On Wednesday morning, Republican leaders announced that Rep. Tricia Cotham, a longtime Democrat from Mecklenburg County, is joining the North Carolina Republican Party.
Cotham, who was elected as a Democrat in 2022, said she was switching because the Democratic Party is not the party it once was.
Cotham has voted in Democratic primaries since at least 2005. She was married to the chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party. Her mom is a Mecklenburg Democratic county commissioner and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Her dad was the chairman of the Mecklenburg Democrats.
“As long as I have been a Democrat, the Democrats have tried to be a big tent, but where the has become unrecognizable to me and to so many others in this state and country,” Cotham said.
Cotham said the Democratic Party "wants to villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgment, who has solutions, who wants to get to work to better our state.”
“If you don’t do exactly what Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you. They will try to cast you aside. I saw that when I first ran for office and was told, ‘Why didn’t you ask for permission?' I didn’t think I needed to do that, and quite frankly, I was offended,” Cotham said, saying as a female, this approach especially disturbed her.
Republicans now have an official supermajority in the state House, which does not differ much from what was already deemed a "working supermajority." The working supermajority had already overridden Gov. Roy Cooper's first veto of the year.
If Cotham begins voting with Republicans more often than she did previously, then her move to officially switch parties could pave the way for Republicans to pass more of their agenda.
Cotham challenges Cooper's control
Cotham indicated that behind closed doors, Democrats operate in a very top-heavy manner.
“It became very clear to me early on, in January, that you better vote in line with everything Governor Cooper tells you to do, from signing onto bills, to pick your seat on the House floor, to your committee requests—all of this sense of control," said Cotham. "I will not be controlled by anyone."
There were already several factors prohibiting Democrats from being able to stop Republicans on major legislation this year. Before Cotham's switch, the House had a working supermajority; the Senate had an official supermajority; and Governor Cooper signed a bill to expand Medicaid—conditional on the passage of a state budget—which will include a number of policy provisions.
Cotham's switch simply moves the House from a "working supermajority" to an official one.
Democrats behind the scenes
“I have always tried to work across the aisle from day one, and I am proud of that work because that means we are working together as statesmen and stateswomen,” said Cotham. “Unfortunately, that is taught in the Democratic Party that that’s a good thing, but there is little action."
Cotham said her Democratic colleagues called her a traitor and a spy. They told her not to come to Democratic caucus meetings because they were concerned Cotham would share things with Republicans.
Democratic-aligned groups not only went after Cotham on social media, but she says there were multiple instances where her 12-year-old son received text messages.
"Interest and lobbyist groups that are aligned with the Democratic Party have directly sent messages to my 12-year-old son, and that needs to stop," said Cotham. "And it’s not just been one time."
Cotham said female Democratic colleagues confronted her for having too long of hair and wearing the wrong color outfit on certain days. She said she was attacked for matters as trivial as which emojis she had in her social media bio.
“One of the absolute worst moments, which was really a turning point for me, was when I was criticized for using the ‘
