Republican leaders in North Carolina see their star rising under the next Donald Trump administration.
Trump handpicked former North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley to lead the Republican National Committee in March. Rep. Richard Hudson, in a vote of confidence last week from House Republicans, was chosen to serve a second term as chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Tim Moore, the state’s longest serving Republican House speaker, has been elected to its congressional delegation. And now, Michele Morrow, the unsuccessful GOP nominee for state superintendent, is angling for an education-related role in the incoming Trump administration.
The state that took center stage in Trump’s campaign is seeing some of its top Republicans make room for themselves in key national leadership positions. This, they say, will help stem whatever potential Democrats saw in the state.
“North Carolina is the greatest state in the union, and we’ve got the best people, so it’s not surprising at all,” Hudson told NOTUS. “It’s a good thing. The higher the profile we have, the more results we can deliver for the people back home.”
While Trump comfortably won North Carolina in the presidential election, the state’s political picture was more complicated. Democrats easily won the governor’s race, broke Republicans’ supermajority in the state Legislature and held on to one hotly contested congressional seat.
Hudson and other Republicans said one thing they’re looking forward to in the next Congress is the introduction of five new Republicans from North Carolina. Incoming first-year representative-elects Addison McDowell, Mark Harris, Pat Harrigan, Brad Knott and Moore will replace Reps. Kathy Manning, Dan Bishop, Patrick McHenry, Wiley Nickel and Jeff Jackson respectively.
“The new members you mentioned — I know them, and I’m sure they’ll represent their constituents the best they can and contribute to a lot of wins for Republicans at home,” Bishop said.
Hudson acknowledged the fragility of Republicans’ trifecta in Washington when asking his colleagues to support his bid to continue leading the House GOP’s campaign arm, warning them in a letter that Democrats “could steal this majority” in two years if Republicans didn’t move forward with “a steady hand and seasoned leadership,” The Hill reported. (Hudson was first elected to the House in 2012 and has since served as GOP conference secretary in the 117th Congress and NRCC chair this term.)
Moore will enter Congress with no shortage of experience. He’s leaving the state Legislature with 21 years under his belt, nearly 10 of which he served as speaker. Throughout that time he has advanced staunchly conservative policy, including laws to protect gun ownership, promote school choice, restrict access to abortion post-Roe v. Wade and tighten voting registration requirements.
“Voting for Tim as speaker was the very first thing I did when I began my legislative career,” said Bishop, who lost the race for state attorney general this year. “A perfect example of great leadership in North Carolina. I’m not surprised that many of us North Carolinians will find roles in national government.”
Morrow’s prospects are more tenuous. Two weeks ago, she learned from friends that her name had been put forward for an education position in Trump’s administration, based on information on a website apparently run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team. But she told NOTUS she hadn’t been contacted by the Trump transition team as of last week.
“I’ve been involved in politics here in North Carolina for 10 years,” Morrow said. “So I am going through the channels of people that I know, that know people that are close to President Trump, and that’s the way we’re going about it.”
Morrow has never before held public office and did not have a career in education. A homeschool mom, she ran a platform against public schools, calling them “indoctrination centers” and “socialism centers” and emphasizing that parents should decide whether or not to send their children to them. She frequently caught flack during her campaign — thrusting the superintendent race into a national spotlight — for controversial remarks she made in the past about Democrats. Yet she still managed to pull off a surprising primary win, beating out incumbent Republican superintendent Catherine Truitt. She lost the general election to Mo Green, her Democratic opponent.
“Me being kind of an outsider to the education-industrial complex, it was a real referendum when I got 49% of the vote,” Morrow said. “That’s telling me that what I’m doing resonates with people who are concerned about the future for their children.”
Morrow told NOTUS her top priorities in a Trump administration would be “dismantling this restorative justice that Barack Obama put forth where children are not being disciplined in the classroom,” getting rid of any anti-capitalist or anti-family values in school curriculums and doing away with the National Education Association, which Morrow said has put “hundreds of millions of dollars into putting forth leaders within the political realm that do not have our students interests at heart.”
Morrow insists she would align with Trump’s agenda, agreeing, for example, with his desire to get rid of the Department of Education. But her checkered history has earned her some detractors in her party, even among Trump loyalists.
“Michelle Morrow is not in the same league as any of the other folks moving up,” North Carolina-based strategist Wayne King said. “People can float their names for various positions all they want to, but most of those people never are selected for anything. I have no evidence that she is being considered for any post at all.”
Democrats, however, lump Morrow with the rest of the North Carolinians finding an elevated position in the party.
“It’s sickening that people like Michele, who was defeated here, are even being considered by folks,” said John Verdejo, a Democratic National Committee member from North Carolina. “She couldn’t make it here because our state rejected those views. But I guess all you need in Trump’s world is to be loyal to him.”
“North Carolina could have been in a better place had [Moore] not pushed the general assembly to his extreme views,” Verdejo added of Speaker Moore. “I’m afraid he’s just going to transfer that on to the national stage.”
Regardless, all the Republicans NOTUS spoke to said it’s no coincidence that North Carolina politicians are on the up and up.
“We’re a very fast growing state, and we continue to grow it at a rapid pace,” King said. “That’s going to be important for any new president or any candidates that are interested in running for national office. The White House definitely runs through North Carolina, so you want its leaders around.”
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Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.