[Raleigh] With control of the US Senate still in Democrat hands and Republicans likely to only narrowly control the US House, the media, pollsters, and pundits once again got it wrong. Way wrong. The “Red Wave” turned out to be a “Red Ripple.”

Voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont enshrined abortion rights in their state’s constitutions. Voters in Kentucky (where abortion is currently banned) rejected a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution to say that it does not “secure or protect a right” to abortion or the funding of abortion.

Democrats flipped governorships in three states, while Republican governors Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and Brian Kemp easily won reelection. Donald Trump was reportedly “fuming” at Mar-a-Lago after at least 14 of his endorsed candidates lost their races.

The news media’s narrative of the “Red Wave” was nothing more than a hedge on their bet, most knowing little about what they were predicted but fulfilling orders from above. Their goal? To lull Republican voters into complacency. Why bother voting if Republicans were going to win anyway?

NC bucks the trend

It may have worked in some states, but not in North Carolina, especially not in our US Senate race. Ted Budd won his race by 3.54 percent of the vote, equaling 132,189 actual votes. The Budd campaign was assisted by conservative groups who understood what was at stake in this election and in 2024.

No group was more visible to its targeted voters than Grass Roots North Carolina.

By creating a special campaign utilizing best-in-class technology platforms to carry its message to voters, GRNC took a strong and bold approach to connect with voters who are typically not Midterm voters but show strong support for their Second Amendment rights.

The organization can take full credit for turning out at least 1,759 Republican voters who would not normally have cast votes in this election. Senator-Elect Budd was the beneficiary of this effort, with target voters asked to pledge their vote for Ted Budd.

The communications to target voters were transparent, effective, and clean. Nowhere else was such a program assembled and executed in the run-up to Election Day 2022. Shortly after the election, Senator-elect Ted Budd expressed thanks and gratitude to the many GRNC volunteers who contributed to his victory.

GRNC-PVF Senate effort:

• 150,000 “Remember in November” voter guides distributed, including 120,000 mailed to voters;
• 792,535 GRNC Political Victory Fund email recommendations for Ted Budd sent;
• 42,831 GRNC-PVF postcard election alerts recommending Budd mailed;
• 19,765 GRNC-PVF automated telephone alerts recommending Budd delivered; and
• 33,432 Ted Budd P2P text messages sent as part of geofencing campaign described below.

Geofencing campaign stats:

• 1,717,501 display impressions delivered to mobile devices of gun-owning “drop-off” voters;
• 29,477 unique reach;
• 7,854 display clicks;
• 33,432 follow-up text messages sent; and
• 1,759 confirmed Budd voters – who might not otherwise have voted – picked up.

Other NC victories:

Overall, of 34 races targeted by the GNRC Political Victory Fund and our super PAC, the Judicial Fairness Project, we won an outstanding 27 – a win rate of nearly 80%!

Judicial races: Equally large were gun voters’ judicial victories, where we made a clean sweep of NC Supreme Court and NC Court of Appeals races. Thanks to victories by strong constitutional conservatives Richard Dietz and Trey Allen, Republicans will now control the NC Supreme Court by a 5-2 margin – something that will serve North Carolinians well as we continue to struggle over redistricting and our as-yet-unimplemented voter ID law.

Congressional races: Despite having a partisan, Democrat-led NC Supreme Court throw out and essentially redraw congressional districts, we were still able to send Chuck Edwards to the U.S. House in District 11. Edwards is a strong Second Amendment advocate who has been of considerable service to gun rights supporters in the General Assembly.

NC General Assembly (NCGA) races: Gun voters achieved a super-majority in the NC Senate, with 30 seats, and 71 seats in the NC House, just one seat shy of a super-majority. Here too GRNC-PVF was highly successful, winning in 8 of 10 targeted Senate races and 10 of 16 targeted House races.

Big individual wins: The GRNC Political Victory Fund was able to return Buck Newton to the NC Senate, where he had previously been a stalwart sponsor of gun rights legislation. Meanwhile, GRNC-PVF again defeated Christy Clark in Mecklenburg County. Clark is a “Mom’s Demand Action” Bloomberg gun ban advocate who briefly served in the seat before GRNC-PVF defeated her in 2020.

Said GRNC president Paul Valone:

“I am deeply grateful to the many volunteers who made our victories possible. As an all-volunteer organization, GRNC is able to get more ‘bang for the buck’ when doing independent expenditures for and against candidates, allowing us to better shape a political environment conducive to gun rights.

“Now GRNC is calling upon Republican leadership to acknowledge the gains given them by gun voters by passing an aggressive Second Amendment legislative agenda. In particular, we are interested in joining the 25 states which have successfully adopted permitless or ‘constitutional carry’ laws, as well as repealing our Jim Crow era pistol purchase permit law and closing the ‘church loophole’ which prohibits lawful North Carolinians from protecting their families in churches which sponsor schools. GRNC’s legislative action team will be highly active in pursuing those objectives.”

For more information: www.GRNC.org

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Founded in 1994, Grass Roots North Carolina is an all-volunteer 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to preserving individual liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with emphasis on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

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