Leslie Martes, chief strategy officer at Forward Majority, an outside group that invests in Democrats at the state-legislative level, worked in North Carolina during the 2008 and 2010 cycles. Republicans in the Tar Heel State seized control of the General Assembly in 2010, controlling both chambers for the first time since 1870.
“It was really, really hard to watch,” Martes said. “One of our senators in North Carolina said that Election Night, as we lost both chambers—that it was like we were fighting a tsunami with a piece of cardboard. And it felt really true—that we were just kind of on our own.”