The election results out of North Carolina this week should serve as a chilling warning for 2028 Democratic presidential hopefuls who have flirted with compromising with the right on culture war issues like trans rights and immigration. A small group of centrist Democrats who collaborated with state House Republicans handily lost primaries to more progressive challengers in the pivotal swing state Tuesday.
State Rep. Carla Cunningham made waves last year after Gov. Josh Stein, D-N.C., vetoed a bill requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Cunningham was the deciding vote and sole Democrat to vote in favor of overriding the governor’s veto. On the House floor, she made discriminatory comments, declaring that “not all cultures are created equal,” and “[we] have been exploited and abused by the different tactics to gain citizenship in America. It’s time to wake up.”
On Tuesday, Cunningham was run out of office by progressive candidate Rodney Sadler by an extreme vote margin, 69% to 22%.
Elsewhere, Democrat Nasif Majeed, who was the sole Democrat to vote in favor of codifying “biblical” definitions of man and woman in state law, a bill designed to legally eliminate being transgender in the state, lost to progressive primary challenger Veleria Levy by a similarly wide margin, 69% to 27%.
In another race, former state Rep. Michael Wray, a centrist, challenged progressive Rodney Pierce and lost by over 20 points. Pierce challenged and beat Wray in a race last year after Wray frequently crossed party lines in 2024 to override vetoes from former Gov. Roy Cooper, D-N.C.
What these results show is that 2026 is the year of the progressive, at least on the Democratic side of the ballot. None of these districts are representative of the American electorate as a whole because North Carolina suffers under one of the most extreme Republican gerrymanders in the nation. Republican lawmakers intentionally drew a map that feature no competitive general election matchups for themselves.
As a result, all of the state’s blue districts are usually 70-80% Democratic voters. But because of this, these districts reveal the true feelings of Democratic Party voters. And seven are at least 37% Black, while 10 are majority-minority, offering a makeshift preview of what presidential hopefuls can expect in the pivotal North Carolina primary in 2028.
A small group of centrist Democrats who collaborated with state House Republicans handily lost primaries to more progressive challengers in the pivotal swing state Tuesday.
So far, it’s still too early to make any actual prognostications for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary, but several potential candidates are already gearing up for the fight. Some media outlets have declared Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., the frontrunner based on very early polling. Newsom has done a series of podcast appearances with right-wing influencers, repeatedly saying “trans activists” have gone too far on several issues, like sports or youth transition.
Another presidential hopeful, former Democratic Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, has gone even further to burnish his centrist bonafides, disagreeing with wide swaths of progressive transgender stances.
But based on Tuesday’s election results, it’s not clear if the Democratic base supports their views on these issues. Much has been made over supposedly poor polling on a slogan like “abolish ICE” or the general public’s support for transgender issues. However, a poll released Tuesday morning by The Economist and YouGov showed that a full 50% of those polled, across parties, supported abolishing ICE.
A separate analysis of polling data showed that the way pollsters phrase questions can influence poll results on transgender issues by at least 20% in either direction. This is why you can’t really depend on polling to define your policy positions as a candidate. Voters can smell the inauthenticity in that approach. Last summer, I had former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander on my podcast to talk about his partnership with then-New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. I was struck then by a line he said about the current state of the Democratic Party: “It’s not progressive vs liberal, the divide is between fighters and folders.” Lander, who is now a progressive challenger running against Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., has recently made that line central to his campaign. I think he’s right. Democrats don’t want candidates who are willing to fold to conservatives on culture war issues, continue funding unconstitutional ICE activities or are wishy-washy on President Donald Trump. They don’t want Democrats who provide the sole vote to override a Democratic governor’s veto. They want fighters. Progressives have shown this cycle that they are willing to fight for the party. Newsom beware!
Katelyn Burns is a freelance journalist based in New England. 
