On July 29, 2025, Charlotte Rep. Carla Cunningham was the only Democrat in the state House to vote with Republicans to override Gov. Josh Stein's veto of an immigration bill. The override passed with exactly the 72 votes it needed.
In January, Cunningham leaves the House. So do the other two Mecklenburg County members whose votes let Republicans override Democratic governors, Reps. Tricia Cotham and Nasif Majeed. Cotham, a Republican, lost her seat Tuesday. Cunningham and Majeed lost their Democratic primaries in March. Democrats won all three seats.
Democrats also appear to have won the House majority, by our count of the State Board of Elections' unofficial precinct results. New terms begin Jan. 1.
The immigration bill, House Bill 318, requires sheriffs to hold some inmates for federal immigration agents. The law took that choice away from Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, who had limited his office's cooperation with immigration agents. All 71 House Republicans voted to override, according to the General Assembly's roll call. Without Cunningham, then a seven-term Democrat from District 106 in northern Mecklenburg County, the override would have failed.
The 2024 election had left Republicans one seat short of three-fifths of the House. With every member voting, they needed at least one Democrat to override Stein. The same day, Cunningham, Majeed and one other Democrat voted with them to override Stein's veto of Senate Bill 266, which rolled back Duke Energy's 2030 carbon-cutting goal. It passed 74 to 46.
Stein endorsed Cunningham's challenger, the Rev. Rodney Sadler, who beat her in the March 3 primary. She re-registered as unaffiliated on April 24. Sadler ran unopposed Tuesday.
Cotham switched from Democrat to Republican on April 5, 2023. That gave Republicans 72 House seats, the three-fifths needed to override a veto without any Democrat. She then voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of a 12-week abortion ban. On Tuesday, Democrat Ken McCool beat her 24,608 to 18,479 in District 105, which takes in precincts in south Charlotte, Matthews and Mint Hill.
Majeed, of District 99, voted against the immigration override. On May 20, Majeed and Cunningham, both by then listed as unaffiliated, joined all 71 Republicans to override Stein's veto of House Bill 87, which conforms state law to a federal tax break for donations to scholarship programs. It passed 73 to 46. The Republicans alone were one vote short of three-fifths of the 119 members voting. Majeed lost his March primary to Veleria M. Levy, who ran unopposed Tuesday.
Tuesday's results become official after the canvasses, Mecklenburg County's on Nov. 13 and the State Board's on Nov. 24.