Primaries are over in North Carolina and the race that gets national attention is the Republican primary in NC-09 where Mark Harris upset incumbent Robert Pittenger in a rematch from 2016. Pittenger is the first Republican Congressional incumbent of the year to lose in a primary contest. Before the night was over, Sabato’s Crystal Ball called the race a tossup. Democrat Dan McCready won his primary in the district with more than 80% of the vote and has more than $1 million cash on hand. Harris has less than $100,000.
On a broader level, though, last night showed that 2018 truly is the Year of the Woman. Women won up and down the ballot. A few incumbent men hung on against women challengers, but very few men who weren’t incumbents won against women. And that phenomena occurred in states across the country.
In Wake County, Linda Coleman easily dispatched my candidate Ken Romley. Allison Dahl beat incumbent Duane Hall who was accused of sexual harassment. In Wake County Commission races, challengers Susan Evans and Vickie Adamson beat incumbents Erv Portman and John Burns.
Five of the twelve Democratic nominees for Congress are women: Coleman in NC-02, DD Adams in NC-05, Kyle Horton in NC-07, incumbent Alma Adams in NC-12, and Kathy Manning in NC-13. I’m almost certain we’ve never seen that many women on the Congressional ballot in the state.
In states like Indiana and Ohio, women came out on top in primaries, too. Ten of Ohio’s 16 Democratic nominees for Congress are women. In Indiana, five of the nine Democratic Congressional nominees are women.
Women are reshaping politics, particularly in the Democratic Party. They dominated the elections last night even if they weren’t the marquee races. They won up and down the ballot. In party politics, they’re not only running more often but they’re voting as a powerful block. In North Carolina, they make up about 60% of the state’s Democrats. That’s enough to win a lot of primaries.
We’ll see if they can win in November. If independent women start voting as a block, we could see interesting results this fall. After last night, women look like the future of the Democratic Party in North Carolina, if not the country.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Thank You Women!!! I am most fortunate to have 3 dynamic, extraordinary, diverse daughters whom I could not be more proud of, and 2 Daughters in-law who can oblivious hold their own in any ring, (wrestling or otherwise) being married to my fine sons. I am so glad that only one of them lives in this terribly repressive State which, in my opinion is in dire straits. I am also confident though, that with women kicking ass up and down the ballots all across the U.S. we will be able to leave this place a little better than we got it from our parents, instead of just continuing to run this state and country into the ground for the profit of the pigs at the trough.
I wrote this last fall and it was on the front page of the December issue of the Chatham County Line.
At the end of every calendar year prognosticators make predictions for the coming year and then disappear as we collectively forget whether they were right on the money or dead wrong.
For this holiday season I will make one prediction augmented by a short, two-item wish list of actions that I hope will occur in 2018 in Pittsboro and Chatham County.
Let’s start with the crystal ball. This is not earth shattering, but based upon the election of President Trump and the speed and volume of the various revelations of sexual harassment in business, entertainment, and politics. I foresee that 2018 will be the “Year of the Woman” at the ballot box.
Some may call this the “Weinstein effect”, regardless the #MeToo movement is a watershed moment for gender relations and a collective catharsis with staying power that is multigenerational and highly influential.
Consequently, America will see a wave of women who will step up locally, regionally, statewide, and across the nation to loudly proclaim that “enough is enough”. Female leaders will push through forward thinking agendas that reflect less of a “Mars” approach to process and policy with an advent of “Venus” processes and policy implementation.
These Boomer, Gen-X, and Millennial women will be proactive about pay equity and parental leave, funding for education and training, women’s health care, universal healthcare as well as other bread and butter issues that modern families and households in communities across our state and the nation have in common.
The days of the patronizing male patting the female constituent on the head as he “hears her pain” and then smacking her on her rear as she leaves his office are crashing to an ignominious end.
This will be a bright new future where the sunlight of transparency will incinerate the vampires who have survived far too long in civilized society utilizing clever non-disclosure agreements and large payoffs to hide their egregious behavior and insatiable appetites.
Say “goodbye” to Harvey, Roger, Bret, Kevin, Bill and their ilk. Say “hello” to feminist executives, community leaders, teachers, and nurses who will be changing communities across our nation.