NC Family Staff | November 16, 2024 | SHARE: 
The 2024 Election was quite eventful! Despite the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, North Carolina voters turned out in almost record numbers to vote for the candidates they thought would best lead our state and nation.
This week on Family Policy Matters, NC Family President John Rustin is joined by NC Family’s Sharon Sullivan and Jere Royall to discuss the outcomes of the 2024 Election and how it will impact the coming years.
Learn more about these outcomes
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JOHN RUSTIN: Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. In light of the historic 2024 General Election, this episode will feature a slight change in format. I’m John Rustin, president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council, and I’m joined by NC Family Counsel Jere Royall.
JERE ROYALL: Hello.
JOHN RUSTIN: And our government relations associate, Sharon Sullivan.
SHARON SULLIVAN: Hi there.
JOHN RUSTIN: Hey, Sharon. Well, what we’re going to do today is discuss the results of the 2024 General Election here in North Carolina, and what this means for the future of our state, at least for the next few years. So, we’ll see there’s some things yet to be determined, but we look forward to digging in this today. Tuesday night, the eyes of the nation were absolutely on North Carolina as polls closed for the 2024 General Election, and the Old North State did not disappoint. Not only did voters turn out in almost record levels, despite the widespread destruction in the western part of the state by Hurricane Helene, but North Carolina lived up to its billing as a highly competitive battleground state.
JERE ROYALL: It’s amazing how the people of Western North Carolina, in the midst of all that they have been or are continuing to face, came out in such strong numbers.
JOHN RUSTIN: You’re absolutely right. It was really an amazing display of resiliency and just determination by especially voters in the western part of the state. There were in this general election over 5.6 million votes cast out of over 7.76 million registered voters in the state. So that equates to like a 73% turnout rate in North Carolina for this general election. So as a result of North Carolina voters getting out to vote, of course, the state sided with former President Donald Trump and helped to position him to return to the White House.
In addition to that, North Carolina did not have a US Senate contest on the ballot, but it looks like Republicans have taken control back of the United States Senate, possibly by a couple of seats, and so they will have an advantage there, and we’re still waiting to see, as far as the US House is concerned, where the balance of power is going to fall there. It’s looking like Republicans have the momentum in their favor, but there’s still a number of races that are still too close to call in states across the nation. Well, North Carolina is certainly contributing to Republicans potentially maintaining control in the United States House. Our congressional delegation, we have 14 members of our congressional delegation. We picked up a 14th seat in the US House after the 2020 census. So, our congressional delegation has shifted as a result of this election, from seven Republicans and seven Democrats to 10 Republicans and four Democrats. So that’s an additional three seat pickup in the US House for Republicans just out of North Carolina.
As far as governor and Council of State, of course, we had a knockdown, drag out race for governor in North Carolina, Democrat Josh Stein, who currently serves as Attorney General, versus current lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, the Republican, and it was no surprise that Josh Stein won this by like 15 percentage points. Mark Robinson was very embattled by a lot of controversial things that came to light and just a onslaught of ads and money that, not only the Stein campaign, but outside sources, brought into the state in this race. Any observations there?
JERE ROYALL: No, it was, I mean, it’s obviously had an impact on the race. And I think right near the end, there were additional things that came up that, you know, there’s a lawsuit challenging what was brought out. But all of that had a tremendous impact. I think things were already moving because, like you say, things were embattled all along, but maybe went to a whole other level because of the things that happened right near the end of the campaign.
JOHN RUSTIN: So, this was very interesting to see. And then, not only the governor, but Lieutenant Governor and other Council of State races, North Carolinians are known for splitting their tickets, for going down the ballot and selecting, not always based on party, but kind of going back and forth. And right now, prior to this election, you know, we’ve got a Democratic governor, a Republican lieutenant governor, a democratic Attorney General, Republican commissioners of agriculture and labor, etc. And so, we saw a similar thing happen, where North Carolinians in this election selected a Democrat for Governor, but then a Democrat for Lieutenant Governor, Rachel Hunt, Democrat for Attorney General, Jeff Jackson, and Democrat for Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall, who’s been serving in this office for many, many years. But also, North Carolina voters selected a democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction, but at the same time, also selected Republicans for State Auditor, for Commissioner of Agriculture, for Commissioner of Insurance, Commissioner of Labor, and State Treasurer. And so North Carolinians were selective in this.
