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One of the big wins for North Carolina Democrats this election was breaking the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly.
Running on gerrymandered maps drawn to give the GOP an advantage, Democrats ended the election with a net pick-up of one in the House — just enough to restore their ability to block veto overrides.
A critical pick-up was in House District 32 in Granville and Vance counties just north of Wake County. Democrat Bryan Cohn defeated Republican incumbent Frank Sossamon by 233 votes, or half of a percentage point.
One contributing factor: 29-year-old Ryan Brown, who ran as a Libertarian in the race. He received 1,140 votes, or 2.6%.
Just as a butterfly flapping its wings can ripple across the globe, Brown believes his entry in the race was decisive — and ultimately cost the GOP its supermajority.
“It did send a message to Republicans,” he said. “I know via the grapevine they aren’t happy with me.”
To be sure, there were other factors at play.
Sossamon used to be a registered Democrat but switched to the GOP in 2020. He then voted for a number of GOP priorities, like a 12-week abortion ban. Being a party switcher might have cost Sossamon some conservative votes (though that didn’t keep fellow former Democrat Tricia Cotham in Mecklenburg County from winning).
But Brown believes (as many do) that Libertarians are more ideologically aligned with conservatives. He guesses 65% of his voters would have picked Sossamon if he hadn’t run.
That would have been enough for the GOP to keep the seat.
“My grandmother called me a spoiler,” he said. “I don’t see myself as a spoiler. The person who spoiled this race is Sossamon.”
Brown works in tech, although he was just laid off from his job. He lives in Creedmoor, north of Raleigh.
He is not a Democratic plant. He was raised in a Republican, Christian household, but realized that Libertarians are more aligned with his views. He’s currently the chair of the North Carolina Libertarian Party.
He said he was particularly upset that the GOP-controlled General Assembly didn’t do more to expand gun rights when it had a supermajority.
Brown said the GOP should have expanded the places where people can carry concealed weapons, pushed to repeal a mandatory class to carry concealed weapons and moved to lower the age to conceal-carry a pistol from 21 to 18.
He said the GOP could have done other things, too.
“They could have legalized actual, real gambling. They could have done more with occupational licensing,” he said. “I ran on gun rights because that’s nearest and dearest to me.”
He said Libertarians plan to run in more competitive races in 2026 if they can find candidates.
“There are five more races we can do this in, like Tricia Cotham’s district,” he said.
Cotham represents a southeast Mecklenburg County seat. She won her seat as a Democrat in 2022 and then switched to the Republican Party the next year, giving the GOP a one-seat supermajority.
She narrowly won reelection this year by 216 votes over Democrat Nicole Sidman.
Brown said he’s surprised the Democratic Party isn’t recruiting left-leaning Republicans to run as spoilers in competitive races under the Libertarian label.
Libertarians run in about a dozen state House races every cycle. Usually, they have no impact.
But the “Brown factor” has happened before.
In the state Senate this year, Democrat Terence Everitt won District 18 in Wake and Granville counties by just 134 votes. The Libertarian got 3,905 votes.
- In the state’s one competitive congressional race this year, incumbent Democrat Don Davis defeated Republican Laurie Buckhout by 6,303 votes. The Libertarian, Tom Bailey, got 9,949 votes.
- In 2018, when the Democrats broke the GOP supermajority, Democrat Julie von Haefen defeated Republican Nelson Dollar by 884 votes, with a Libertarian candidate getting 1,305 votes.
- And perhaps most famously, in 2016, Democrat Roy Cooper defeated Republican incumbent Pat McCrory in the governor’s race by 10,277 votes. Libertarian Lon Cecil got nearly 103,000 votes.
Republicans are resigned to sharing the ballot with the Libertarians.
Democrats, of course, have third-party spoilers seared into their memories, ever since Ralph Nader got more than 97,000 votes in Florida in 2000. Al Gore lost the state and the presidency by 537 votes.
Here in North Carolina, they have been working furiously to keep left-wing third parties off the ballot.
In 2022, Democrats worked to keep the Green Party out of the U.S. Senate race. And this year, they scrambled to keep Cornel West’s Justice for All Party off the presidential ballot as well.
Both attempts failed. The Greens and Justice for All are, for now, recognized as North Carolina political parties.
Will the Greens and Justice for All field legislative candidates, should they maintain their status as recognized political parties?
