This is the seat whose party-switch created the Republican supermajority. Every claim below is drawn from the public record, roll-call votes, campaign filings, and reporting. It's about trust and delivery, not party labels.
Tricia Cotham won her seat as a Democrat in November 2022. On April 4–5, 2023, barely five months later, she switched to the Republican Party, appearing alongside the Speaker, and handed House Republicans their 72nd seat, a veto-proof supermajority. Her own former staff went on the record.
In 2022 she campaigned as a defender of abortion rights and even co-sponsored a bill to protect them in early 2023. Then on May 16, 2023 she cast an Aye vote to override the veto of the 12-week abortion ban, the exact three-fifths vote her switch made possible (House 72–48).
Cotham lead-sponsored the 2025 Mecklenburg transit bill, and the plan it enabled cut the long-promised Silver Line light rail to Matthews, ending it short of the town. Matthews formally opposed it. The self-styled local champion couldn't deliver the single biggest thing her own town was promised.
Republicans rewarded the switch: they handed her a committee gavel, elevated her to chair of House Education Appropriations, and redrew her district from Democratic-leaning to a coin-flip to make it winnable for her. The deal worked out for her. It didn't work out for the people who elected her.
She works for herself. Ken will work for you.
Sources: NC General Assembly roll-call records, NC State Board of Elections filings, PolitiFact, and named contemporaneous reporting. This page is about a public record and broken promises, not anyone's private life.
216 votes decided this seat last time. Add your name and help us flip it, and protect the governor's veto.