I think it’s important and interesting to note that in these Council of State races, there were two in particular where the Democrats sought to tie the Republican candidates closely to Mark Robinson, anticipating that he was going to be a drag or pull them down as far as their electability and favorability with the voters. Those two races in particular were the Attorney General’s race, Jeff Jackson against Republican Dan Bishop, and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction race, Democrat Mo Green versus Republican Michelle Morrow. And those were two races in the Council of State where the Democrats won and won fairly handily.
Well, and where the governor’s race was decided by a wide 15-point margin, the rest of them were in single digits, and some of them were fairly close. And so that does show that, I think, North Carolina voters were discerning and selective in who they desired to vote for, and some of these things that we’ve talked about were reflected in the outcomes some other very close races. There were four state-wide judicial races on the ballot, one for the state Supreme Court and three for the state Court of Appeals. Republicans swept all four of those seats by narrow margins. I think the Supreme Court race was decided by about 10,000 votes, which, relative to the millions of votes cast, was pretty significant. But Republican Jefferson Griffin appears to have defeated Democrat Allison Riggs in that race for a seat on the state Supreme Court, and then Republicans Tom Murry, Chris Freeman, and incumbent member of the State Court of Appeals, Valerie Zachary, appear to have secured seats on the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
And now moving to the General Assembly, some very interesting outcomes in the state legislature, and this is really important to kind of unpack this a little bit, because knowing that we have a Democratic Governor coming in, and we currently have a Democratic Governor in North Carolina, but also with a Republican majority in the General Assembly, the seat count in the State House and the State Senate are particularly important because that will determine, in large part, whether or not Republicans are going to be able to get much done, and if the governor is inclined to veto a lot of bills. The vote count really determines whether or not the Republicans have the ability to override the governor’s veto or not. And we’ve seen that in the last four years here in North Carolina, where in the 2021-22 legislative session, Republicans did not have veto proof super majorities. The governor vetoed, I think, 22 bills during that two-year biennium, and the legislature was unable to override any of those vetoes. But then, in this last term, after formerly Democratic House member Tricia Cotham, switched parties from Democrat to Republican, she gave the House Republicans a veto proof super majority, and they were able to override all 19 vetoes that the governor stamped on bills that they had passed during the 23-24 legislative session. So, the vote counts really critically important. And the type of policies that we’re talking about are major pro-life initiatives, bills that codified parental rights, bills that prohibited gender transition surgeries in the administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on minors in North Carolina, as well as, save women’s sports bill in North Carolina, and also requiring age verification for access to pornographic websites. All the prior bills, except for the last one that we mentioned, were vetoed by the governor, and the General Assembly was able to come back and override those. And so that just shows how important it is for what the numbers look like in the State House and the State Senate.
So, let’s talk about that just briefly. In the State Senate, it appears that Republicans did just hold on to a veto proof super majority, capturing 30 out of the 50 seats in the State Senate. In the house, very similar to what we saw after the 2022 election, it appears that Republicans have fallen, again, just one seat short of maintaining a super majority there. There are a couple of Republican incumbent members who lost their races, one Democratic incumbent who lost their race, but these recounts and the counting of provisional ballots could potentially sway the outcome there, but it does look like, again, the house fell one seat short of a super majority, and, you know, that will potentially determine what Republicans are able to get done, as far as when they come into the 2025 General Assembly and have an agenda, what they’re going to be able to get done, and they may again, have to reach across the aisle and try to pull some Democrat votes over either a potential party switch, like we saw with Tricia Cotham, or, more likely, you know, trying to appeal to some Democrats to vote in favor of expected veto overrides from incoming Governor Josh Stein on priorities that the Republicans have, that the Democrats may not necessarily share.
