House, Senate contests worth watching in Mecklenburg, Cabarrus

The first time Ken McCool got excited about politics was in high school, when then-Democratic Rep. Tricia Cotham came to speak to his journalism class. A decade later, McCool is running against Cotham to represent House District 105, covering southeast Mecklenburg County. 

Since Cotham visited McCool’s classroom, much has changed. 

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In 2019, McCool ran for the town of Matthews’ board of commissioners at age 21, and lost by 13 votes. When a commissioner resigned a few months later, he was appointed as the replacement, becoming one of the youngest local leaders in the state. He has since been reelected twice. 

In 2023, Cotham switched teams. After a multiyear hiatus, she returned to the legislature after winning the 2022 election with a new perspective. In April, Cotham announced she was changing her party affiliation from Democratic to Republican. 

She said she felt pressure to vote in line with then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, and refused to be controlled by him or anyone else. During her speech, she added that she had been bullied by Democratic legislators over her votes. They pushed her out, she said.

“The modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and to so many others throughout this state and this country,” Cotham said.

After the party switch, McCool tried to talk to Cotham in his new capacity as a local leader. He said he went to Raleigh with the mayor to lobby against a bill restricting local zoning rights, but Cotham wouldn’t meet with them. He doesn’t feel like she’s heard constituents out, either. 

It feels “strange” to run against someone he once looked up to, McCool told Carolina Public Press.

“She’s lost her way,” he said. “She forgets who has supported her over the last 20 years of her political career, and I think it’s just time for something new.” 

Cotham did not respond to multiple emails and texts from Carolina Public Press requesting an interview. 

Cotham was first appointed to the legislature in 2007, after Democratic House Speaker Jim Black resigned over corruption charges. She won reelection in 2008, and every election thereafter until 2016, when she instead campaigned for a U.S. House seat. 

After losing the congressional primary, Cotham didn’t return until the 2022 election, which she won with 59% of the vote. Months after winning, she switched parties, giving Republicans enough numbers to override the governor’s vetoes. She later voted with Republicans to restrict abortion from 20 to 12 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormality and medical emergencies. 

Before becoming a legislator, Cotham was a teacher and assistant principal with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Now, she chairs the House K-12 Education Committee and Education Appropriations Committee. This year, she was part of budget discussions leading to an average 8% raise for teachers. In 2023, she led the effort to expand the state’s Opportunity Scholarships — vouchers to help parents pay to send their children to nonpublic schools — to everyone, eliminating the previous household income caps. 

McCool thinks the Opportunity Scholarship program needs to be “redone.”

“Public dollars should go for public schools first, and so we should work on making sure we have the strongest, best public schools in the nation,” he said. 

McCool also objects to Cotham’s signature piece of legislation this session: the P.A.V.E. Act. The bill allowed Mecklenburg County to place a 1-cent sales tax referendum on the 2025 ballot; if approved by voters, the extra tax revenue would fund transit projects in the county, including road improvements, expanded bus service and light rail extensions. 

There was one problem: the plan left out funding for a light rail extension connecting to Matthews that McCool said the community had planned on for decades. Instead, it would grant them expanded bus service.

“There’s only so much the town of Matthews, city of Charlotte or town of Mint Hill can do for roads because their budgets are small and they only control a certain small tranche of roads,” he said. “It really comes to the state, and so I think specifically with traffic issues, we really need to push harder from a state perspective.”

Cotham’s other significant accomplishment this term was passing House Bill 1104, designed to improve the state’s involuntary commitment process in light of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska’s fatal stabbing on the Charlotte transit system by DeCarlos Brown Jr., a man with severe mental health issues and a lengthy criminal history. 

The bill authorized studies addressing staffing and bed shortages, launched a pilot telehealth program in county jails for initial involuntary commitment examinations and expanded outpatient commitment eligibility, among other changes.

Despite Cotham’s record, McCool says he is the public safety candidate. While town commissioner, he said he worked with leaders to build a new fire station, raise first responder pay and approve a state-of-the-art police training facility. If elected to the state legislature, he said he will work to fully fund courts and first responders so they can keep criminals off the streets. He’s endorsed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police. 

