AP Photo/Chris Seward
A seven-term Democratic lawmaker in North Carolina endured a stunningly large defeat in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
State Rep. Carla Cunningham, who has represented the 106th district in North Carolina’s House of Representatives since 2013, lost to Reverend Rodney Sadler by nearly 50 percentage points, 70% to 22%. The 106th district encompasses parts of Charlotte.
In July, Cunningham cast the lone Democratic vote to override Governor Josh Stein’s veto of a Republican bill that forced local law enforcement agencies to work closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The legislation required sheriffs to determine whether county inmates are citizens and to detain them for longer if ICE requested it.
After the vote, she took to the House floor and stated that “all cultures are not equal” and that immigrants “must assimilate, adapt to the culture of the country they wish to live in.” Cunningham’s vote proved decisive, as the override succeeded by one vote.
In response, Stein backed Sadler, and the North Carolina Democratic Party refused to share voter information tools with her.
“At the end of the day, she didn’t sound any better than some of these ultra-conservative people who were demeaning Black and Brown folk on a regular basis,” Sadler told Bolts Mag last month. “It felt like a betrayal of the utmost.”
Sadler added, “It drove me to a point of saying, ‘She needs to go, and she needs to go now.”
Cunningham’s defeat came hours after The Economist and YouGov released a poll showing that 50% of Americans support abolishing ICE entirely, with 39% opposed. The federal immigration agency has carried out raids in cities across the country, including Charlotte, where non-citizens and citizens have been targeted by the agency.
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