SHARON SULLIVAN: And it has happened before. It’s not an unheard-of thing, you know, just it’s going to be a little harder.
JOHN RUSTIN: Yes, well, those are kind of a quick update on the election results in North Carolina. Sharon, there were a number of constitutional amendments, especially on the life issue in states across the nation. We didn’t have that question on our ballot. But tell us a little bit about what happened across the country with respect to these constitutional amendments, either affirming abortion in the Constitution or seeking to protect life.
SHARON SULLIVAN: So, after the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v Wade, states are taking it upon themselves to set some of the boundaries for abortion. There were 10 states that had life measures on their ballots this General Election for 2024. Three of them, sadly, only three, but three of them did lean the pro-life way. And so, we definitely want to give a shout out to those states and just tell them how much we appreciate everyone that went out to vote for these so in Florida, they had a higher threshold than some of the other states do to have a constitutional amendment. I think they were a 60% threshold. And, Jere, I think we talked about earlier, I think you said it was 57?
JERE ROYALL: Yeah, 56 or so percent that did vote, unfortunately, to not protect life but to protect abortion.
SHARON SULLIVAN: Yeah, and Governor DeSantis did work very hard to help prevent that measure from passing. And so, they are still at a heartbeat or six-week abortion limit. And then Nebraska also had an initiative on their ballot. They had two, actually, one was a pro-life initiative, and one was a abortion leaning initiative. Fortunately, the abortion one did not pass, and they were able to pass the pro-life one. So, congratulations, Nebraska. And then also South Dakota. They are a very, very pro-life state, where they only allow abortion for the life of a mother, and so they were able to maintain that in their constitution. But there were, as we said, 10 total. So, there were seven states that did pass measures to enshrine the so-called right to abortion in their state constitutions. And real briefly, I’ll just tell you who they are. It’s Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York. But Nevada has not passed yet because their amendment is kind of interesting in that you have to have two consecutive general election votes that it passes in order for it to become enshrined in their constitution. So that one, there’s still time to work on that.
JOHN RUSTIN: Jere, one other issue that was on the ballot in several states was the legalization of marijuana. Tell us real briefly what happened there.
JERE ROYALL: Right. It’s, of course, that’s another issue we have worked on. Some of the vote this week was on recreational. Thankfully, three of the states that voted on that voted no. Again, it was a situation in Florida, there was a higher threshold. The support is troubling that is there in these states. And again, it’s another opportunity for us to be involved, to help inform, encourage people. Our focus here in North Carolina has been on medical. I think, with recreational, apparently, the trend seems to be more and more people are hearing about the harms, the negative impact on all citizens, but in particular, on children, brain development, a lot of things that, thankfully, people are becoming more and more aware of here in North Carolina, our main efforts have been to fight back against the medical and that’s where we continue to say, none of the medical groups in our country support marijuana as medicine. But all this, the general public is hearing a whole lot of other messages. I think I read in one of those votes, and I want to misstate, but I think the industry recreational, $140 million over that much in one state, was devoted to that effort. That’s incredible. And so, the battle is raging in a lot of these areas. But again, the reminder, we’re all called to be witnesses, to speak the truth, to speak the truth in love.
JOHN RUSTIN: You know, we did see kind of a mixed bag of results here in North Carolina. We’re grateful for the victories, for the wins, for the positive things. We mourn for the losses. But in the midst of all that, we know that God is sovereign over all things, that he is the one who appoints our leaders, and that He graciously calls us into partnership with Himself to pursue things that he’s seeking to do in our communities and our families, in our state and in our nation, and so that is something that we just need to continue to seek to be faithful with. So, we’re grateful for your support. We’re grateful for your partnership. So, with that. Jere, Sharon, thank you for all of your efforts, for your prayers and your faithful work. Thank you all and God bless you.
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