Cumberland voters could decide if abortion is outlawed in NC, gun laws eased, taxes cut

Three of the elections underway in Cumberland County could decide the future of North Carolina on controversial issues, including abortion, gun laws, tax cuts, government funding of private schools, and the governor’s power during states of emergency.

These three competitive races — two for the North Carolina Senate and one for the North Carolina House of Representatives — will help decide whether Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper will retain his power to veto the decisions of the legislature’s Republican majority.

If the Republicans win back the supermajorities they enjoyed through 2018, they can again roll over the Democrats on those and other hot-button issues as they did before.

After the Democrats broke the Republican supermajorities in the November 2018 elections, but before the newly elected lawmakers took office in January 2019, the Republicans held a lawmaking session. Cooper vetoed three of their bills, but the lame-duck GOP supermajority overrode those vetoes.

These bills changed campaign finance laws, changed environmental law, allowed municipalities to create charter schools and would have implemented North Carolina’s constitutional requirement to show a photo ID when voting.

Since January 2019, the veto that the people of North Carolina gave the governor’s office in 1996 has forced Republican lawmakers to compromise with Cooper and the Democrats. It forced the GOP leadership to run the state with the concerns of all the voters in mind, not just the concerns of the relatively few voters who participate in Republican primary elections.

In the 120-member state House, the Republicans have 69 seats. They need to pick up three more to reach 72 seats — the minimum needed for a supermajority to override Cooper’s ability to check-and-balance the lawmakers with the veto stamp.

In the 50-member state Senate, the Republicans have 28 seats and need two more to regain their supermajority in that chamber.

The contenders for control of North Carolina

Here in Fayetteville and Cumberland County, Democrat Val Applewhite of Fayetteville is trying to stop the GOP from taking the Democrat-held Senate District 19 seat and reaching the Senate’s 30-member supermajority margin. Republican Wesley Meredith of the Gray's Creek area of Cumberland County is trying to make the supermajority happen.

Senate District 19 covers the northeast, southeast and southwest corners of Cumberland County. It has about 65% of the county’s population. The Civitas Partisan Index, an analysis by the politically right-wing John Locke Foundation, describes Senate 19 as a “likely Democratic” win. But two longtime politicos in Cumberland County, a Republican and a Democrat, both said that race is much more competitive than it appears on paper.

While much of the attention in Fayetteville has been on the Applewhite-Meredith race, Cumberland County also has the Senate District 21 election, and on paper it’s described as a “toss-up” between Democrat Frank McNeill and incumbent Republican state Sen. Tom McInnis. Both live in Moore County.

More:Voter Guide 2022: Early voting is underway. Here's what Cumberland voters need to know.

The Civitas Partisan Index says four of the state Senate elections statewide are in the toss-up category.

Meanwhile, Democrat Elmer Floyd of Fayetteville could snatch away one of the GOP’s 69 House seats and make it harder for the Republicans to reach the House’s 72-vote veto-override threshold. In the House 43 district, Floyd is running against freshman Republican Diane Wheatley of the Linden area.

House District 43 covers eastern Fayetteville and the entire east and southern sides of Cumberland County.

The Civitas Partisan Index says House 43 is one of six competitive toss-up House districts across the state.

The headliner: Val Applewhite vs. Wesley Meredith

In Cumberland County political circles, the Senate District 19 race between Val Applewhite and Wesley Meredith has generated the most buzz, said George Breece, a former state lawmaker who has long been a part of Democratic politics.

“People are really interested in this Senate race between Applewhite and Meredith — they really are,” Breece said. “That’s the one they ask questions about, that’s the one they talk about.”

More:Fayetteville Observer Voter Guide 2022: Meet the candidates for North Carolina Senate 19

Democrat Kirk deViere has held the Senate District 19 seat since he narrowly defeated then-incumbent Meredith in the 2018 election. DeViere sought reelection this year, but then Applewhite, a former City Council member and a long-time Democratic activist, filed and got the endorsement of Gov. Roy Cooper. That was an unusual move in a Democratic primary and it upended the race. Applewhite solidly defeated deViere in May.

Now she faces Meredith, who also is a former City Council member and who had eight years in the Senate.

The Civitas Partisan Index says the 19th Senate District is a D+6 territory, “likely Democratic.”

Republican political activist and columnist Troy Williams says that rating fails to take into account the full picture of Cumberland County politics.

“I think it’s going to be close,” or Applewhite’s race to lose, said Williams, who caveated that he is a Meredith supporter.

He said the Democrats’ traditional “souls to the polls” program, which seeks to turn out voters to early voting sites on Sundays after church, appears to have fallen flat this year.

For example, the Smith Recreation Center site off Murchison Road, which serves a largely Black and Democratic area, had only 88 voters on the first Sunday of early voting and only 35 voters this past Sunday.

For comparison, as of Tuesday evening, the largest turnout at Smith Recreation Center was on the first day, Oct. 20, when 278 people cast ballots there, the county Board of Elections office reported.

Breece also brushed past the D+6 rating.

Republicans in general are expected to do well this year, he said.

“Polls have been right and wrong before, but the truth is … that race is one that’s got two people, two fine people — they’re good people — who come from absolutely different planets when it comes to political philosophy.”

Abortion law is an example of where Applewhite and Meredith differ.

Abortion is legal in North Carolina through the 20th week of gestation. After the U.S. Supreme Court this summer overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had blocked state abortion bans, some Republican-controlled states proceeded to severely restrict or ban the practice.

