North Carolina Democrats said they’re prepared for President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on voting by mail — in part because they’ve been fighting against Republican efforts for years.
Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, told NOTUS that her party will do “everything to out-organize Republican voter suppression.”
The North Carolina Democratic Party, Clayton added, already boasts its largest staff in history during an odd year and has invested the most it ever has in field programs. The party has also hit the ground running with aggressive get-out-the-vote efforts that include phone banking campaigns and door-knocking campaigns where volunteers help voters ensure they are registered to vote.
Republicans “are trying to do everything they can to disenfranchise us but also make us work harder,” Clayton said.
Trump said Monday that he wants to get rid of mail-in voting ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The comments come at a time when Democrats are more hopeful about winning the 2026 midterm elections, as Trump’s approval rating declines and voters disapprove of his policies, and when a competitive state like North Carolina is vital to Democrats’ chances of flipping the Senate.
Democrats in North Carolina said they weren’t surprised by Trump’s comments.
They said Republicans in the state have taken multiple steps that hurt Democrats’ chances. In 2023, the GOP-controlled statehouse enacted laws that tightened requirements for mail-in voting verification. The following year, Republicans in the state wrested control of the state election board from Democrats for the first time in a decade. And this February, state Republicans introduced a measure to reduce the early voting period.
“What Trump is doing here right now is almost familiar to us here in North Carolina,” John Verdejo, a DNC member from North Carolina, told NOTUS. “It’s almost ironic and familiar to us because the Republicans are trying to eliminate early voting and everything else.”
Trump on Monday vowed to sign an executive order to assist with his efforts to eliminate mail-in voting across the country, arguing that he wants to “BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS.” Trump for years has railed against mail-in voting and baselessly argued that the practice cost him the 2020 election, even as his own party embraced mail-in voting and other early voting practices.
Whether Trump can legally ban mail-in voting across the country is in question, given that states regulate their own election laws. If he does succeed, Democrats said they’re ready to fight back.
Denise Adams, mayor pro tempore of the Winston-Salem City Council, told NOTUS that Democrats in her county are employing what she calls the “reach one, teach one, get one” method. Party volunteers foster personal interactions with voters and educate them about upcoming elections, ensure they register to vote, and then check in with them in the lead-up to Election Day to see if they’ve cast their ballot.
“We’ve got to go back to the old school ways,” Adams said, adding that she’s a child of the civil rights movement. “When I was doing this, we didn’t just knock on a door and register you to vote. We were always ready back at your door to grab your hand and take you to the polls.”
National Democratic groups have also been lending legal support to state Democrats fighting to preserve voter integrity. The Democratic National Committee backed Pennsylvania Democrats when they challenged the state in 2022 for instructing county boards of elections to reject undated and wrongly dated mail-in ballots.
A DNC spokesperson said the DNC is waiting to see if and how Trump proceeds with his promise to end mail-in voting. It is committed, overall, to continuing its history of defending mail-in voting, the spokesperson added.
“Trump is terrified that he is going to lose the midterms and is trying to cheat his way out of it,” DNC spokesperson Marcus Robinson said in a statement. “The Democratic Party will continue to do everything possible to protect the rights of Americans to vote by mail, including by challenging Donald Trump and Republicans’ hare-brained attempts to illegally disenfranchise voters in court.”
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is also working to ensure all votes are counted, a spokesperson said. Rep. Don Davis, whose district is in a North Carolina swing district, is a member of the group’s Frontline program.
“As it has done for years, the DCCC is fighting anywhere and everywhere to ensure every legal vote is counted,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement. “This means we’ll fight back in the courthouse, the state house, and on the campaign trail - whether it’s in Pennsylvania or North Carolina.”
Democrats said they’re taking Trump’s comments seriously.
“Trump’s attack on mail-in ballots – based on lies surrounding his 2020 election loss – would unfairly disenfranchise untold numbers of lawful voters, potentially denying them the chance to participate in our democracy,” Rep. Deborah Ross said in a statement to NOTUS. “North Carolina Republicans already rigged the maps in their favor through gerrymandering. Eliminating safe and secure mail-in voting would only further limit North Carolinians’ ability to elect leaders who share their views and their values.”
While some North Carolina Democrats believe that eliminating mail-in voting would make it harder to eke out a win, they’re also convinced Republicans have something to lose from Trump’s actions.
“It’s going to hurt his party more so than us only because North Carolina, by and large, is still a rural state,” Verdejo said, noting that the state’s rural population is more Republican than Democrat, and heavily relies on mail-in voting. “Most of us [Democrats] are on the urban course.”
Shelia Huggins, another DNC member from North Carolina, told NOTUS, “The very people who Republicans claim to support, those out in our rural areas who don’t have as much access — those are the ones that you’re taking away this right from.”
—
This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and The Assembly.