There is the story known to the general public: Tricia Cotham, elected as a Democrat to the North Carolina House of Representatives in January 2023, announced that she was rallying Republicans three months after taking office. And then there’s the story revealed on July 30 by The New York Times: Ms. Cotham was privately encouraged to run and supported on the campaign trail by influential members of the Republican Party.
Ms. Cotham’s victory – won with an 18-point lead – was, in theory, to allow the Democrats to deprive the Republicans, within one seat, of a supermajority in the State House of Representatives. In reality, the 44-year-old elected official tipped the balance in favor of the conservatives. In March, days before switching sides, she sat out a crucial vote on gun control, helping Republicans ease existing restrictions. In May, she spoke out in favor of a bill limiting the right to abortion to twelve weeks. She also voted for a text aimed at banning gender affirmation care for transgender minors.
Unsurprisingly, Tricia Cotham received a “standing ovation” at the North Carolina Republican convention in June. She was invited to meet there privately with the governor of Florida and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination of 2024, Ron DeSantis, as well as the former vice-president, Mike Pence. “He’s a rockstar among activists,” said Dan Bishop, one of his fellow Republicans in the state House of Representatives.
Lack of consideration
It is an understatement to say that the Democrats have fallen from their chairs. Ms. Cotham comes from a family with progressive beliefs. As a student, she volunteered for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. As an elected Democrat – she first served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017 – she fiercely opposed the ideas of the Republican Party: she advocated for higher taxes for the wealthy; she criticized charter schools (public schools run and funded in part by private actors); she fought against a bill preventing transgender people from using the toilet in accordance with their gender identity; she has regularly defended the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG).
Many voters say they are betrayed and angry because of his change of political allegiance. In a statement to The New York Times, Ms. Cotham defended herself by claiming to have kept many campaign promises: “I campaigned for the expansion of Medicaid [a program that provides health insurance to low-income people]. I campaigned to support children, housing, safer communities, a strong economy. »
What are the grounds for the divorce between Tricia Cotham and the Democratic Party? According to several sources interviewed by the American newspaper, the resentment of the elected official is not recent. She would have suffered in particular from what she considered to be a lack of consideration within the party. “She was jealous that other [elected Democrats] were adored,” said Lacey Williams, who had long been friends with Ms. Cotham. An analysis of the situation that the main interested party denies.
Political allies, former and current, describe a person who has gradually distanced himself from the leaders and ideals of the Democratic Party. A crack that members of the Grand Old Party (GOP) would have cleverly widened and deepened over time.
Fight against a long Covid
In 2017, she retired from politics to lobby, mainly in the field of education. For several years, she defended the charter schools that she had previously strongly denounced. In 2022, she arouses astonishment by running for the Democratic nomination for the election to the North Carolina House of Representatives, a few hours before the deadline for submitting nominations and when three people are already in the race. . This return to politics is all the more surprising since she has been fighting for months against a long Covid, which she mentioned on Twitter and in the media.
During the campaign, the candidate receives text messages of encouragement from members of the Democratic Party and various supporters – messages that have gone mostly unanswered. According to a text message sent to a collaborator and seen by The New York Times, Ms. Cotham was furious that Lillian’s List, an organization that defends the right to abortion, had “really screwed her” by endorsing another candidate in the Democratic primary. Once invested, she continues to ignore offers of help from her side.
At the same time, she willingly receives advice from eminent representatives of the Republican Party. Among them, John Bell, the Republican majority leader in the North Carolina House of Representatives. “I encouraged her to run because she was a very good representative [in her previous terms],” Bell recalled in an interview with The New York Times. “He’s someone I understood we could work with,” said House Speaker Tim Moore, saying he didn’t know at the time that Ms. Cotham would switch sides. One element, however, casts doubt on the sincerity of the statement: the two main donors to his campaign are the North Carolina Dental Society and the North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association, which subsidize almost exclusively Republican candidates. “These groups have honored me with their support for years,” Ms. Cotham said.
Still, after the election, the gap between the elected official and her original party only widened. Cotham told her former campaign adviser that other Democrats treated her like a newcomer when she returned to the House of Representatives. In announcing her change of party, Tricia Cotham also said that she had been ostracized by her political family and that she had to conform to the orthodoxy of a party that had become “unrecognizable” and opposed to “free thought”. So many accusations that leave members of the Democratic Party as stunned as they are helpless.