As North Carolina’s midterm season winds down, stakes remain high in this year’s election with the balance of power in the state legislature up for grabs.
N.C. Republicans need to win two more seats in the Senate and three in the House in order to gain a three-fifths “supermajority” in both chambers, meaning they can override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. The results from Nov. 8 will undoubtedly impact North Carolinians for years to come, shaping state policy on issues like abortion access, Medicaid expansion and tax cuts.
In Chatham County, incumbent Rep. Robert Reives II, who serves as the House minority leader, is facing Republican challenger and former County Commissioner Walter Petty in the race for House District 54.
Reives, an attorney with Sanford law firm Wilson, Reives, Silverman & Doran, has served in the House of Representatives since 2014. Petty began a long stretch of service as commissioner beginning in 2010, stepping down in the middle of a four-year term in his Dist. 5 board seat in April 2019 due to demands of his growing business, Atlantic Power Solutions — a generator sales and service company.
The News + Record spoke with political experts about the competitiveness of the race, where a well-known, incumbent candidate is up for re-election in what some have called a “countrypolitian county.” Here’s what’s at stake:
Until 2018, the Republicans held a supermajority in North Carolina — which they had maintained for much of the decade before. Regaining a supermajority would mean a clearer path to passing partisan bills and a return to the ability to override the gubernatorial veto.
Gov. Cooper has vetoed 75 bills since he was elected to office, the highest number of any other governor in the state; North Carolina governors only gained veto power in 1997.
When it comes to the midterm elections in N.C., gaining a supermajority is “the key thing” Republicans are trying to achieve and Democrats are trying to avoid, as opposed to the likelihood of Democrats gaining a majority, says Chris Cooper, a political scientist and professor at Western Carolina University.
Ultimately, it’ll come down to a few key races, and though Cooper said Dist. 54 leans Democratic, if Petty was able to clinch the seat, it would spell a clear sign Republicans will gain the supermajority they’re looking for.
“So if (Reives) were to lose, that would be a pretty big statement for where the people of Chatham County want to see their government moving, if they would sacrifice the power of having a minority leader, but still a leader, for somebody who’s going to at least enter with less power,” Cooper said.
When it comes to the defining factors of swing districts across the state, Cooper said partisanship plays a major role. In Chatham County, 55% of residents voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
“I think it’s kind of a boring answer, but it’s a real one — it’s just partisanship in this kind of nationalized, polarized political environment,” he said. “Sure, issues and candidates make a difference at the margins. But it’s only at the margins. The major factor here is voting power of each party and voting history of each party.”
Steven Greene, a researcher and professor of political science at N.C. State University, echoed this analysis, also saying the incumbency advantage is perhaps not what it used to be even 20 years ago. It’s notable that Reives’ challenger is a former county commissioner, Greene said, saying strong challengers tend to run in races where they think they have a chance of winning.
“Just the sense that Walter Petty is somebody who has the profile of a strong challenger is telling you that this is more likely than not going to be a district that’s having a competitive race,” Greene said.
Though Chatham’s unaffiliated voters now outnumber registered Democrats and Republicans in the county — mirroring a statewide trend — Greene also cautioned against placing too much emphasis on their registration. He said many unaffiliated voters still have partisan inclinations they tend to follow in elections.
“So the idea that unaffiliated voters are this kind of large swing block that can really move elections one way or the other is a pretty dramatic oversimplification,” he said. “Among those people who really are politically up for grabs, of course a disproportionate number of them are unaffiliated, but I would say the more important part is, even among unaffiliated voters, most of those people have pretty strong Republican or Democratic inclinations that they are going to typically follow when they vote.”
Chatham is on the precipice of significant change, with major corporations in the process of establishing megasites in Moncure and Siler City promising thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment. Still, according to a N.C. Dept. of Commerce county profile from May 2021, Chatham urban-rural divide leans rural, with 65.9% of the population being classified as such.
Mac McCorkle, professor of practice at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, said he sees competitiveness in state races in fringe, metropolitan areas he has dubbed “countrypolitian,” like Chatham County.
“I call them countrypolitan counties, because they have strong country roots, strong rural roots, but have gotten big enough in terms of commuting into the cities and such that they’re also considered technically metropolitan,” McCorkle said.
He also said Dist. 54’s recent redistricting, which has lost part of Durham County — an area that skews Democrat — and gained a portion of Randolph County — which leans Republican — could influence the competitiveness of the race.
McCorkle said he anticipates the race will result in a Democratic win, but seconded Cooper’s analysis that an upset would be a clear sign Republicans are gaining seats in more hotly contested races across the state.