North Carolina’s Republican-majority legislature, facing Democratic Gov. Cooper’s veto stamp, made no effort to do so.

Where do Applewhite and Meredith stand?

“I would oppose any new restrictions on access to abortion in North Carolina,” Applewhite said in a voter guide.

And Meredith: “I would only support new regulations on abortion that include clear exceptions for rape, incest, protecting the life of the mother, and compassionately caring for fetuses with catastrophic deformities who cannot survive outside the womb or have already died.”

From out-of-town: Frank McNeill vs. Tom McInnis

For the past 10 years, Cumberland County was paired with Hoke County for the state Senate District 21 seat.

Although the district’s lawmaker, Democratic Sen. Ben Clark, lives in Hoke County, Cumberland County and Fayetteville have long ties to him because he grew up in Spring Lake and Fayetteville.

But this year, Clark is running for Congress, and Senate District 21 is vastly different from the area that Clark served. The district maps are revised every 10 years to adjust for population shifts, and now Cumberland County is paired with Moore County instead of Hoke County.

The new Senate 21 District covers all of Moore County plus the northwest corner of Cumberland County, including Spring Lake and parts of Fort Bragg and Fayetteville. The Civitas Partisan Index says it’s D+0 — “toss-up.”

Both of this year’s Senate 21 candidates, Democrat Frank McNeill and Republican Tom McInnis, the incumbent, are working hard to build name recognition in Cumberland County with mailers, appearances and other campaigning.

Demographically, Moore County is Republican territory and the Cumberland County portion of Senate 21 is heavily Democratic.

More:Fayetteville Observer Voter Guide 2022: Meet the candidates for North Carolina Senate 21

Republican Williams expects McInnis to be strong in red-land Moore County, and he saw McInnis campaigning at the early voting site in Spring Lake, which is politically blue. Williams lives in the Senate 21 district.

“Now, I’ve gotten mailers and everything from McInnis,” Williams said. Many of the McInnis mailers have bashed McNeill. And is McNeill hitting back?

An outside organization, seeking to help McNeill, sent a flyer that criticized McInnis, Williams said, but “I haven’t seen anything positive on McNeill in my mailbox.”

The outcome could be decided by Cumberland County’s voters, Democrat Breece said.

“In the past, Cumberland County has been a bellwether for the Democratic Party, that’s why McInnis is putting the effort he is here: Billboards, television, direct mail,” Breece said, to try to blunt the Democratic strength.

Breece and his wife have gotten “a couple of mailers from McNeill, but we have just gotten a boatload from Tom McInnis,” he said.

State House 43: Elmer Floyd vs. Diane Wheatley

Democrat Elmer Floyd served six terms in the legislature for House District 43, then lost the Democratic primary in 2020. Then Republican Diane Wheatley won the 2020 general election.

Now Floyd is trying to get back into office, and Wheatley is trying to stay.

The Civitas Partisan Index lists District 43 as D+0, “toss-up.”

The district has much Democratic territory in Fayetteville, and much Republican territory east of the Cape Fear River and other areas outside the Fayetteville city limits.

Williams said Floyd, although a Democrat, has been traditionally socially conservative in the past. An example: In 2016, Floyd voted for the controversial “bathroom bill” that prohibited transgender people in government-owned buildings from using the restrooms that conformed with their gender identity.

More:Fayetteville Observer Voter Guide 2022: Meet the candidates for North Carolina House 43

But this cycle, Floyd has campaign signs stating his support for abortion rights. “That surprised me, coming from him,” Williams said. He speculated it signaled “a heave of desperation” on Floyd’s part.

Breece, on the other hand, said the results of this year’s Republican and Democratic primaries are a clue that Wheatley may be in trouble and that Floyd has regained his base of support.

Wheatley was part of a team of Cumberland County lawmakers that brought more than $400 million worth of projects to Cumberland County last year, Breece said. Yet she won her primary against Clarence Goins somewhat narrowly: 51.3% to 48.7%.

Floyd, on the other hand, won a three-way primary with 59.9%. Kimberly Hardy, who beat him in 2020, came in second with 36%.

“That’s a blowout in anybody’s book,” Breece said. “So the point is that Elmer has come home, and his voters have come back to him.”

Democrats likely to win the other General Assembly races in Cumberland County

Fayetteville and Cumberland County have three other legislative elections. They are all in the state House, and Democrats are expected to win all three:

• Democrat Charles Smith of Fayetteville is unopposed for the House 44 district, which covers central and part of northern Fayetteville. Incumbent Democrat Billy Richardson did not run for reelection. House District 44 has a Civitas Partisan Index of D+13, “safe Democratic.”

• Democratic state Rep. Marvin Lucas of Spring Lake is seeking re-election in House District 42, which has Spring Lake, Fort Bragg and western Fayetteville. Republican Gloria Carrasco of Fayetteville is running against him. The Civitas Partisan Index rates the district as D+22 “safe Democratic.”

• Democrat Frances Jackson of Hope Mills is running for the House 45 seat being vacated by Republican Rep. John Szoka (who is running for the county Board of Commissioners). Jackson faces Republican Susan Chapman of Fayetteville. District 45 has Hope Mills and parts of central, southern and southwest Fayetteville. The district is rated D+8, “likely Democratic.”

Senior North Carolina reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Cumberland County voters could make or prevent GOP supermajority in NC