The race is expected to be close. In 2024, immediately after her party switch, Cotham won reelection by just 213 votes. This cycle, the district is once again considered a toss-up. McCool attributes that to changing demographics. 

“This used to be a ruby red area,” he said. “You have a lot of younger families moving here, and folks are tired of the Republican agenda. So, I think this is a place where Democrats can make serious gains.” 

A semi-open seat in Senate District 34

Democratic Senate candidate April Cook’s first day back on the campaign trail after completing chemotherapy was a hot, humid one. She walked around a Concord neighborhood in Cabarrus County, knocking on doors. 

Cook isn’t new to healthcare. She co-founded the Lake Norman Community Health Clinic, which serves uninsured patients for free, and is the CEO of the North Carolina Association of Free and Charitable Clinics. Senate Democrats recruited her to run for that reason; they felt like they could use another lawmaker with a health background among their ranks, Cook said. 

When Cook was diagnosed with cancer in February, they stood by her. She had a good prognosis, so she decided to stick with it, she said. 

“If you can be a voice for the most disenfranchised, you should,” she said. “And if you’re going to complain about politics, and you don’t step up, then you’re a hypocrite.”

The second voter who answered the door told Cook his top issues were affordability and healthcare access. She lit up in excitement. She’d been in the healthcare world for 30 years, and that was exactly why she was running, she told the voter. 

Cook explained to another voter that she planned to drive down healthcare costs by providing access to everyone. That way, people without insurance or financial means would get health issues taken care of before they ended up in the emergency room, driving up healthcare costs and insurance premiums for taxpayers. 

In an interview with CPP, she said she also wants to address what she sees as a hospital system monopoly in North Carolina. 

Republican candidate Kevin Crutchfield wants to run on his record. He served one term in the House, during the 2023-24 session, before losing a primary to Rep. Brian Echevarria. He then defeated Republican Chris Measmer in a primary two years later for a shot to return to Raleigh. 

One of the reasons Crutchfield lost in 2024 may have been an ethics complaint filed against him during the primary. 

The complaint alleged that Crutchfield sponsored a number of bills that would help his businesses. Crutchfield owns a sign company, Casco Signs, and a cattle farm, Crutchfield Farms. 

He sponsored House Bill 865, which would have extended a COVID-era meat processing grant program to address food supply chain issues. The complaint alleged that Crutchfield would  financially benefit from the bill’s passage as a cattle farmer. 

Crutchfield said the idea dates back to before he was elected, when lawmakers determined there weren’t enough beef processing plants across North Carolina. He felt that it was still an issue in 2023, when he joined the House, and sought to renew the grant. But his colleagues may have disagreed. The bill did not pass. Crutchfield said he never applied for the grant. 

The complaint also alleged that a series of bills benefitted Crutchfield’s sign company. One would have required government agencies to deliver permits electronically instead of requiring in-person pickups in Raleigh. That would have saved Crutchfield’s business time and money, the complaint alleged. Another bill would have allowed sign sellers to repossess their sign when the buyer fails to pay. A third bill would have required local governments that enacted new regulations to reimburse advertising sign owners if they had to make changes to stay in compliance. 

Crutchfield said his goal was to protect all sign owners’ rights to prevent local governments from taking their signs down. 

“Really what happens is people don’t have to take down their signs, so therefore I don’t get to build new signs to sell to them,” he said. “So I’m really working against myself in terms of the business.” 

Ultimately, the legislative ethics committee dismissed the complaint, but it has reappeared in Democratic Party mailers against Crutchfield this year. 

“They take a little bit of truth and then twist it enough that they can tell a lie about it to try to make me out to be some big villain that I’m not, and that’s pretty frustrating,” he said. 

Cook also takes issue with campaign mail about her, paid for by the North Carolina Senate Majority Fund. One mailer says, “Rachel Cook: Wrong on school choice. Wrong for Cabarrus County.” 

Rachel is Cook’s daughter’s name, not hers. She also believes the mailer used AI to alter a photo of her into a particular stance.

