With results certified, Democrats officially break NC GOP’s supermajority — by one seat
Democrats officially broke the Republican supermajority in the North Carolina House of Representatives on Monday after results were certified in contested legislative races.
Democrat Bryan Cohn’s 228-vote win over Republican Rep. Frank Sossamon in Granville and Vance counties will place the GOP just one vote short of a supermajority capable of overriding the governor’s veto.
“I did not wake up on Nov. 6 expecting to be the last man standing on what was otherwise a fairly chaotic Election Day,” Cohn told The News & Observer on Monday. “So I am both honored and humbled and ready to get to work and start doing some good for rural North Carolina.”
The State Board of Elections certified Cohn’s victory on Monday after Sossamon, alongside other losing Republican candidates, challenged the results.
A recount affirmed Cohn’s lead and the board, which has a 3-to-2 Democratic majority, dismissed the challenges.
Without a supermajority, Republicans will find it more difficult to override vetoes from newly elected Democratic Gov. Josh Stein. To do so, they’d need to either get a Democrat to vote with them or exploit any absences on the other side of the aisle.
Throughout the last legislative session, Republicans overrode 29 vetoes from Gov. Roy Cooper, most of which came after Rep. Tricia Cotham switched parties, cementing the GOP’s supermajority in both chambers.
In addition to Cohn, the State Board of Elections also certified Democrat Terence Everitt as the winner in Senate District 18, in Wake and Granville counties. And the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections certified Democrat Woodson Bradley as the winner in Senate District 42.
Both candidates also won close races against their Republican opponents, who challenged the results on similar grounds.
The Senate will maintain a one-vote Republican supermajority in the upcoming session, but will be unable to fully override any vetoes without the House’s cooperation.
Supreme Court race remains in limbo
While all legislative races are now finalized, one statewide election remains in limbo.
Following two recounts and several lawsuits, North Carolina still has not declared an official winner in the race for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
Republican Jefferson Griffin, who trails Democrat Allison Riggs by 734 votes, has challenged the validity of over 60,000 ballots cast in the election.
His challenges make the same arguments as those filed in the legislative races: chiefly that the state should not have allowed voters who didn’t have a driver’s license number or Social Security number on file to participate in this election.
The State Board of Elections dismissed this challenge in a party line vote, with Board Chair Alan Hirsch saying that discarding the votes now would be “anathema to the democratic system.”
Griffin then asked the state Supreme Court to intervene, but the case was quickly moved to federal court. It now stands before U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II, an appointee of former President Donald Trump.
This summer, Myers partially dismissed a lawsuit from the Republican National Committee which made the same argument about voter registrations as Griffin.
Unless Myers issues an injunction, as Griffin has requested, the State Board of Elections could certify Riggs as the winner of the election on Jan. 10.
At a rally in Raleigh on Sunday, Riggs told the crowd that Democrats “will prove we won this election.”
“We will not stop until we have put this election fully to bed,” she said. “We will make sure that our government is led by people who will protect your right to vote.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 2:04 PM.
