Democratic senator, targeted in redistricting, jumps into NC insurance commissioner's race
A Charlotte state senator drawn out of her legislative district by the General Assembly’s Republican majority will run for insurance commissioner instead, giving Democrats a progressive candidate in a job that regulates state insurance companies.
Sen. Natasha Marcus, D-Mecklenburg, said she’ll file for the statewide office tomorrow. In her third term, Marcus has been an outspoken thorn in the Republican legislative majority’s side.
“The job of Insurance Commissioner touches almost every North Carolinian and should be held by someone who is on the side of the people,” she said in a release. “In the state Senate, I’ve been a consistent champion for people over corporations, for individual freedoms over ideology, and for smart investments in our state’s future.”
David Wheeler, a Democratic operative and past state senate candidate from western North Carolina, had been running for this job. He said he’ll step aside for Marcus.
Wheeler is known for a political action committee he founded that took a bare-knuckled, and ultimately successful, approach against former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn in the 2022 elections. He said on social media that Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2024 governor’s race, asked Marcus to run for insurance commissioner.
Marcus said Stein did not.
The Republican side of this race may prove more crowded. Causey is seeking his third term, but he has not been popular in segments of his own party, and the Republican establishment may back another, as yet unannounced, candidate in the primary. At the moment Causey’s announced opposition is former state Rep. Robert Brawley, an insurance agent who finished a distant second in his party’s 2016 gubernatorial primary.
Filing in this race, and others on the 2024 ballot in North Carolina, closes Friday. Causey said he looks forward to the campaign.
"I'm running on my record and welcome any challengers," he said in a text message.
Causey opposed this year a major change in state law that cut into his office’s regulatory authority over Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, the state’s largest health insurance company. Despite the commissioner’s repeated and strongly worded criticisms, the General Assembly passed those changes by a wide and bipartisan margin.
Republican lawmakers also stripped Causey this year of the state fire marshal title that has been part of the commissioner’s job description for decades, voting instead to create a new position that requires legislative confirmation. Causey responded by firing top staff in the fire marshal’s office, only to re-instate them because lawmakers had protected these officials by law.
Lawmakers also plan a committee hearing, today, to question Causey on insurance rates.
Marcus was a victim of the latest redistricting process, and she said Monday that Republican leadership in the Senate drew a line through the middle of her precinct to make sure her house was in a different district than the one she currently represents. Because state law requires General Assembly members to live in the district they represent, Marcus would have had to move to run for re-election.
“I care about North Carolinians who need affordable, reliable insurance coverage,” Marcus said in her campaign announcement Monday. “Commissioner of Insurance is a Council of State position that allows me to look out for everyone in North Carolina who buys insurance -- to ensure rates are fair, coverage is as-advertised, and valid claims are paid. My mission has always been to stand up against corruption, corporate greed, and bad government and that will never change.”