Candidates often do not have control over how outside groups campaign on their behalf. 

During his time in the legislature, Crutchfield said he won $180 million in infrastructure investments in Cabarrus County. He also worked on bills to protect older North Carolinians from money laundering and bolster anti-human trafficking efforts. 

The HOPE Act directed the Department of Labor to develop updated anti-trafficking training, required more anti-trafficking training for people working at lodging places and vacation rentals and made North Carolina the second state to make solicitation of prostitution a felony. 

If elected to the Senate, there’s more work to do in that area, Crutchfield said.

“Every day we make a step forward, it seems like the traffickers make two steps forward,” he said. “So we’re chasing that ball a lot, and technology’s driving that.” 

Crutchfield would also focus on protecting small businesses, regulating social media use for minors and tackling juvenile crime, he said. The relationships he’s already built with lawmakers will help, he said. 

Besides healthcare, Cook is primarily concerned about public education. She wants to reinstate income caps for the Opportunity Scholarship program, raise teacher pay and fund public schools at a higher level, she said.

Giving voters ‘a choice’ in Cabarrus House contest 

Rep. Brian Echevarria, R-Cabarrus, may have only served one term in Raleigh, but he’s already made a name for himself as one of the legislature’s more conservative lawmakers. 

He sponsored House Bill 318, titled the Criminal Illegal Alien Enforcement Act, which passed over Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s veto. 

The law requires jail officers to check the citizenship status of detainees under an expanded list of charges, including all felonies, impaired driving and domestic violence order violations. If the officer can’t confirm legal residency, they must wait a couple hours to see if Immigration and Customs Enforcement issues a detainer and administrative warrant. If so, the detainee may be held up to 48 hours past their scheduled release so that ICE can take them into custody. 

North Carolina now has safer communities thanks to the law, Echevarria said. 

He also led the push to allow North Carolinians 18 and older to carry a concealed handgun without a permit. So far, the legislature has been unable to override the governor’s veto on a nearly identical constitutional carry bill. 

When he saw nobody was running against Echevarria, retired US Navy officer Chris Bishopp decided to step in. 

“I just felt like the county and the state needs representatives that are more interested in the people than they are in working to the benefit of large corporations like Duke (Energy) and special interest groups,” he said. “I just couldn’t, in good conscience, not allow the people to have a choice.” 

House District 82 covers southern Cabarrus County. It’s considered a Republican-leaning district that typically votes 3 percentage points more Republican than the state average, according to the Civitas Partisan Index. 

It’s a bit of a stretch district for Democrats, but they’re hoping for a blue wave in November. Bishopp’s been canvassing since March, and he said his name recognition is growing, according to internal polling. 

Voters are concerned about education, cost of living and gerrymandering, he said. If elected, he has a few plans.

He would work with businesses to establish a childcare tax credit, he said. He wouldn’t let Duke Energy continue raising rates, and would ensure data centers paid their own way. He would review the education lottery and voucher program, and work to fund public schools at a higher level. While he doesn’t see a way to get rid of Opportunity Scholarships, he would return to the original version, with household income caps and other rules. 

Echevarria says he’s the right guy for the job. 

“I know that I’m far more in touch with my community in terms of what the people of Cabarrus County want,” he said. 

He’s laser-focused on alleviating pressure of rising property taxes, he said. He was the primary sponsor of the property tax levy limit constitutional amendment voters will see on their ballot in November. If the amendment passes, he’s hoping to implement a “really strong limit” — something like the previous year’s property tax levy plus 2%, with new construction in a different pot, he said. 

While lawmakers have been criticized for consolidating power in Raleigh with the amendment, he doesn’t see it that way. If local governments wanted to go above the levy limit, they would have to bring that to the voters with a ballot referendum, he said. 

“It’s hyper-local because once they want to cross that threshold, they don’t come to the General Assembly asking for permission to raise taxes,” he said. “They have to go to their voter, explain why they want to increase taxes, and for how long.”

Bishopp would rather not implement a levy limit. 

“The people who know best what funding they need and how to best spend it are the local people, the local elected officials, not representatives from all over the state,” he said.

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