North Carolina Democrats who’ve crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans since Donald Trump returned to office were handed resounding defeats last night in the state’s early, benchmark primary, the Charlotte Observer reports.

At least four Democrats who supported measures to ban trans student-athletes from play, support ICE, and declare a gender binary in line with the president’s demonization of the LGBTQ+ community went down to defeat, some by extraordinary margins for incumbent lawmakers.

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The most anti-LGBTQ+ Republican just lost her primary by a lot. She’s now claiming it was rigged.

Those margins and a big turnout were leading indicators of Democrats’ enthusiasm this election cycle, the first chance outside of special and off-year elections that voters will have to register a vote on Republicans and Donald Trump’s return to office.

In North Carolina, it doesn’t look good for the GOP and their supporters as well as the losing Democrats.

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The biggest defeat was for state Rep. Carla Cunningham (D), a seven-term incumbent whose support cratered after a vote and speech she gave in support of ICE, which she later apologized for. She subsequently earned two challengers and never recovered in the polls.

Cunningham enthusiastically supported her Republican colleagues’ xenophobia last summer, agreeing that North Carolinians have been “exploited and abused by the different tactics to gain citizenship in America” by immigrants.

A pro-LGBTQ+ candidate, the Rev. Rodney Sadler (D), flattened Cunningham, winning almost 70% of the vote vs. Cunningham’s 22% in the safe blue district.

“Tonight, North Charlotte said: enough is enough,” Sadler wrote on X.

Rep. Nasif Majeed (D) suffered a similar landslide loss after joining Republicans in support of a bill packed with anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. The collection of measures declared a “biological sex” binary in line with Trump’s “gender ideology” executive order, banned gender-affirming care for trans prisoners, and advanced censorship of LGBTQ+ identity in school libraries, among other provisions.

Majeed, first elected in 2018, picked up just 27% of the vote to HIV advocate Veleria Levy’s (D) 69%.

Votes in 2023 for a ban on trans college student-athletes proved fatal to two Democratic lawmakers who joined Republicans in voting for the measure; HB 574 barred the trans women from joining college-level academic sports leagues.

Rep. Michael Wray was the only Democrat to cast a vote overriding then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) veto of the measure. He was defeated first in 2024 by Rodney D. Pierce, and again by Pierce yesterday.

The same vote was an issue for Rep. Shelly Willingham (D), a six-term incumbent, who lost his race to Patricia Smith (D) by a projected 12-point margin, 56-44, in tiny House District 23.

Smith thanked her supporters in a phone call with the Rocky Mount Telegram after the vote.

“I’m just so grateful right now for the public and all that they have done to support me, to push me along, to believe in me,” Smith said.

Along with beating her Republican opponent, Brent Roberson, in the November election, Smith will have to get to work uniting fellow rural Democrats around her candidacy.

Asked if he’ll endorse Smith in her general election race, Willingham replied, “No, I won’t.”

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