Last April, newly elected Democrat Tricia Cotham announced that she was switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. This was after she had campaigned as a supporter of abortion rights, an opponent of school vouchers, and a loyal Democrat. Her betrayal of voters in her blue district shook up the state’s politics, because it meant that the hard-right Republicans in the state legislature (the General Assembly) could override the vetoes of Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.
Everyone who saw the damage wrought by Cotham wondered why she did it. She claimed that Democrats didn’t appreciate her enough. That’s a strange reason to flip positions on big issues.
The New York Times reporters Kate Kelly and David Perlmutt found out why she switched: she was wooed by powerful Republicans, encouraged to run, and flipped knowing full well that she lied to her voters.
When Tricia Cotham, a former Democratic lawmaker, was considering another run for the North Carolina House of Representatives, she turned to a powerful party leader for advice. Then, when she jumped into the Democratic primary, she was encouraged by still other formidable allies.
She won the primary in a redrawn district near Charlotte, and then triumphed in the November general election by 18 percentage points, a victory that helped Democrats lock in enough seats to prevent, by a single vote, a Republican supermajority in the state House.
Except what was unusual — and not publicly known at the time — was that the influential people who had privately encouraged Ms. Cotham to run were Republicans, not Democrats. One was Tim Moore, the redoubtable Republican speaker of the state House. Another was John Bell, the Republican majority leader…
Three months after Ms. Cotham took office in January, she delivered a mortal shock to Democrats and to abortion rights supporters: She switched parties, and then cast a decisive vote on May 3 to override a veto by the state’s Democratic governor and enact a 12-week limit on most abortions— North Carolina’s most restrictive abortion policy in 50 years…
More perplexing to many Democrats was why she did it. Ms. Cotham came from a family with strong ties to the Democratic Party, campaigned as a progressive on social issues and had even co-sponsored a bill to codify a version of Roe v. Wade into North Carolina law…
Late in March, just a few days before switching parties, she skipped a pivotal gun-control vote, helping Republicans loosen gun restrictions in the state. After she became a Republican, she sponsored a bill to expand student eligibility for private-school vouchers, voted to ban gender-affirming care for minors and voted to outlaw discussions of race or gender in state job interviews.
“This switch has been absolutely devastating,” said state Representative Pricey Harrison, a Democrat from Greensboro.
Ms. Cotham received a standing ovation at North Carolina’s state Republican convention in June. She was invited to meet privately there with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former Vice President Mike Pence.
“She’s a rock star among the Republican Party activists and voter base,” said U.S. Representative Dan Bishop, a Republican who said he encouraged Ms. Cotham to join his party and who stood behind her when she announced the decision.
There were clues that should have raised suspicions. In an earlier stint in the legislature, Cotham was loud in demanding greater accountability for charter schools. After she left the legislature, she was a lobbyist for the charter school industry. When she returned this year and flipped parties, she led the Republican demand to transfer control of charters from the State Board of Education to the General Assembly.
The move would, at first, shift independent oversight of charter schools from a board largely appointed by the governor to a board largely appointed by the General Assembly….
Cotham, a former teacher, has been a supporter of school choice. She was the president of a corporation that ran charter schools. Cotham is one of three chairs of the House Education Committee, a role she’s held since the start of the session when she was a Democrat, a rare position for a Democrat in the GOP-controlled chamber.
Real Democrats support public schools, not corporate charter chains or vouchers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When running for office as a democrat, real republicans lie to get elected. Nothing new there. Even when they run as republicans they lie.
TRUE, Lloyd.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Prostitician
I’m totally gobsmacked (!) that someone running for office would tell lies to get elected. GASP!
So, you think it’s ok for someone to run as a Democrat, promising to vote as a Democrat, but then switching parties.
That’s worse than breaking a campaign promise, don’t you think?
I think they are equally abhorrent. Most of the time, if a politician’s lips are moving…they are lying. There are very few that I trust anymore.
Wouldn’t asking for campaign donations under false pretenses amount to fraud?
Better yet. Get rid of Citizen untied, the decision that turned the political vows into the verdant pasture of bribery.
George Santos.
Can she win reelection? Having won the general election by 18 points and then becoming a turncoat, I would hope not.
She ran in a blue district. I seriously doubt that she will be re-elected. But the Republican supermajority has two years to do a lot of damage.
Until there is a law requiring elected officials speak the truth in relation to or while on the job – or be fired just like the rest of employed America – this country will never reach its full potential. Why do we demand honesty and integrity from every profession, yet settle for unlimited variations of lying from our leadership? It should be the single criterion that must be met to even get elected, let alone remain in office. And yet we’re never surprised when leadership lies. Like we knew it was going to happen because it always does. It’s quite pathetic our citizenry expects so little.
Meanwhile,
“nearly 75 percent of Republicans still say Trump did not commit any serious federal crimes.”
“In private conversations, Trump’s advisers have been blunt — they see the general election as vital to win in order to end the federal prosecutions against him.”
The woman was a Trojan Horse candidate, a total fraud and liar to get elected. Once elected, she showed her true colors. Utterly disgusting.
Aphasic Mitch’s right-wing lies and chicanery cost Obama a legitimate SCOTUS pick. Falsehood and fabulism surround Manchurian candidate/drag queen “Anthony Devolder”. And now we see Tricia Cotham groomed and bribed to cede her reproductive health rights to southern white male Christian conservatices. Seditious Russia RepubliQans have stooped so low they now have to pretend to be in the party that perceives basic reality to gain access to the machinery of democracy in order to attack and destroy it. Perhaps Dems should run a raft of low I.Q. fundamentalist MAGA fascists in fly-over states and upon winning immediately switch parties and advocate for national health care, solid public schools, empathy and science. ”Idiocracy” is becoming more of a documentary every day.
Thanks to your recommendation, I watched “Idiocracy.” Hilarious, and sometimes prophetic.
Diane, as you know, I’ve followed this story and previously reported about it (here: https://www.alternet.org/tricia-cotham-charter-school-industry/). I disagree with how NYT reporters have framed this story and think they overlooked key elements at work behind her party switch. My reply to their reporting is forthcoming, which I’ll send to you once it goes live.
Please send to me, Jeff. I don’t see how Cotham can be re-elected after her bait and switch.
She can’t, at least not to her current seat. And she already ran for Congress and lost badly.
Jeff,
I posted your insightful analysis of Tricia Cotham’s political flip on June 12, 2023.
I saw that. Thank you!
Let’s hope her constituents will keep her office busy with calls and letters stating their stance and opinion of her votes until they can vote for new state assembly rep.