “apolitical” education. 

Another prong of his plan is to found a new accreditor; he believes that the organizations that currently evaluate and vouch for private school quality “promote woke ideology and pressure schools and teachers to adopt it.” The organization intends to lobby legislators to ban those accreditors, according to its website. Turpin has been a generous donor to the N.C. Republican Party and lawmakers in key positions of influence on education policy.

He is also pursuing a legal strategy. After Charlotte Latin School expelled his children in September 2021, following his repeated critiques of the school’s curriculum, Turpin sued. Among his many allegations was that the school was in violation of North Carolina’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The case is now before the state Supreme Court.

—Carli Brosseau

 Not One IOLTA

North Carolina organizations that provide free legal assistance to help low-income people with concerns like housing, employment, and domestic violence have been dealing with budget uncertainty for months. In 2026, things might get a whole lot worse.

The Republican-led General Assembly passed a crime bill in late June that included stricter penalties for certain offenses, salary increases for law enforcement and correctional officers, and a wider window for crime victims seeking compensation.

Buried in that bill was a provision that put a year-long freeze on the North Carolina Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts, or NC IOLTA, which distributes millions of dollars a year to legal-aid organizations.

Some lawmakers question whether they even have the authority to block the flow of non-taxpayer funds to grantees. Rep. Marcia Morey, a Durham Democrat and former district court judge, thinks the General Assembly has exceeded its bounds in going after NC IOLTA.

— Anne Blythe

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On the Basis of Sex

Viola Morrow was summoned during the second week of jury selection for a high-profile murder trial.

Defendants Bryan Christopher Bell and Antwaun Kyral Sims faced possible death sentences if convicted on charges that they kidnapped, beat, and burned alive the 89-year-old aunt of a veteran state legislator in her car in 2000.

Morrow, who has since died, wrote in her jury questionnaire that she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and Assistant District Attorney Gregory Butler struck her from the jury, citing her medical condition. 

It wasn’t until 11 years later that Butler, in a sworn affidavit as part of separate litigation, said he removed Morrow because she was a woman.

More than 30 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court forbade using gender to remove potential jurors, but North Carolina appellate courts have done little to enforce that.

In an email last week, Butler denied he removed Morrow because she was a woman, but declined to answer questions about the affidavit when reached by phone.

— Michael Hewlett

Around the State: Brockman resigns from office (Anderson Alerts). How severe will SNAP disruption be for NC families? (Carolina Public Press). NCGOP requests investigation into alleged cash-for-votes scheme in Wilmington (WECT). Voter lookup page on State Board of Elections website restored after outage (WRAL).

Let us know what’s on your radar at politics@theassemblync.com.