Win the White House. Win the Senate. Flip the state legislature. North Carolina checks all the boxes for where we can conduct impactful phonebanking.
It has toss-up Presidential and US Senate races—Democrat Cal Cunningham and incumbent Republican Thom Tillis are in a highly competitive race—a state legislature that is a few seats away from flipping red to blue, and a popular Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, up for re-election. Dems need to net just 3 seats to win back the US Senate and take Mitch McConnell’s gavel away, and a win in North Carolina will help put us over the top. We can help flip this purple state into the blue column up and down the ticket.
About North Carolina House District 12
North Carolina’s House District 12 (HD12) is a rural, low-income, majority minority district (51% black, 41% white, 7% Hispanic) in the eastern part of the state. Forty percent of its registered voters are black although many do not vote regularly or at all. The district skews significantly toward older voters and most people have a high school education. Like many rural districts, HD12 gets little attention from the Biden campaign and other up-ticket candidates.
About Virginia Cox-Daugherty
Dr. Virginia Cox-Daugherty has deep roots in HD12. As a long-time community leader, Dr. Cox-Daugherty is well known in the district and can mobilize many of the voters in HD12 who have seldom or ever voted, bringing a critical new and underrepresented slice of the electorate to the polls. She is a lifetime educator and eastern North Carolina native who will fight for competitive teacher salaries and benefits to keep good teachers in the state. As the daughter of a sharecropper, Cox-Daugherty will prioritize the agricultural concerns of the county, and fight for access to affordable health care, equal pay for equal work, and to protect Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other social programs for the district’s elderly and other vulnerable populations.
Dr. Cox-Daugherty earned her Bachelor’s from Elizabeth City State University in Business Administration, a Master’s in Business Administration from Long Island University of New York, a Master’s in Education from East Carolina University, a Doctorate in Education from Nova Southeastern University and another Doctorate of Theology in Biblical Studies from Manna College of Theology. She grew up in Kinston and lives in Lenoir county. Now widowed, she has one son, one daughter, and four grandchildren.
By supporting excellent candidates for local office who can relate to voters on tangible issues that affect their everyday lives, we can mobilize voters to get to the polls and support Dems up and down the ticket. This is the same strategy we’ve used in Pennsylvania, where we support candidates such as George Scott (PA-SD15) and Brittney Rodas (PA-HD105
About Virginia Cox-Daugherty’s opponent
Chris Humphrey is a Republican first-term incumbent in HD12. He is a white businessman in the insurance industry and his top donors are insurance agencies. He has sponsored bills to require compliance with ICE detainers for immigrants and increase funding for school resource officers (police) in schools. He worked to keep Medicaid expansion out of NC’s 2019-20 budget negotiations without offering a concrete alternative. Humphrey has also sponsored more moderate, democratic-friendly bills including non-partisan redistricting, access to rural tech programs and funds for community colleges and limited raises for teachers.
How we win in NC HD12
Dr. Cox-Daugherty’s win will depend on her ability to get out the vote. Gov. Cooper (D) lost this district by just 5 points in 2016 and the pool of untapped voters here–registered voters who did not vote in 2018–leans Democratic by more than 20 points. As our friends at Flip NC put it, “this district is within reach with a surge in base turnout in the district.”
Her odds of winning are ranked between D-6 (6 point Republican lead) and D+2 (2 point Democratic lead). Her local popularity and name recognition in the district, along with the selection of Kamala Harris as the Vice Presidential nominee, make her a viable candidate. Whether or not she wins her seat and helps flip NC’s legislature blue, by expanding the Democratic electorate in HD 12, her campaign will pave the way for new leadership in HD12 and help turn out underrepresented voters for Biden, Cunningham, and Cooper, as well.
Allies for Democracy 