What Are the 2024 Chances for Turncoat Tricia?

Speaking of “Turncoat Tricia” Cotham, what are her chances for re-election to the NC House under her new party banner in 2024? According to one analyst, not good.

Inside Politics author Steve Harrison ran the numbers in her current district and in possible other district shapes, for an analysis which ran in his weekly newsletter and in an article for WFAE radio in Charlotte. He says that the numbers make it effectively impossible for a Republican to win in the heavily Democratic district from which she was elected last November. 

Beyond that, there’s not a readily identifiable way to draw a “safe” seat for her in a Mecklenburg County district. Given the high likelihood of heavy spending to defeat her wherever she attempts to run, and the blue-trending voting patterns of the Charlotte area, she’d likely need a state Supreme Court decision throwing out the “whole county” provision of the state constitution. (Such a decision would make it legally possible for the legislature to ignore the state’s own constitution in drawing district lines, and draw a district for Cotham which mainly contained red-voting Union County areas. 

Of course, Cotham could have other plans altogether for 2024, including running for Congress or statewide office. Most political observers expect that a candidate with Cotham’s previous long record of quotable liberal rhetoric would have a very difficult time winning a Republican primary for any such contest. In other words, no matter what elective office she chose to pursue next, she’d need a great deal of good luck, at a time when most Mecklenburg voters were wishing her nothing but bad luck instead.