Bright Spots in North Carolina: Winning the Governorship, Breaking the GOP Supermajority, Notching Local Victories

We just got this update from our local partners at Down Home North Carolina, and it’s so good we’re just going to share it in full (with their permission).

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Hey Down Homies,

We’re writing deep in our process of grieving the national election outcome, and with real concern about what the future holds for the people we love. We’re sending you strength, purpose, and love as we enter a new political reality.

As we prepare to go through the storm, we remain committed to our course, as described in our theory of change: “If we build the power of the multiracial working class in small town and rural NC, we can win improvements now and move toward a future that reflects our values.”

Even as we come to grips with the election of Trump, those of us at Down Home can see that our organizing works. On Tuesday night, our scrappy working-class members defied the national trends and scored dozens and dozens of wins across North Carolina. As we grieve, we are also celebrating our working class members who fought, ran, won, and protected millions of North Carolinians from radical extremists last night.

In a cycle where 90% of the nation’s counties moved appreciably to the right, Down Home’s rural counties bucked the trend, reducing the rate of rightward movement and reversing in six counties.

– Todd Zimmer & Dreama Caldwell, 
Co-Directors of Down Home North Carolina

Down Home’s 2024 electoral program was the largest in our history, more than four times larger than our program in 2022. All told, our program covered 25 North Carolina counties and achieved the following metrics:

• 636,874 door knocks, representing 131% of our goal
• 779,017 phones calls from within our own program, exceeding our goal
• 1.7M phone calls total with allies, 230% of our goal
• 833,973 texts
• 1287 relational vote turnout leaders
• …as well as digital, mail, faith organizing, and narrative work

In a cycle where 90% of the nation’s counties moved appreciably to the right, Down Home’s rural counties bucked the trend, reducing the rate of rightward movement and reversing in six counties. You can literally see our efforts in the circled outlier counties, representing the impact of Down Home’s year-round organizing and electoral work, on the NYT map below:

New York Times – Presidential Vote Margin Shift in North Carolina, 2020-2024

We are still crunching data, but compared to national averages, our counties bucked the trend by the following metrics:

• Alamance County overperformed by 4.3%
• Ashe County overperformed by 5.3%
• Cabarrus County overperformed by 5.8%
• Chatham County overperformed by approximately 6%
• Johnston County overperformed by 5.5%
• Transylvania overperformed by 6.1%

This is the power of year-round organizing and the work of our Down Home chapters. On election night, that power found expression in a range of cherished victories, including:

• Resoundingly defeating Mark Robison and rejecting his extreme agenda. We elected Josh Stein by almost 15% in what was supposed to be the closest governors’ race in the nation. We want to stress that our work to define Robinson as an extremist had him down 5% BEFORE the CNN article hit.
• Defeating Michelle Morrow, the radical extremist who attempted to take control of North Carolina’s K-12 public schools. We elected our champion Mo Green by just 1.18% in a statewide race that Down Home and Public School Strong helped to elevate.
• Down Home’s rural program contributed the final seats that broke the Republican supermajority, giving Governor Josh Stein a veto to protect North Carolinians from radical legislation, including abortion bans. As in 2022, the supermajority was broken by a single seat in Down Home’s turf, this time in Vance and Granville counties in HD 32, where we won by just 182 votes…a district where we knocked 43,291 doors and talked to 6,324 voters. We also narrowly won HD 24 in Wilson County by a total of 871 votes, where we knocked 59,079 doors and logged 9,293 conversations with voters.

Our statewide Public School Strong Voters had a big night, as we experimented with our first electoral cycle as a coalition. Across the state, 40 of our Public School Strong candidates were elected, including the following highlights:

• Alamance County elected Seneca Rogers and Down Home member candidate Tameka Harvey to the school board
• Johnston County elected Down Home member April Lee to the school board
• Person County elected Down Home member Jason Torian to the school board

Local race highlights included:

• Electing member Antoinetta Cash-Royster to the Person County commission by just 5 votes…we’re currently working on ballot cure
• Electing member Mark Speed to the Franklin County commission
• Electing Mark Manning to the Pitt County commission

This is the power of year-round organizing and the work of our Down Home chapters.

– Todd Zimmer & Dreama Caldwell, 
Co-Directors of Down Home North Carolina

The coming months and years will bring a lot of pain and challenges, and Down Home’s members are committed to organizing through the crises. Our organization is stronger today than we have ever been, fresh off the largest rural organizing drive this century in North Carolina. We are surer than ever that our theory of change works, and aware that our communities will need Down Home more than ever as we fight for our safety, our freedom, and justice for all.

Thanks for being a part of our community. We love you,

In struggle,

Todd Zimmer, Dreama Caldwell, and thousands of Down Homies