The Republican party smeared red across the United States Electoral College map on the night of November 5th. Nevertheless, pockets of blue appeared throughout North Carolina, breaking the GOP supermajority in the State House, along with other scattered State Senate wins. The most noteworthy Democratic victory in ‘The Tar Heel State’ was secured when North Carolina Democratic candidate Josh Stein took the win over Republican candidate Mark Robinson at the end of a heated campaign. Robinson, who was recently under fire for a slew of illicit messages on an online adult platform, took 40.2% of the vote, according to NBC News. Stein took 54.8%, with 97% of expected votes accounted for at the time of this writing.

Below Stein rose Jeff Jackson, as he too claimed a Democratic victory for the North Carolina attorney general seat over Republican Dan Bishop. Jackson represented the 37th District in the North Carolina Senate for nearly a decade and  won with 51.3% of the vote over Bishop’s 48.7%. 

But perhaps the most important race for the Davidson community was for the new member of the North Carolina House of Representatives. First time candidate and Davidson College alumna Beth Helfrich ‘03 defeated Republican Melinda Bales, the former mayor of Huntersville, for the 98th District seat. According to The Charlotte Observer, on Wednesday morning Helfrich defeated ​​Bales by a margin of 52.13% to 47.87%, amounting to a little over two thousand votes. 

Leah Sandock ‘25 interned with the Helfrich campaign beginning in June this past summer and continued working with her through the fall. “Talking to voters was the challenge of a lifetime. It was a beautiful challenge, though, because […] a lot of the voters in Beth’s district particularly cared about the state level […] so I was able to get through to a lot of [people].”

Students with various political affiliations across campus had differing opinions on this so-called blue shift. Some, such as President of the Davidson College Libertarians Gabriel Russ-Nachamie ‘27, saw it as common-sense, principled government. “I think North Carolinians sent a clear message last night that they want competent state governance and rejected extreme figures like Mark Robinson, even when it went against their party preference,” Russ-Nachamie noted over email. 

Yet, others felt that these Democratic wins were not representative of the election as a whole. Davidson College Republicans President Stephen Walker ‘26 heavily disagreed with the idea that North Carolina succeeded on a Democratic scale. “I would say the Democrat gains made were not substantial since they only barely broke the supermajority and lost many other statewide elections: appellate and supreme court judges, state auditor, treasurer, labor commissioner, insurance commissioner, commissioner of agriculture, and a lot of new congressional representatives all were Republican victories. The [governor] and [attorney general] were Democrat heading in and remain Democrat, and they only made minor gains in our state legislature. If not for Mark Robinson and his scandals, I am confident we would have won these races too,” he asserted.

Walker believes that the leadership of President-elect Donald Trump played a significant role in North Carolina on a national level, but did not outshine other wins on the local levels. “Obviously Trump did an amazing job campaigning here and winning over independents and moderates needed to carry the state the way he did. But we had a slew of important wins at the state level and still comfortably control the State Senate and House of Representatives,” he said.

Despite the criticism, Democrats remain optimistic and take these small wins where they can amidst a fierce election. “The biggest thing about the campaign […] for the team was just to take care of ourselves and remember to be proud, because we worked so hard, and it’s just a blessing to have gotten this far. I wish we would have seen some more blue higher up. But we’ll definitely take the wins in North Carolina, because for the first time, I actually feel kind of safe here,” Sandock added.