KODY HALL
Editor’s note: Christy Clark lost her race by a margin of 861 votes; through our readers, Blue Tent raised $21,902 for Clark. To see how other Blue Tent recommended candidates performed this cycle, read our full 2022 midterms rundown.
Christy Clark and John Bradford III are the Muhammed Ali and George Foreman of North Carolina’s State House District 98, rivals repeatedly fighting it out in slugfests that come down to the wire. Clark, a lawyer and small business owner, won the seat in the Charlotte suburbs by just 400 votes in 2018. In 2020, when Democrats struggled nationwide in downballot races, she lost by 2,000. Now she’s challenging Bradford again, in a cycle where Democrats could have a decent chance to make gains among suburban voters turned off by the GOP’s extremism on abortion. Supporting her campaign should be a high priority for donors.
Below, we explore three key questions about Clark’s candidacy that small and medium donors should answer before supporting campaigns. (See how we evaluate candidates.)
Is this race important?
The goal for Democrats in North Carolina isn’t to overturn the Republican majorities in the state House and Senate, it’s to retain the status quo where the GOP doesn’t have a supermajority in both chambers and can’t override Governor Roy Cooper’s veto. Republicans just need to pick up three seats in the House to get a supermajority there, so every North Carolina State House race carries enormous weight.
Could Clark win?
The conservative-leaning nonprofit John Locke Foundation assembled a list of the partisan lean of each House district relative to the state as a whole and gave the 98th a “toss-up” rating, meaning that it’s basically a median North Carolina district in terms of Republican and Democratic voters. All signs point to this being a very competitive race.
Does she need money?
Clark has done reasonably well in terms of fundraising, and had over $113,000 at the end of the last reporting period—but Bradford had nearly double that. The amount of money pouring into this House race indicates how closely fought and important it is, but Clark is undeniably lagging behind. She’s a high priority for donors.