Disclosure: The author leads the North Carolina Housing Table, a housing coalition that works with the General Assembly.
Preliminary results show the North Carolina House changing hands. Democrats are projected to hold 71 of 120 seats, with 48 Republicans and one unaffiliated member, Carolina Journal reported. Before Election Day, Republicans held 71. Democrats appear to have taken 22 Republican-held districts and two held by unaffiliated members.
The Senate did not follow. Preliminary results show Republicans ahead there 26 to 24. North Carolina now has a Democratic governor, a Democratic House and a Republican Senate.
The speaker-in-waiting
On Nov. 6, House Democratic Leader Robert Reives II announced he has commitments from a majority of the incoming House to become speaker, Carolina Journal reported. The caucus formally picks its nominee on Nov. 16. The full House votes on Jan. 13, when the new General Assembly convenes.
Reives has represented House District 54, Chatham County and part of Randolph County, since 2014. He has led House Democrats since 2021. He is a lawyer who prosecuted cases in Lee County before going into private practice, and he earned both of his degrees at UNC-Chapel Hill.
"North Carolinians elected us to make life more affordable," he said. His caucus plans to "hit the ground running." Speaker Destin Hall, who won reelection, congratulated him and said he looks forward to "working with him in the next biennium." Gov. Josh Stein said he looks forward to "working with Speaker-Elect Reives in the new year."
What he says he will do
Reives laid out his priorities to EdNC on Nov. 10. On cost of living: "My top priority is by the time '28 comes around that people can feel, as best they can, some relief in their pocketbooks."
On schools, he went bigger. "Nobody has been able to make the argument to me why we don't want to be the No. 1 education state again," he said. He also made a point about teachers that cuts against the usual campaign line: "I can tell you there are teachers right now that would trade a pay raise for a better working environment."
He called the state's earlier decision not to expand Medicaid a mistake, EdNC reported, and said the legislature should use its power to push back on federal Medicaid changes, including the new work requirement.
The other new face
The House is not the only chamber getting a new leader. Senate leader Phil Berger, the architect of Republican control in Raleigh, lost his March primary to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, WECT reported. A new Senate president pro tempore will meet Reives across the building in January. Reives told EdNC that the new Senate leader's attitude will decide how much the two chambers can do together.
That is the real math of 2027. A Democratic House can stop Senate bills, and Gov. Stein's vetoes become far harder to override without House Democrats. Nothing becomes law, though, unless a Republican Senate agrees.
The Republican case
House Republicans still hold a strong hand. They have the Senate. They have the post-election session that starts Nov. 16, when the outgoing Republican majorities still run both chambers, Carolina Journal reported. And they can argue, as Hall did over the summer, that members elected for two years serve the full two years.
The fair question for Republicans is what they do with those weeks. The fair question for Reives is whether a leader who has run the minority caucus since 2021 can share the agenda with a Senate he does not control.
What to watch
- Nov. 16: the House Democratic caucus vote, and the first day of the post-election session.
- Senate Republicans: who they choose as the next president pro tempore.
- Jan. 13: the speaker vote on the House floor.
- The first joint bill: an affordability or school measure both chambers can pass.
A gavel is only a tool. Reives will be measured by what he can get a Republican Senate to sign on to, and by whether families feel it before 2028.
Results are unofficial until each state certifies them. This piece is part of The State's series on the 12 legislative chambers that changed party control on Nov. 3, all of them to Democrats, according to Ballotpedia. For the overview, read The Flip.