AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum
- Two of North Carolina's top GOP leaders encouraged Tricia Cotham to run for office last year, per The Times.
- Cotham, from a family with deep Democratic roots, flipped to the GOP three months into her new term.
- She has since voted with Republicans to override key vetoes made by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
In 2022, Tricia Cotham mulled over the possibility of a return to the North Carolina House of Representatives, where she had served as a Democratic lawmaker from 2007 to 2017.
While Cotham was a familiar face to Democrats in the Charlotte area, local activists didn't realize she was seriously considering coming back to the legislature until she filed for the Democratic primary shortly before last year's filing deadline.
Once Cotham won the primary, many Democrats reached out to her, hoping to aid the general election campaign of a longtime friend. But according to a New York Times report, their calls and messages largely went unanswered.
Shortly after Cotham rejoined the legislature in January, she soon felt discontent with the House Democratic caucus, remarking on the political pressure exerted on the group as they were the last line of defense against legislative Republicans overriding the vetoes of two-term Gov. Roy Cooper, a fellow Democrat.
And then Cotham in April made a decision that immediately transformed North Carolina politics, as she switched from the Democratic Party to the GOP, giving the latter party supermajorities in both the state House and state Senate.
Democrats were outraged, as they had welcomed back into their fold a longtime colleague who just three months into her new term had flipped parties. And Republicans were thrilled with their newfound power, ribbing Democrats for not working more effectively with Cotham and vowing major changes on everything from abortion rights to education reform.
What was previously unknown until now was that top North Carolina Republicans — namely House Speaker Tim Moore and House Majority Leader John Bell — had encouraged Cotham to run for the seat last year, according to The Times.
Such a push by members of the opposing party to prod a candidate into running to office would be seen as a rarity in American politics, and especially in North Carolina, which over the past decade has been home to some of the fiercest political battles over gerrymandering, voting rights, and election administration. But Bell told The Times that Cotham was an effective member when she previously served.
"I encouraged her to run because she was a really good member when she served before," he told the newspaper.
Cotham just last year campaigned on a platform backing abortion rights, but after her party switch, she voted for a 12-week abortion ban that was vetoed by Cooper but overridden by the legislature courtesy of her vote. And after she ran as an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, she voted to ban transgender girls from participating on girls' sports teams.
Before Cotham flipped to the GOP, she was reportedly frustrated over the politics behind key gun rights vote, as she had an important doctor's appointment and missed the actual vote — which contributed to its passage.
After Cotham received criticism that she felt was unfair, she switched parties just days later.
Jonathan Coby, Cotham's former campaign consultant, told The Times that Cotham was irate over her political predicament.
"She said, 'I'm either going to switch parties or resign,'" he recalled to The Times. "The things she was telling me then were like, 'The Democrats don't like me, the Republicans have helped me out a lot and been nice to me.'"