NEWS
Nort packs
North Carolina
Sixth Pack North Carolina’s redrawn 6th Congressional District more tightly packs Democrats into one of just three safely blue seats statewide. Will the March primary be a race to the left? BY LEIGH TAUSS ltauss@indyweek.com
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emocratic North Carolina congressman David Price first won election in 1986, the year the last of Durham’s cotton mills closed. With the exception of a single narrow defeat in 1994—the notorious red wave that ousted 34 House Democrats and birthed the modern GOP—he’s held on to the left-leaning 4th Congressional District ever since. The district’s heart is the Bull City, but it also encompasses all of Orange, Granville, and Franklin Counties as well as parts of Wake, Chatham, and Vance. Price “is the epitome of a statesman and public servant,” North Carolina’s other longtime Democratic congressman G.K. Butterfield said recently, which certainly rings true. Price, 81, has a well-earned reputation as an effective, no-nonsense lawmaker; he’s cerebral rather than attention-seeking and would rather get things done than stand on ceremony. He’s helped push through education and consumer protection and has secured funding for a slew of state projects from the construction of Raleigh’s Union Station to an EPA lab and headquarters for the North Carolina National Guard. Last month, Price announced he intends to retire at the end of his term, leaving his seat wide open for a Democratic successor in 2022. The district—which has been recalibrated as the 6th—is one of three precious safe havens for Democrats in the new, heavily gerrymandered congressional map. Republicans would be poised to secure up to 11 seats, giving them nearly 80 percent representation in a state where there are more Democrats registered to vote than Republicans (North Carolina has about 2.5 million registered Democrats, 2.4 million registered Independents, and 2.2 million Republicans). Lawsuits are already challenging the legality of the Republican-drawn maps, and courts will ultimately decide if they stand for the March primary. The candidate filing period for the primary doesn’t 12
November 17, 2021
INDYweek.com
open for two weeks, but campaigns for the seat are already in full swing. State senator Wiley Nickel, who currently represents Wake County, threw his name into the ring the same day Price announced his retirement and has already amassed a quarter-million-dollar war chest. Last week, Durham County Board of Commissioners member Nida Allam, the first Muslim woman ever elected to public office in North Carolina, launched her campaign and instantly raised $50,000, a figure she’s already doubled. And outside Durham’s North Carolina Central University Monday, air force veteran and small business owner Nathan Click announced he, too, would be vying for the coveted congressional seat. Several other big-name candidates are rumored to be entering the race, including state senators Valerie Foushee and Mike Woodard and former state senator Floyd McKissick Jr. But the full candidate roster won’t come into focus until the state’s filing deadline December 17. Price’s district has long been a Democratic stronghold—Price won with 67 percent of the vote in 2020— but the new 6th District condenses it into an even more tightly packed blue district by eliminating the rural areas north of Wake County. It’s now expected to swing 74 percent Democrat, according to a recent analysis by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, making it tied with the 9th District, which covers Charlotte, for having the highest concentration of Democratic voters.
“They made it a safer Democratic seat so they could make other seats more Republican,” says political consultant Gary Pearce, a former advisor to Governor Jim Hunt. “Democrats are looking at a bad year next year and what they need to be looking at is how they are going to dig out of that hole down the road.” The question isn’t if a Democrat will win the 6th seat but which, and in turn what brand of progressive politics resonates most strongly with 2021 voters. If Price represents the best of North Carolina Democrats of yore, what type of candidate will represent the party’s future? Will it be a young firebrand progressive, like Allam, or a tried and true establishment candidate with deep political ties and a lengthy history of service, like Foushee? With Butterfield’s district now competitive, could the 6th be North Carolina’s best chance to send a progressive candidate to Washington? You won’t have to wait a year for the answer. The district is so packed that a Republican wouldn’t stand a chance against a primate. November’s election will be decided in the primary. Just because the 6th is safely blue, that doesn’t mean a lot isn’t riding on it. Midterm elections typically spell mayhem for the party in power—see: the 1994 Republican Revolution following the election of President Bill Clinton and the Tea Party’s sweep of the 2010 midterms after President Barack Obama’s election. If Virginia’s recent gubernatorial election—where Republican Glenn
