North Carolina

VOTE 2018: North Carolina voters decide on legislature's direction

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina voters were deciding Tuesday whether Gov. Roy Cooper and his Democratic colleagues will gain influence in the current Republican-dominated legislature for the next two years, and if GOP policy proposals should be etched in the state constitution.

[SPECIAL SECTION: Vote 2018]

All 170 General Assembly seats were up for election, and Democrats needed to win four additional House seats or six more Senate seats to end the Republicans' veto-proof control. The supermajorities have allowed Republicans to pass legislation at will since 2013, in particular those eroding the governor's powers since Cooper was narrowly elected in 2016.

Voters also are choosing seats for the U.S. House, county offices and for state courts, including one on the state Supreme Court.

Cooper, Democratic candidates and allied groups have raised enormous sums of campaign money to end the GOP's supermajorities and to defeat all six constitutional referendums. They would need 16 more House seats and 11 more Senate seats overall to retake majorities for the first time since 2010. Senate candidate fundraising was a bright spot for Republicans.

While considered a swing state in presidential elections - Donald Trump won the state in 2016 - North Carolina state politics have been dominated by the GOP for much of the decade, thanks in part to favorable district lines Republicans drew.

A pair of constitutional amendments on ballots would swing authority over filling judicial vacancies and the elections board from the governor and toward the legislature. A third would mandate photo identification to vote in person. Republicans have been unsuccessful twice since 2011 in voter ID laws they passed - one was vetoed and the other struck down by federal judges.

Republicans hold 10 of the delegation's 13 congressional seats, but Democrats were running tight races in three seats. Trump campaigned twice in North Carolina since August for Republican Mark Harris in the 9th and GOP Rep. Ted Budd in the 13th. Rep. George Holding in the 2nd District also was being threatened by a Democratic challenger.

On the Supreme Court, Democrat Anita Earls was seeking to unseat Associate Justice Barbara Jackson, a Republican. An Earls victory would give Democrats five of the seven seats on the court.

In Mint Hill near Charlotte, Donald Cureton Sr. is supporting Democrat Dan McCready against Harris, who he believes is hoping to get a boost from his allegiance to Trump.

"Mark Harris is on that Trump coattail," Cureton said. "They have to have the same mentality, and that's the sad part about it."

But voter Christina Adkins said the religious background of Harris, as well as his support of Trump, is what drew her to him. She also hopes that the midterm will allow the country to maintain the course Trump has set.

"I don't want anything undone that he's already done," said Adkins, who voted early in Mecklenburg County. "(The election) has a big amount to do with what is going well in the country."

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