The Crucial NC Supreme Court Race Overshadowed by High-Profile Elections

The governor’s race is crucial. The presidential election is enormous. But in North Carolina, no race has bigger stakes for democracy than the low-visibility NC Supreme Court race.

There’s a guy running for governor of North Carolina who’s reportedly referred to himself as a “Black Nazi.” A guy who wants to be president, again, despite inciting a violent attack on the capitol. A guy aiming for NC’s attorney general, its top lawyer, but he tried to overthrow the presidential election in 2020 when his party lost.

Yet, perhaps no race in North Carolina is as vital as the NC Supreme Court—even if it gets a fraction of the attention. 

Let me explain.

In November, it’s likely more people in NC will vote for Democratic candidates. 

But it’s a virtual certainty that Republicans will control both chambers of the state legislature—and possibly retain their supermajorities. They could also lock up to 11 of NC’s 14 seats in Congress.

These numbers aren’t possible in a state as purple as North Carolina without corruption. That’s because North Carolina is probably the most gerrymandered state in the nation.

Republicans on the court argued that the NC Constitution guarantees us elections, but it doesn’t promise us fair elections.

Gerrymandering is a partisan practice where politicians redraw voting districts to their political party’s favor. 

And a 5-2 Republican majority on the NC Supreme Court gave conservative leadership in the state legislature clearance to do so in an infamous 2023 decision.

Republicans on the court argued that the NC Constitution guarantees us elections, but not fair elections.

We spend a lot of time telling people that voting matters. But the Republicans who lead the state party and Supreme Court work hard to make sure it doesn’t. 

If positions were reversed today, and it was the Democrats gerrymandering, this court would likely have delivered an opposite decision. 

I’m not the only one. 

“Today’s result was preordained on 8 November 2022, when two new members of this Court were elected to establish this Court’s conservative majority,” Justice Anita Earls, one of two dissenting justices (the other being Justice Allison Riggs), wrote of the court’s gerrymandering decision.

We spend a lot of time telling people that voting matters. But the Republicans who lead the state party and sit on the state Supreme Court are working as hard as possible to make sure it doesn’t.

Republicans on the court ordered the state elections office to postpone mailing absentee ballots to grant Republicans’ request to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the presidential ballot, even though Kennedy’s request came after the deadline and officials were hours away from mailing ballots.

They did so because they believe Kennedy’s presence would drain more votes from the Republican, Donald Trump, than the Democrat, Kamala Harris.

This decision cost North Carolina voters weeks of time to complete vote-by-mail ballots. The justices violated the state’s law on when ballots had to go out and cost the state an estimated $1 million to make new ballots.

Because it’s party over everything else.

A democracy without meaningful elections isn’t a democracy. Courts without impartiality aren’t courts. And politicians who don’t fear elections or an independent judiciary tend to become tyrants.

How NC’s Supreme Court works

Fortunately for voters in North Carolina, seats on the state Supreme Court aren’t lifetime appointments. 

They are held for eight years and elected in partisan elections—meaning candidates’ affiliation is on the ballot.

Most voters don’t want these races to be partisan, but Republicans made it that way in 2016.

There are seven seats on the court. Five are held by Republican justices. One is up for re-election this year, held by incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, running against Republican Jefferson Griffin.

In 2026, the other seat held by Democrats, the one held by Earls, will be up for re-election. And in 2028, there will be three seats up for re-election currently held by Republicans.

Regardless of where you land on the political spectrum, a democracy without meaningful elections isn’t a democracy. Courts without impartiality aren’t courts. And politicians who don’t fear elections or an independent judiciary tend to become tyrants.

If North Carolinians want to change the partisan leanings of the court in 2028 and end gerrymandering, they’ll have to start this year by supporting Riggs, a former voting rights attorney who’s argued against gerrymandering for years.

The stakes are as high as they come, but you won’t see this race on television much, so drum up interest the old-fashioned way—by caring a whole lot and talking about it.

There’s no weird pornography scandal, no Trump, no massive advertising campaign—just the future of a democracy hanging by a thread.