HRC Endorses North Carolina Champions for Equality

by HRC staff

Post submitted by Lucas Acosta (he/him), former Deputy Director of Communications, Politics

We announced the endorsement of champions of equality running for the North Carolina State Legislature.

Today, the Human Rights Campaign announced the endorsement of champions of equality running for the North Carolina State Legislature.

Today, 29 states, including North Carolina, lack comprehensive protections for LGBTQ people. North Carolina, the home of HB2, has been ground zero for the fight to end discrimination against transgender people and ensure equal protections for all LGBTQ Americans. Thanks to the hard work of the Human Rights Campaign, Equality North Carolina and local LGBTQ rights advocates, we ousted Gov. Pat McCrory. Today’s endorsements mark the next step of our efforts, to limit the power of our opponents and elect as many pro-equality allies as possible to ensure all LGBTQ North Carolinans have the protections they deserve.

“North Carolina continues to be a key state for defending and advancing LGBTQ protections and we need local leaders to continue the fight,” said HRC Associate Regional Campaigns Director Melodía Gutiérrez. “There is a lot more work to do to ensure that 319,000 LGBTQ North Carolinians have the protections from discrimination all humans deserve. We are excited to endorse 26 champions of LGBTQ equality who have led the fight in their own communities and on the state level to advance equality and defend against attempts to roll back LGBTQ rights. Between now and November, we are laser focused on mobilizing the more than 1.5 million Equality Voters throughout the state to ensure these and other pro-equality candidates up and down the ballot are elected.”

HRC Endorsed Candidates include:

  • Harper Peterson (SD-09)
  • Allen Wellons (SD-11)
  • Sam Searcy (SD-17)
  • Sarah Crawford (SD-18)
  • Kirk deViere (SD-19)
  • JD Wooten (SD-24)
  • Michael Garrett (SD-27)
  • Terri LeGrand (SD-31)
  • DeAndrea Salvador (SD-39)
  • Emily Nicholson (HD-01)
  • Brian Farkas (HD-09)
  • Virginia Cox-Daugherty (HD-12)
  • Terence Everitt (HD-35)
  • Julie von Haefen (HD-36)
  • Sydney Batch (HD-37)
  • Kimberly Hardy (HD-43)
  • Frances Jackson (HD-45)
  • Nicole Quick (HD-59)
  • Ricky Hurtado (HD-63)
  • Dan Besse (HD-74)
  • Aimy Steele (HD-82)
  • Gail Young (HD-83)
  • C. Ray Russell (HD-93)
  • Christy Clark (HD-98)
  • Brandon Lofton (HD-104)
  • Wesley Harris (HD-105)

In the 2018 midterms, HRC mobilized our grassroots army of 3.2 million members, supporters, and volunteers to work on behalf of pro-equality candidates and engage pro-equality voters primarily in six key states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This unprecedented grassroots mobilization worked to recruit and train volunteers, register and mobilize voters and grow the organization's political organizing efforts in order to pull the emergency brake on the hateful anti-LGBTQ agenda of the Trump-Pence administration and elect a Congress that would hold them accountable.

In 2020, our engagement and mobilization efforts have only deepened. In addition to our expansive volunteer network, HRC will have at least 51 full-time staff in seven priority states (Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin) and an additional 26 staff focused on a second tier of states, including North Carolina. While in person organizing has been limited by the COVID-19 pandemic, HRC has embraced digital organizing, launching a new tool called TEAM allowing our broad network of volunteers and steering committees to engage their networks personally and hundreds of virtual phone banks and text banks to engage pro-equality voters even without the ability to interact in person.

Paid for by Human Rights Campaign PAC (www.hrc.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Contact Us

To make a general inquiry, please visit our contact page. Members of the media can reach our press office at: (202) 572-8968 or email press@hrc.org.