As ardent Democrats, Kevan and DonnaMarie Woodson long supported their state representative, Carla D. Cunningham, even if she often leaned to the political right as many Southern Democrats do.
But last summer, Ms. Cunningham joined Republicans in mandating that North Carolina’s local law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal immigration agents, then said during a speech on the floor that “all cultures are not equal.” Now, the Woodsons are working to help a challenger from her left flank, the Rev. Dr. Rodney S. Sadler Jr., in one of three statehouse primaries on Tuesday that could shake up the state’s Democratic politics.
An anti-establishment restlessness appears to be coursing through voters of all political stripes, and what happens in the swing state of North Carolina — one of three states to hold primaries Tuesday, the first of the 2026 midterms — could be a bellwether.
The state’s most powerful politician, Phil Berger, the Republican leader of the State Senate since 2011, is fighting for political survival against a small-town sheriff with no legislative experience.
A Democratic U.S. House member representing liberal Durham, Valerie Foushee, is locked in a tough and expensive rematch with Nida Allam, a county commissioner running to her left.
And the Democratic minority in the North Carolina Statehouse could get a significant jolt in a state where moderation, even conservatism, has long been the party’s trademark. Amid the anger on the left generated by President Trump and his policies, veteran Democrats in safe seats are suddenly being viewed as unreliable votes at a historic juncture for the country and its democracy.
The challenges are “about aligning lawmaker accountability to their district,” said Blair Reeves, executive director of Carolina Forward, a left-leaning policy organization. “This is a bunch of lawmakers who have never really feared losing their seat at all because no one is pushing them.”
The shift has been swift. In 2024, as North Carolina voters sided with Mr. Trump, they also elevated their attorney general, Josh Stein, to the governorship, replacing the term-limited Roy Cooper, a Democratic moderate, with another Democrat cut from the same soft-spoken mold. The same year, Democrats were ecstatic when they broke the Republicans’ supermajority in the Statehouse, giving them the power to sustain Mr. Stein’s vetoes.
That joy was short-lived. Democrats like Ms. Cunningham have helped Republicans override eight of Mr. Stein’s 15 vetoes, including on issues such as transgender restrictions, education vouchers and gun rights. Now they are feeling primary voters’ wrath.
“I’m a moderate,” said Ms. Cunningham, 64, who has been in office for 14 years, and whose husband had held the same seat from 1987 to 2007 before his death in 2010.
She said she had no regrets about her work with Republicans or her controversial speech. Ms. Cunningham has voted with the Republican majority 84 percent of the time in the 2025-26 session — the highest among House Democrats.
“Blacks in the South have a tendency to be more conservative than most other people that are in the Democratic Party,” said Ms. Cunningham, who is Black. The party has “been moving and shifting more to the left,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean people are shifting to the left.”
Voting with Republicans 83 percent of the time this session, State Representative Shelly Willingham, representing three poor counties in the rural northeast, is the second-most conservative Democrat in the Statehouse. Mr. Willingham, 82, cast the tiebreaking vote allowing private schools to arm teachers.
He now faces a primary challenge from Patricia Smith, a minister and small business owner.
The third incumbent facing progressive anger is State Representative Nasif Majeed, whose northeastern Charlotte district abuts Ms. Cunningham’s. He has voted with Republicans 71 percent of the time this session and was the only Democrat to say yes to mandating that the state recognize only two sexes, and giving parents more power over library books.
Mr. Majeed, Mr. Willingham and Ms. Cunningham also voted to repeal pollution emissions goals for Duke Energy, and to allow the utility to charge customers for construction costs before projects are completed.
Mr. Majeed, 80, a businessman and former Vietnam War combat pilot, called himself a centrist committed to parents’ rights. He has been targeted by mailers and television ads from progressive groups.
“I’m running against the machine,” he said. “What’s the difference between this and what Trump does? If you don’t vote the way Trump tells you to vote, they intimidate you.”
His opponent, Veleria M. Levy, a public health policy consultant who is in her late 50s, said her family had long been politically active; her son’s godfather is Jesse Jackson Jr., a college friend from North Carolina A&T State University.
Ms. Levy has been endorsed by unions and groups like Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club and Carolina Forward.
In the days running up to Tuesday’s primary, attention and money has rushed to the House race pitting Ms. Foushee against Ms. Allam. Unlike the Statehouse members drawing challenges, Ms. Foushee has been a reliable Democratic vote in Congress, and has the backing of House Democratic leadership. But Ms. Allam is part of a wave of young, ardent liberals hoping to shake up the party.
Liberal groups like Justice Democrats had been outspending Ms. Foushee as they tried to lift Ms. Allam, who has been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. But in recent days, $2 million has rushed into the race — some of it from allies of Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, some of it from Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company and maker of Claude — to try to rescue Ms. Foushee, who sits on an important A.I. committee.
On the Statehouse level, most of the attention and campaign contributions have focused on the contest between Ms. Cunningham and Dr. Sadler, a professor at Union Presbyterian Seminary.
Dr. Sadler said that while Ms. Cunningham, a nurse, had done important work on health, particularly mental health, her ICE vote and pattern of voting “increasingly in line with the MAGA agenda” prompted his first run for office.
“She’s hurting the people with her decisions,” he said.
More than a decade ago, Dr. Sadler joined the Moral Monday movement, led by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, to protest North Carolina’s rightward shift. The first time he entered the General Assembly in Raleigh, he said, he was arrested. Now he has the backing of the governor, and said he hopes to return as a legislator to help Mr. Stein “protect us from the worst.”
David W. Chen is a Times reporter focused on state legislatures, state level policymaking and the political forces behind them.
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