A Heated Political Moment

New Hanover County Democratic Chair Jill Hopman had already had a packed day when she arrived home to find her car window and door had been smashed. 

Six Democratic campaign signs line her front lawn, others adorn her front porch. Her house is the only property on her street with campaign signs, she said, and she believes the vandalization was likely politically motivated.

A police officer told her the object used to hit her car was likely a golf club. A Wilmington Police Department spokesperson said it hasn’t yet confirmed a motive.

Hopman says she’s not sure if the vandal specifically targeted her house knowing her political position or whether it was just the yard displays. “I signed up for this,” she said. “I understand it.”

But she’s been reluctant to talk more—worried, she said, that it could discourage Democrats from campaigning in a vital, tense election year.

“It’s hard enough to get people involved in politics,” she said. “I don’t want anybody to be afraid of bumper stickers or yard signs.”

She said she knew the role would have challenges, but this one–entailing cops, insurance, repairs, a $500 deductible, and a rental–she resents a little more.

“We live in unfortunately an incredibly sadly politically intense time where people do need to be particularly safe and vigilant over the next couple of months,” she said.

The vandalization happened several days before the July 13 attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The shooting grazed Trump’s ear, left one spectator dead and two others critically injured, and invigorated national debates over political violence.

For Hopman, the property damage at her home was another sign of just how toxic partisanship has become, even at the local level. “It was a, ‘Wow, things are this bad’ kind of moment,” she said.

Farther up the North Carolina coast last weekend, another openly Democratic property was vandalized.

Early Sunday morning, Carteret County Democratic Party Chair Katie Tomberlin arrived at the party’s Morehead City headquarters to find its window smashed, with a large concrete planter wedged beneath the broken glass. Someone had also thrown large rocks, Tomberlin wrote in a Facebook post. 

The damage happened when no one was in the building, according to North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton. The local campaign temporarily suspended operations. Morehead City Police Chief Bryan Dixon said the department is investigating.

Late Tuesday, county Democratic chairs convened for a statewide emergency meeting and learned the national Biden-Harris campaign has pledged to beef up security at its offices across the state. Officials with knowledge of the arrangement declined to share specifics, citing safety concerns. A spokesperson for the national Biden-Harris campaign said it hasn’t seen a trend of property damage in other states. 

Matt Mercer, spokesperson for the North Carolina GOP, said the party doesn’t share security protocols. He was busy at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week and didn’t immediately address whether the NC GOP has seen any similar vandalization.

Tone and Temperature

The gravity of the attempt on the former president’s life prompted a brief moment of bipartisan reprieve across the country, with politicians nearly universally condemning the violence.

Leaders from both parties called for civility and to tone down dramatic rhetoric–a directive that is proving difficult to follow for some amid a hotly contested election with just three months until early voting begins. 

Despite calls to dampen insults, many Republicans point to continued stark messaging from prominent Democrats, including the state Democratic Party calling Trump’s vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, an “ultra-MAGA extremist.”

Biden and other top Democrats have repeatedly characterized Trump as a dictator and threat to democracy. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Budd said “hysterical and incendiary” language about Trump has fueled political violence. “It must stop,” Budd wrote on X Sunday. Vance said on X that Biden’s language had directly led to the attempted assassination. 

Hopman said all political leaders have a responsibility to cool it in light of the shooting. “I have always felt that politics has gotten far too extreme,” she said.

Former North Carolina Republican Party and current chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, was subdued in his first post-shooting commentary on Sunday: “Everybody in America needs to stop, they need to pause, they need to reflect,” he told Fox News.

Others were less measured.

Former New Hanover County Board of Education member Judy Justice, a Democrat who is campaigning to rejoin the board, wrote in a Facebook comment after the attempted assassination that Trump was “bloodied by one of his favorite high powered rifles.”

New Hanover County Republican Party Chairman Nevin Carr III responded with a sharp denunciation. “Listen to the Democrats when they tell you what they want to do to your freedom,” Carr wrote in a letter the party shared on Facebook. “Their plans fall right in line with every other failed primitive society that has plagued mankind since the beginning.”

Conservative Wilmington radio host Nick Craig of WAAV shared even blunter thoughts. “War is on scumbags,” he wrote in a since-deleted post on X. “Blood is on the hands of every single Democrat in this county.” In a post commending Trump’s heroism, an X user that Craig reposted wrote “If you’re voting for anyone else, you can go fuck yourself.” Wednesday, Craig shared he and WAAV had parted ways (it’s not clear whether the posts factored into the decision).

UNC Board of Governors member and influential Wilmington conservative Woody White speculated about the attempted assassination. “They lie about him for 4 years. They impeach him twice,” he wrote on X. “They falsely indict him. Then, apparently, they shoot him.”

Asked who “they” is, White told a reporter: “‘They’ know who they are, but the term certainly encompasses journalists who pushed the lies, never apologized, called him Hitler, and contributed more than any other group to the current state of our political discourse.”

Republican New Hanover County Commissioner Dane Scalise also scorned the media, writing on X that “almost all journalists are objectively political propagandists.”

Last weekend’s shooting will be seen as a moment that either unites or further divides a polarized electorate. It’s too soon to say which.

Correction: A previous version of this article inadvertently omitted “almost” from Commissioner Dane Scalise’s quote.

Johanna F. Still is The Assembly‘s Wilmington editor. She previously covered economic development for Greater Wilmington Business Journal and was the assistant editor at Port City Daily. She can be reached at johanna@theassemblync.com.