‘I Will Not Be Bullied,’ North Carolina Democrat Representative Switches to Republican

She cites oppressive dynamics within her former party

North Carolina Rep. Tricia Cotham in 2023. Courtesy of the North Carolina General Assembly

State Rep. Tricia Cotham, who won her district Mecklenburg district in the 2022 midterm election, has announced that she’s switching from the Democrat to the Republican party, giving the GOP a full supermajority.

A supermajority can override any veto from Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper, a governor who’s vetoed a record number of Republican bills.

In a speech given at an NCGOP press conference, Cotham said her reason is that the current Democract party is “unrecognizable” to her “and many others.”

“The party wants to villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgment, has solutions, who wants to get to work to better our state, not just sit in a meeting and have a workshop after a workshop, but really work with individuals to get things done, because that’s what real public servants do,” Cotham said. “If you don’t do exactly what the Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you; they will try to cast you aside.”

Cotham said that when she arrived as a legislator in January 2023, it became clear she had to follow Cooper’s directives.

“I will not be controlled by anyone,” Cotham said. “I have always been a free thinker, a woman of faith, a person of independent judgment and of common sense. I have always tried to work across the aisle from day one and I’m proud of that work because that means we are working together as statesmen and stateswomen.”

Unfortunately, she said, within the Democrat party, working across the aisle is only talk with little action.

Since being a representative of the state, Cotham said she’s “suffered many attacks” from Democrats, which included her children being targeted.

“That is wrong, and I will not stand for that,” she said. “I will not be bullied by them, and I will protect my children and my family.”

Cotham said she believes that as a legislator, it’s her duty to hear all sides before deciding how to vote; however, the Democrats have become “afraid of independent thought.”

“Perhaps they don’t like what they can’t control,” she said. “It became very clear to me this was about control on day one at the legislature.”

Cotham, a former schoolteacher, was appointed to serve in 2007, becoming one of the state’s youngest lawmakers. In 2016, she didn’t run for reelection.

In the 2022 primaries, she was elected to represent the 112^th district based in Mecklenburg County.

‘Frustrated With Their Own Party’

In the press conference, House Speaker Tim Moore said Cotham isn’t the only Democrat with whom he’s been speaking on their dissatisfaction with the Democrat party, citing the pervasiveness of woke ideologies causing frustration among party members.

“There are a lot of folks on the other side of the aisle, I think who are frustrated with their own party,” Moore said.

Republican state Sen. Phil Berger said Cotham is one of many who have gone public to declare that the Democrat party has abandoned its former values.

“The Democratic party seems to value ideological purity and adherence to whatever the superior individuals, the governor, or someone else in the party says is the right way to think, and that is not the American way and that is something that will continue to lead to further dissipation of membership in the Democratic party,” Berger said.

The Potential Impact of Her Decision

Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation—an independent research institute in North Carolina that examines issues of freedom, personal responsibility, and limited constitutional government—told The Epoch Times that her switch gives the House a supermajority.

In the 2022 election, Republicans in the state senate gained the supermajority by winning two seats.

Though the state house Republicans won seven seats that formerly leaned Democrat, it still failed to gain the supermajority.

Cotham’s switch gives both chambers a Republican supermajority, he said, and with that, the power to override all vetoes.

“Now, Republicans can do a lot more than they could have done a week ago,” Jackson said.

Adding to that, the North Carolina Supreme Court gained two Republican wins in the 2022 election that changed it from 4–3 Democrat to 5–2 Republican, making it less likely that there will be a judicial stoppage of Republican policies.

Though many Democrats are calling for her to be recalled, Jackson said North Carolina doesn’t have recall elections, so she’s keeping her seat unless she resigns.

In the case of her resignation, she would be replaced by the Mecklenburg Democrat Party because that was the party with which she was affiliated when she was elected.

‘A Deceit of the Highest Order’

The North Carolina Democrat Party Chair Anderson Clayton and Mecklenburg County Democrat Party Chair Jane Whitley called Cotham’s decision a “deceit of the highest order.”

“Rep. Cotham’s decision is a betrayal to the people of HD-112 with repercussions not only for the people of her district, but for the entire state of North Carolina,” the Democrat chairs said in a joint statement. “If she can no longer represent the values her constituents trusted her to champion, she should resign immediately.”

State Sen. Natasha Marcus joined in criticizing Cotham, suggesting that Cotham won her seat under the guise of being a Democrat.

“If candidate Tricia Cotham had been honest before the election, she would not have won her seat,” Marcus posted in a Tweet. “The people of her district do not support the extreme rightwing policies that the NCGOP is shoving down our throats, now with her help. This is dishonest and undemocratic.”