The governor’s short-sighted revenge on a fellow NC Democrat

Winning political control in a sharply divided state like North Carolina is hard. Sustaining that control is nearly impossible.

Yet for more than 100 years, Democrats kept a stranglehold on the General Assembly and a majority of North Carolina’s Congressional seats. One reason for their century of success was a calculated effort to keep their tent big – to recruit and promote not just candidates that energized the party’s liberal base, but pro-business moderates and even social conservatives. Not that long ago, it was common for North Carolina Democrats to win support from pro-life organizations and the NRA, or to rebuff labor unions and environmental activists in favor of pro-business policies.

The pragmatism paid big political dividends for Gov. Jim Hunt, who at times adopted Republican positions on taxes and crime. It paid off for lesser-known but powerful legislators like David Hoyle, a State Senator who stayed popular in deep red Gaston County well into the 2000s. And of course, it paid in spades for Roy Cooper. The governor rose from legislative obscurity at least in part by bucking his own party. Partnering with Republicans to oust the sitting House Speaker, Cooper quickly earned a reputation as an independent-minded deal-maker.

Which makes it even more surprising that Cooper is now openly seeking revenge on a fellow Democrat who refused to toe the party line. If you don’t know the backstory: last month, out of nowhere, Democratic State Senator Kirk deViere of Fayetteville drew a formidable primary challenger, whom Cooper promptly endorsed. It was the political equivalent of ordering a hit, in broad daylight, in the middle of main street. All seemingly because deViere negotiated a state budget deal with Republicans that ended a years-long stalemate, without Cooper’s blessing, or signature policy goal of Medicaid expansion, or the governor’s payoff to the state’s powerful teachers organization.

I know politics is a full-contact sport. And I understand this is hardly the first intra-party score settling North Carolina has seen on either side of the aisle (it’s not even the first in the Cooper era – remember Joel Ford?) But this is easily the most brazen, and arguably the most short-sighted.

I’m not saying Cooper won’t succeed and oust deViere on May 17. He might. But I suspect it would be a pyrrhic victory, with short and long-term consequences. If Cooper muscles a more liberal Democrat through the primary, it could put an otherwise safe Democratic Senate seat in play in the general election. If Cooper swings and misses, and deViere survives, the Senator could return to Jones Street scorned and emboldened to make more deals.

Beyond the primary, Democrats simply can’t afford to pursue ideological purity. For over a decade, their support has hemorrhaged outside of North Carolina’s urban centers, and there are signs their Trump-era gains in affluent, highly-educated suburbs could reverse in 2022. There is no path back to a governing majority without broader appeal. The deViere fight is a sign they either don’t understand those political realities, or just don’t care to right the ship anytime soon.

There’s a distinction worth noting here: for all the arrows Tim Moore, Phil Berger and Thom Tillis have taken for allegedly ruling with an iron first, Republicans who bucked their party’s leadership in recent years never found themselves in deViere’s shoes. State Senators like Richard Stevens and Fletcher Hartsell supported Democratic budgets before the GOP won control in 2010. When they took the majority, Berger gave them chairmanships. In the House, Representative Chuck McGrady partnered with Democrats on major issues like redistricting and environmental regulation. He held major leadership roles under both Moore and Tillis. At least at the state level, Republicans have resisted the temptation to eat their own, and it’s paid off.

The same can’t be said for NC Democrats. That’s a troubling sign for their future.