North Carolina’s New Era

“This is what real community power looks like”

People aren’t talking enough about what happened in NC this week, so let’s talk about it. Contrary to what you might have seen or heard, the most important story from North Carolina’s primaries on March 3rd is not Republican leader Phil Berger losing by two votes or Valerie Foushee defeating progressive challenger Nida Allam. The most important and inspiring story was this: an unprecedented coalition of Southern unions and working peoples’ organizations running audacious campaigns and winning a series of upset victories over establishment Democrats in major races at the state and local level.

Over the last few years, organizations like DAE, Unite Here, Durham for All, Carolina Federation, Siembra, and Down Home NC have been organizing non-stop — building up their bases of working class member leaders, training them in how to run and win campaigns, and sharpening their political strategy. Tuesday night’s election results showed what a winning combination that can be — from the coast to the piedmont and from urban centers to the rural Black Belt.

Even more importantly though, these election results show how profoundly these organizations have already shifted the balance of power in our state and they signal what could become a New Era for North Carolina politics— one where leaders actually stand up for what is right and where working people can finally win the schools, rights, and freedoms our people have been denied for too long.

What Happened?

First, in Durham: a union-backed slate of Board of Education candidates swept into office on massive margins. The four New Era for DPS candidates— Natalie Bent Kitaif, Xavier Cason, Gabby Rivero, and Nadeen Bir— were all supported by DAE and Durham for All, a public school workers union and a political organization of public school parents, and they each won by an average of 30 points. Nadeen Bir, a long time community activist, won by 34 points over the 8 year incumbent and Board Chair Bettina Umstead (who won her last election by nearly 48 points). These were unambiguous mandates that working families in Durham are ready for new, pro-union, pro-democracy leadership for our public schools.

Similarly, in the NC House: across four different races, establishment Democrats were trounced by peoples’ candidates backed by aligned working peoples’ organizations like Unite Here, Carolina Federation, Down Home, NCAE, and Siembra. Veleria Levy in NC House District 99, Rodney Sadler in NC House District 106, and Patricia Smith in NC House District 23 each defeated one of the most conservative and unreliable Democrat incumbents in the NCGA. Nasif Majeed, Shelly Willingham, and Carla Cunningham have been in the legislature for 30 years collectively, and all have voted with Republicans multiple times in recent years. Their resounding defeats on Tuesday sends a clear warning to any other conservative Dems in the NCGA. Finally, Rodney Pierce was also victorious on Tuesday against a challenge from Michael Wray (Pierce defeated Wray, the 20-year incumbent, by just 34 votes in 2024 and this time won by almost 4,000 votes).

Now, we know that winning School Board elections in Durham and NC House seats in Mecklenburg, Edgecombe, Martin, Bertie, Warren, Halifax, Northampton counties might seem like smaller, down-ballot victories in this moment of fascism, war, and genocide. However, when you understand how all these candidates won, you begin to see how these wins could chart a path towards a new era in NC politics.

So, how were these upsets possible?

What fueled these victories, in short, was those multi-racial working peoples’ organizations— which have each been building their own muscle— teaming up like never before to 1) identify key races where there was a real opportunity to challenge and then recruit candidates from their own bases who were ready to fight for what working families in those districts care about most deeply (paying workers living wages, full union rights for workers, protecting our communities from ICE, fighting the privatization of our schools, and more) and 2) mobilize their own highly-skilled member leaders to help knock over 150 thousand doors and have tens of thousands of real face-to-face conversations with voters.

In the Durham School Board campaign for example: DAE and Durham for All (Carolina Federation) combined the strength of the robust member-led organizing committees they’ve built over the past few years to create a genuinely incredible political movement/machine. A machine capable of filling 630 volunteer canvass shifts, knocking almost 10,000 doors, and greeting voters at nearly every precinct on Election Day. In the last month they were able to have real conversations with thousands of public school workers at their worksites and thousands of public school parents and community supporters at their homes about what was at stake in these Board elections and what change they want to see for our schools.

And it worked. The polling numbers show game-changing turnout of working class voters who likely would have just stayed home were it not for these organizations, these campaigns and these candidates.

Turnout in Durham was nearly 10,000 votes (+20%) higher than the 2022 midterm primaries and even exceeded 2024’s presidential-gubernatorial primaries. Over 35,000 total Durhamites cast their vote for the four New Era slate candidates. For perspective, that is almost exactly double the number of votes Alexandria Ocasio Cortez got in her now legendary, grassroots-powered primary victory over establishment incumbent Joe Crowley in 2018. Just sayin’.

In Mecklenburg (where Sadler and Levy won) turnout for this primary was 17,000 voters higher than the 2022 midterm primaries (+15%). In just Sadler’s district (NCHD 106) within Mecklenburg County, they saw a 47% increase in voter turnout over the 2024 presidential-gubernatorial primaries.

One more piece of perspective: Trump won NC by less than 200,000 votes in 2024. And these unions and working peoples’ organizations just got +27,000 people to vote in these down-ballot primaries compared to the 2022, and that’s just counting Durham and Mecklenburg. How many more counties can we run these kinds of campaigns in? How much bigger can these grassroots campaigns get the more they keep winning?

The final takeaways

These state and local level wins were nationally-significant victories for grassroots, multiracial, working class democracy.

Tuesday’s results showed that working families in our state are hungry for something fundamentally different from the status quo state politics we are used to. Working people are fed up with party elites who are not ready to meet this moment, who are not accountable to their constituents, who are not brave enough to stand up for what’s right, and who aren’t willing or able to lead the fight against fascism.

MAGA facism will be on the ballot in 2028. And one thing is certain: the status quo of elitist Democratic leadership in NC cannot and will not be the Democratic leadership that defeats Trump’s fascism.

But the deep hope here is that these powerhouse, fighting working people’s organizations have just demonstrated that there is a real path to victory here in NC. A path forged by audacious, multi-racial working class leadership towards a new era of hope, democracy, and freedom for our people.

“This is what real community power looks like!” exclaimed newly elected Durham School Board member Nadeen Bir to nearly 100 supporters Tuesday night at Motorco. The hope and empowerment flowing through the crowd was truly electrifying. The crowd represented the working people of Durham through and through: students, educators, union members, parents, community members, elders, faith leaders, Black, white, Latino, Palestinians, longtime activists, and first time campaigners. And after weeks and months of exhausting organizing, no one was finished — they were determined to keep winning for our people. They were rejuvenated to begin a New Era, for DPS and for NC politics. No one was ready to sit back down and check out for four years— they were ready to show up to next week’s BOE meeting and keep fighting for classified public school workers. No one was hopeless in the face of the horrors being carried out by Trump and his party — they were making calls to actions at the victory party to demand our Senator stop the war in Iran. They were fortified by the profound belief that we can fight for a better future and win. We have to. And this is how.