Voter Backlash Puts North Carolina Legislature In Play

Washington Post: “An unusual political battle is raging across North Carolina, where national and state Democrats have recruited an army of candidates and are pouring millions of dollars into a campaign to loosen a years-long Republican grip on a state legislature that has turned an otherwise evenly split state into a bastion for some of the country’s most conservative laws. Among them: a limit on transgender access to bathrooms that was ultimately repealed under pressure from business leaders, congressional district maps that courts have ruled were designed to curtail the voting power of African Americans and education spending levels that have sparked mass protests at the state Capitol.”

“The campaign reflects an often-overlooked subplot of the Democratic Party’s broader push to engineer a ‘blue wave’ across the country in the November midterms — tapping into voter anger over President Trump as well as Republican policies on school funding, taxes and health care to chip away at GOP dominance in state capitals.”