Carla Cunningham, the seven-term Democratic state representative for North Carolina House District 106, re-registered Unaffiliated on Friday, April 24, 2026. Her district is in northern Mecklenburg County. Firethorne is in Union County. Different delegation, different ballot, same Raleigh.
Three things to know.
1. The Raleigh majority she helps shape writes the property-tax law that applies to Union County too.
Cunningham serves on the North Carolina House Select Committee on Property Tax Reduction and Reform — the committee advancing a constitutional amendment that would cap how fast local property tax increases can rise. If the amendment makes the November 2026 ballot, every voter in the state, including every Union County voter, decides on it. The cap would constrain Union County's revenue ceiling the same way it would constrain Mecklenburg's.
2. The vote that ended her primary career was about sheriff cooperation with ICE — including the Union County sheriff.
On July 29, 2025, the NC House voted 72–48 to override Gov. Josh Stein's veto of House Bill 318, the "Criminal Illegal Alien Enforcement Act." The bill requires every North Carolina sheriff — Mecklenburg, Union, all of them — to detain individuals up to 48 hours past their otherwise-scheduled release in order to facilitate cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Cunningham was the only Democrat in the chamber to vote for the override. Without her vote, the override would have failed by one.
3. Speaker Hall's "working supermajority" depends on votes like hers — and her caucus decision is still open.
Republicans hold 71 of 120 seats in the NC House, one short of the 72-seat three-fifths supermajority needed to override Stein's vetoes without Democratic help. Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) calls the configuration a "working supermajority." Cunningham has already provided that crossover vote on multiple overrides. She has not said whether she will caucus with Democrats, caucus with Republicans, or sit independently through the end of her term in January 2027. The decision affects every override vote between now and then — including any that touch Union County.
The full story. The Charlotte Mercury has the complete piece — the primary numbers (Sadler 7,716 / Cunningham 2,401 / Bowman 912), the NC Democratic Party's January decision to withhold VoteBuilder access from her, the Tricia Cotham 2023 parallel from neighboring HD-112, and what to watch through January 2027. Read it at cltmercury.com.
Companion takeaways are running today at Strolling Ballantyne and Fourth Ward Charlotte.