Republican and Democratic elected officials in North Carolina and across the nation use their power to skew election results and limit competition from independent candidates, former Gov. Pat McCrory said during a stop in Fayetteville on Thursday.
“The rules are outrageous. The rules are meant to discourage any competition outside of Republicans and Democrats,” he said. And the two major parties also make most general elections meaningless thanks to partisan primaries that often predetermine the outcomes of general elections, he added.
North Carolina’s 2026 primary is scheduled for March 3.
McCrory, a Republican, served as governor from 2013 to 2017 and mayor of Charlotte from 1995 to 2009. He also was one of the boosters in North Carolina of the No Labels movement ahead of the 2024 elections. The movement supports bipartisan, centrist politics.
McCrory visited Fayetteville to get dinner at Chris’s Steak & Seafood House on Wednesday and to speak before the Greater Fayetteville Chamber’s monthly Chamber Coffee Club on Thursday at Highland Country Club.
Here is some of what McCrory had to say to the chamber’s gathering of about 225 people, and in an interview with CityView afterward.
‘It’s Rigged by the Two Parties’
Democrats and Republicans pass laws that make elections for local, state, and federal offices unfair and uncompetitive, McCrory said. They also don’t allow independent or third party voters to serve on government boards and commissions, such as the Board of Elections, he said.
“It’s rigged by the two parties,” he said. “They complain of ‘rigging elections.’ They accuse the other party of ‘rigging elections.’ They’re all part of it.”
McCrory cited the practice of gerrymandering, in which voting districts in partisan elections are designed to help one political party and hurt the other.
North Carolina in 2025 saw an example of what McCrory was talking about. At President Donald Trump’s direction, North Carolina Republicans revised the boundaries of the state’s congressional map to put more Republican voters into the district of U.S. Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat from Snow Hill They hope the move will guarantee that a GOP candidate defeats Davis in the November election. The GOP candidate will be picked in the March primary.
McCrory estimated that due to gerrymandering, 80% of House districts are decided in the primaries instead of the general elections.
“We all deserve choice. And it needs to be more than two choices if the two choices especially are determined by gerrymandered districts in which there is no general election,” he said.
He noted that in North Carolina, unaffiliated voters, also known as independent voters, outnumber Republicans and Democrats.
“Republicans are No. 2, and Democrats are No. 3, and that’s not a compliment to Republicans or Democrats,” McCrory said. With most people moving to North Carolina registering to vote as independent voters, “maybe Republicans and Democrats will wake up on all that.”
The No Labels Party
Although he remained a registered Republican, McCrory worked to help No Labels become a government-recognized political party in North Carolina prior to the 2024 elections. This meant voters could register with the state Board of Elections as members of the party, and No Labels candidates could run in partisan elections.
North Carolina Democrats, who controlled the elections board at the time, tried to stop No Labels, McCrory said. So did Republicans in states where the GOP controlled whether a political party was government-approved, he added.
In North Carolina, state law required No Labels to collect 13,865 signatures from voters to become a government-approved political party.
“We got all the signatures for No Labels, and the elections board, then controlled by the Democrats, delayed it for three months for no reason,” McCrory said. “We had to take them to court, spend six figures, because they were playing politics even with the existing rules that favor the two parties. And it was inexcusable.”
In 2025, No Labels was one of four political parties that failed to meet the state’s requirements for recognition.
Pat McCrory’s Future in Politics
McCrory said he has no plans to run for office again.
“I couldn’t get elected dog catcher,” in Charlotte, he said. “And statewide … I could win a general election, but I couldn’t win a primary.”
Sharon Moyer contributed to this report.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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