Dear Elected NC Dems: Rescind Your Endorsements for Corporate Democrats in NC-04 and NC-01
Yesterday, State Representative Marcia Morey rescinded her endorsement of her colleague Sen. Valerie Foushee and threw her support behind Nida Allam for Congress in North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District. Her decision was difficult but incredibly important. The impetus was simple: Foushee’s campaign has been bankrolled by millions of dollars of dark money with the sole intent of stopping Allam, making it the most expensive House primary in NC history. This is not the first time when a progressive has rescinded their endorsement for Foushee. Earlier in April, the Progressive Caucus of the NC Democratic Party overwhelmingly decided to withdraw their support of Senator Foushee’s candidacy for Congress.
Nida Allam is a Durham County Commissioner, daughter of immigrants, and the first Muslim woman elected to office in North Carolina. She has a comprehensive platform to uplift North Carolinians of all backgrounds and challenge the status quo. She has taken the Green New Deal Pledge, No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, and has committed publicly and regularly to not take a dime of corporate PAC money. Meanwhile, Foushee has made similar claims in the past but has openly accepted millions of dollars in backing from corporate billionaires.
Just east of Allam’s district, Erica Smith is experiencing an all too similar fight. She is a clergy member, educator, and former state senator running in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District to revitalize her rural community through bold, truly progressive policies. Her opponent, Don Davis, just like Foushee in NC-04, has received millions in advertisements from dark money groups and is outspending Erica 10–1. What makes this worse: Don Davis is the most anti-choice Democrat in the NC General Assembly. At a time the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade is imminent, we must get RID of any Democrat in Congress who is anti-choice, not elect more of them.
It’s expected that when Democrats run on transformative, big ideas, conservatives will try to stop them. After all, the Republican Party is not promising to uplift anyone in the midterms; they are resorting to fear-mongering, hatred, and lies. That’s their playbook. In these races, however, corporate Democrats are contributing to that cause. So, here we are.
AIPAC, the largest donor in these races, has endorsed and contributed financially to 109 Republican candidates for Congress, many of whom voted against certifying — and therefore overthrowing — the 2020 Presidential election. Combined they have spent millions of dollars against working-class women of color candidates in the 2022 midterm primaries. Another major player, the Protect Our Future PAC, is financed by a cryptocurrency billionaire living in the Bahamas whose likely primary objective is deregulating the crypto market so that he and his allies can make millions or billions more. These two organizations alone have contributed more for Foushee and Davis than every other candidate in these races has raised combined. In a recent letter to INDYWeek, Jewish constituents of NC-4 called on AIPAC and Sam Bankman-Fried to stop trying to buy this congressional seat and asked all candidates in this race to refuse to accept their support. North Carolinians, and our democracy, deserve better.
Is this the message Democrats will send as we head into what could be a devastating midterm? If so, quite frankly, we’re doomed in November. What happens this midterm year and in 2024 starts and ends with how these Democratic primaries go down. If you expect the multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational electorate to turn out in the midterm general election, then Democrats must call out candidates and elected officials are backed by millions in corporate money that directly oppose our values.
Just this week, a poll found Cheri Beasley trailing Trump-backed Ted Budd by seven points in the race for US Senate. Democrats won’t win if we sell out our nominations to the highest bidder — especially not while actively eroding our own causes. Davis has voted for bills vetoed by Governor Cooper more than any other Democrat in the General Assembly and is the only one to vote to override one of his vetoes. He has voted to defund Planned Parenthood, in a cycle where reproductive and abortion rights are literally on the line, more than ever before. We’re in the fight of our lives.
Representative Morey should not have to stand alone at this moment. US Representative GK Butterfield and many other members of Congress and the North Carolina General Assembly have, despite the outrageous amount of corporate dark money pouring into these races, endorsed the campaigns of Foushee and Davis. Unfortunately, to endorse their campaigns in this cycle is to endorse the continual use of corporate dark money to decide elections, rather than the will of constituents. It’s to endorse directly against the Democrats’ agenda and choose to be beholden to the Wealthy Few rather than everyday working families in North Carolina. It’s to endorse against democracy and the fight for voting rights and reproductive rights.
We respectfully call on Rep. Butterfield and all other elected Democrats in NC to rescind their endorsements in the 1st and 4th Congressional Districts for Don Davis and Valerie Foushee and support the true progressive candidates, Erica Smith and Nida Allam.
