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When Ashley Bell won her primary handily after nearly a year of grueling campaigning, she thought she’d at least get a congratulations from the North Carolina democratic establishment. Instead she got a phone call from the state Dem chair the day afterwards with some shocking news: In the hotly contested state, the Democratic party had only hired two regional field organizers instead of the seven or eight they’ll need to mount a state-wide coordinated campaign to help downballot candidates tap into the visibility and fundraising of Roy Cooper’s campaign for Governor.
In the weeks that followed, Roy Cooper did three events in Bell’s district, North Carolina’s 10th. Bell’s district, North Carolina’s 10th, is rural and working class, much like Bell herself. A plurality of voters in the district are unaffiliated, with 35% registered as Republicans and 30% registered as Democrats. Cook’s political report classes it as an R+9, strong Republican, but in a year when Democrats are flipping state seats by 20 or 30 points, 9 points is a fight Bell is willing to take on. The North Carolina Democrats however, don’t seem to be willing to step in the ring.
In the weeks after her election, the North Carolina Democrats didn’t even offer a social media congratulations to Bell’s campaign. Instead, they ran three events in her district for the governor’s race and invited the candidates that had lost their primary to Bell. She wasn’t invited to any of the three state events with Coopers’ campaign. Instead, Cooper’s campaign tried to poach Bell’s campaign manager because she had a good score in Vote Builder.
“The party has amazing accuracy at shooting themselves in the foot.” Bell said. The North Carolina Democrats have been pushing Cooper’s campaign to the exclusion of everyone else, telling attendees at meetings that they need to vote for Cooper – but ignoring races the Democrats aren’t targeting, like Bells. Voters take that literally, voting only for the governor’s race in the primary and ignoring the rest of the downballot races. Nearly 10,000 people voted exactly this way in the most recent primary – that’s 10,000 downballot votes that Democrats are losing each time people go to the polls.
The Democratic Party is currently bouncing along the bottom of public approval ratings, with an overwhelming 64% disapproval rating (Yougov, Apr 2025). To put this in context, the American people disapprove of Democrats slightly more than they disapprove of Donald Trump after his reckless strategic failure in Iran. If there’s opposition to Trump that the people will get behind, the Democrats are certainly not leading it.
Part of the problem is the aggressive hostility the party has to anyone who might challenge their “good guy” narrative. They may not be willing to take on tough fights and commit resources to candidates in need, but they consider themselves the heroes this country needs and will come down hard on anyone that threatens to undermine that narrative. Generally, this means coming down on independent and progressive challengers for perceived slights against the party like attending an event for an unaffiliated candidate (as Bell discovered early in her race) or having the gall to win a primary without their help.
Shared priorities be damned: if the party can’t control you, they will do their best to make sure you never get a seat at the table.
The Democratic party has a deep and abiding fear of becoming irrelevant because they cannot imagine any power that does not come with the “correct” number of seats. This fear is rapidly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as they ignore candidates like Bell who are willing to fight, and the voters who are willing to put them in office.
Endorsed by Courage for Democracy as part of a slate of more than 100 pro-impeachment pro-democracy Courage Candidates, Bell isn’t giving up. “If the “big tent” party isn’t going to welcome unaffiliated voters then it’s not a very big tent isn’t it? “ She continued “They have put every barrier in my way and I refused to quit. I will do whatever it takes because I know they aren’t going to help me.”
