What NC can win: learning from Michigan and Minnesota’s “Trifecta” triumphs
In November, 2022, Democratic parties in both Michigan and Minnesota won what’s popularly known as the "trifecta”—taking the governorship and achieving slim majorities in both legislative houses. Assessing what’s been accomplished in just a year in these two formerly red states provides critical perspective on the immense importance of the 2024 election in North Carolina…and how we can win big.
Let’s start in Lansing. After being blocked by a Republican statehouse majority for far too long, Michigan Democrats moved quickly "to increase the state's Earned Income Tax Credit, abolish its abortion ban, repeal its anti-union right to work law, and extend anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ+ Michiganders." By April, 2023, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, had signed common sense gun safety measures and closed loopholes in background checks. By July, Dems were able to engage enough Republicans to deliver bipartisan bills that expanded clean energy, created jobs, lowered energy costs, and expanded voting rights. They were also able to expand and protect affordable health care, and better serve public education by passing a budget that funded schools to provide mental health care, tutoring, free meals and pre-K to strengthen the foundations for learning. Note that these are all things we’re still fighting for in North Carolina!
Despite having only a one vote edge in the state senate, Minnesota also moved quickly to take advantage of their own trifecta, passing laws in the first months of 2023 that would:
reinforce the constitutional right to abortion in the state;
create a paid family and medical leave program;
expand gun control regulations — including broadening background checks and enacting a red flag law;
restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated felons; make school breakfast and lunch free for all students in kindergarten through 12th grade;
set a 100% carbon-free standard to be met by utility companies by 2040; protect the rights of unionized workers;
increase taxes on corporations and high investment earners;
and protect transgender individuals and gender-affirming care.
As Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who previously served in the Minnesota State House, explained, “We … learned a key lesson from the last time we had a trifecta and from Republican obstruction since then … when you have power, use it.”
The cost of being in the minority
In North Carolina. Democratic Senators and Representatives have proposed bills in the last 10 years to enact many of the same important protections achieved in MI and MN, only to have them blocked by the Republican majority. For example, the GOP stalled Medicaid expansion, failed to fully fund public education, protect voting rights or enact common sense gun safety regulations.
Until 2023, we were able to rely on Governor Cooper's veto to block some of the worst Republican proposals, but with a GOP supermajority, that safeguard has been taken away.
Champions of hypocrisy, Republicans talk about freedom and local control but have no compunction about limiting our freedoms to choose whether or not to have an abortion, to partner with the person of our choice, to define our gender, or to read whatever we want.
What’s more, they have also deprived cities and counties of the right to make their own decisions about how to tax residents, how candidates are listed on our ballots, and how to assure that residential development includes affordable housing.
The challenge of cracking the veto-proof majority
We cannot give North Carolinians back their freedoms or local control until we crack the veto-proof majority. And that, of course, is easier said than done. In both Michigan and Minnesota, citizens have been able to expand voting rights because they can put initiatives and constitutional amendments on the ballot. We don't have that option in North Carolina. And our Republican-dominated legislature is putting in place new rules and procedures that make it more complicated for individuals to vote. Now that they have a Republican majority on the State Supreme Court as well, we are likely to see the GA reintroduce gerrymandered districts that will make it harder for Democrats to win seats in Congress and the state house and senate.
But — and this is important — we can still win statewide and national offices if we get out the vote. Now that we have leadership in the state Democratic Party that, like the Democratic Parties in Michigan and Wisconsin, is committed to building a grassroots, ground-up voter engagement process, we can join together to replicate their success.
If we establish year-round voter outreach strategies in every county, if we encourage folks in every district to run for local office and support them in those efforts, if we can make the case for how we can make folks' lives better — like they did in Michigan and Minnesota and are getting ready to do in Wisconsin — then we can take back some of the seats we lost in the 2022 elections in the House and Senate. We can hold onto the Governorship; we can elect a Democratic Lt Governor and a Democratic Attorney General, and we can make sure that Anita Earls has another Democrat beside her on the State Supreme Court.
Using the power we achieve
We must promise our fellow North Carolinians that if they help us win these victories, we won't fail to act in their interest … that when we have power, we will use it. We will enact common sense gun safety laws that ensure our kids are safe at home and at school. We will once again build one of the best public school systems in the country. We will provide quality affordable health care in every part of the state, for every person. We will restore to women the right to make their own health care decisions, including reproductive decisions. We will establish regulations to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink. We will change the tax codes to make sure that corporations and wealthy individuals are paying their fair share. And we will establish laws and regulations that really do preserve our democracy and protect the integrity of our electoral system, ensuring that every citizen in North Carolina who has the right to vote is able to vote–freely, without impediment.
Ultimately, we can give families back control over their private family decisions, we can give communities back control over their own schools and their own decisions, and we can assure that every one of us has a voice in shaping the future of our state.
So come out and join us this year — helping in any way you can — registering voters, talking to neighbors about what's at stake, phone-banking and canvassing, donating to your favorite candidates, even running for office yourself.
Remember: if we all join in, we all win.