In North Carolina, abortion is currently legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy, meaning the state has become a haven among the Southeast for those seeking access. Republicans, including leaders like Phil Berger and Tim Moore, have said they would seek bans that significantly cut back access.
“The truth is if Republicans have a supermajority, they will almost surely pass a law that dramatically restricts things, compared to the current status quo,” Greene said. “And if Republicans do not have a supermajority, anything they tried to pass would be vetoed, almost surely successfully upheld by Governor Cooper.”
Before the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, McCorkle said Democrats were almost “defenseless to the usual midterm problems” with an incumbent president. Typically, the sitting president’s party loses votes in midterm elections. The question in this year’s midterms is how much Dobbs will be a voting issue, McCorkle said.
“So that’s what would be interesting,” McCorkle said. “If you see some real big vote coming out in Chatham for Reives, especially among women, you would think, ‘Yeah, Dobbs really had an effect.’”
Petty did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but in his candidate questionnaire, said there “may be times abortion is necessary when a mother’s life is at risk.”
In contrast, Reives has stated he supports codifying the reproductive rights previously protected for nearly 50 years under Roe v. Wade.
“The right to choose is under attack in North Carolina, but Democrats in the General Assembly currently hold enough seats to uphold any vetoes by Governor Cooper,” Reives said. “We cannot go down the same path as other states that are outlawing medical procedures and criminalizing women and doctors.”
Reives’ goals for office include expanding Medicaid, pushing for legislation to raise the age limit for the purchase of handguns and assault rifles, ban bumper stocks and high capacity magazines, and expand background checks for the purchase of a firearm, and supporting the establishment of a nonpartisan redistricting commission. He has also outlined priorities to expand investment in public education and protect natural resources in the state.
In a conversation with the News + Record, Reives said he believes his previous eight years in office are a reflection of how he’ll continue to serve voters, citing factors like the performance growth of the county’s schools, his advocacy to keep fracking out of the county, and the economic development coming to Chatham. Reives also emphasized his history of working across the aisle with other legislators, saying he wants to be a “voice for all.”
“My job is to make sure that we get the best result for North Carolinians,” Reives said. “And the best result for North Carolinians will never have anything to do with somebody’s political party and will always have to do with what’s the best way to keep us moving forward. And every single day that you’re in government, you should be moving the state and your community forward.”
Petty, who prioritized his experiences of growing up in the district and his background in both business and government as a former county commissioner, previously told the News + Record he aims to support and enhance education while mandating greater accountability in performance, “along with a parent’s bill of rights and increased school security.” His priorities will also focus on supporting public service agencies such as law enforcement, EMS and fire and rescue departments.
If elected, Petty wants to target what he described as issues in education, saying the school system is being converted into “an indoctrination system for the WOKE,” limiting parents’ ability to speak out.
Petty also noted that Chatham’s growing industrial base will require much more infrastructure — including water and wastewater capacity — than currently available, which will necessitate funding. He previously told the News + Record he’d support Medicaid expansion in N.C., but with some reform.
“Having been on hospital board and knowing the amount of uninsured or underinsured people that come through, knowing the amount of people that need care, and knowing how much expenses hospitals have to write off because they don’t get compensation, there’s got to be a better way then when you parallel that with the supply issues and the people that are not getting services needed and others getting more than they need and not being dished out proportionately,” Petty, who served on the Chatham Hospital Board of Trustees, said.
Chatham County often has record high voter turnout in elections, among the highest in the state.
In considering voter participation, Greene said localized political issues don’t often receive the same attention of national political debates, despite the significant impacts they can have on a person’s life.
“Most of the policy that affects us happens at the state level and the local level,” Greene said.
When it comes to engaging in the electoral process, Cooper also noted the impact that state elections have on voters.
“All the critical issues of the day really are decided at the state level, and the question of whether the Republican Party has a supermajority is going to be critical to all of them,” Cooper said. “So people looking for a way to exercise a voice that matters — this is a lot more efficient place to do it than in a presidential election, where you’re going to be drowned out amongst tens of millions of votes.”
To read more about the candidates’ platforms and view their full responses to candidate questionnaires visit chathamnewsrecord.com/elections. The general midterm elections will be on Nov. 8, and early voting runs through Nov. 5. To find your polling location, visit vt.ncsbe.gov/PPLkup/.
Reporter Maydha Devarajan can be reached at mdevarajan@chathamnr.com and on Twitter @maydhadevarajan.