A state House district between the Triangle and the Virginia border could help determine the balance of power in North Carolina’s legislature.
House District 32 — Granville and Vance counties — is one of the most competitive legislative races in the state. Rep. Bryan Cohn, D-Granville, is running for a second term in a race that’s a rematch with former Rep. Frank Sossamon, the Republican Cohn beat by just 228 votes in 2024.
The race between Cohn and Sossamon could decide whether Democrats win enough seats in the state House to uphold Gov. Josh Stein's vetoes next year. But if Sossamon wins and Republicans keep other House seats they currently hold, they could have a veto-proof majority.
The campaigns are more focused on local issues than the broader power battles in the legislature. The two counties are experiencing population growth from the nearby Triangle, and both candidates are focused on the infrastructure challenges that come with more residents and businesses.
Sossamon, a longtime pastor who owns a funeral home, says growth is a key issue in the race.
"In order for those two counties to be prepared for the economic development and growth that is actually moving this way because of the growth of Durham County and Wake County — and they're running out of property — we have got to be ready for company, so I want to work hard as I did when I was in office," he told WUNC News in an interview at his Oxford funeral home.
Downtown Oxford is about 30 miles from Durham, and the recent population growth from the Triangle is easy to spot. There’s often a long line at the counter of Strong Arm Bakery, which serves up gourmet pastries and sandwiches.
Just around the corner, Cohn and a business partner have opened a popular beer garden called the Humble Pour in a former filling station.
"We're one of the last counties or groups of counties to really see substantial growth," Cohn told WUNC in an interview at the bar. "If you look at the greater Raleigh-Durham area, the I-85 corridor is, I think, ripe for development, particularly as new infrastructure comes online, with water and sewer infrastructure being upgraded."
Sossamon touts his record of bringing back earmarks in the 2023 state budget totaling $45 million. The funding includes a new advanced manufacturing training center and upgrades to the local airport.
He says his Democratic opponent hasn’t been able to deliver similar results.
"We were in a good direction and moving in a good way, but we lost that," Sossamon said. "We got no funding at all (in this year's budget bill), no additional funding, and when counties are strapped because of less property tax and other money that comes in from corporations, we have to have state funding for special projects, or those special projects just sit on the the dream list."
But it can be harder to secure budget earmarks for your district as a member of the minority party in a tighter budget year, and Cohn says he's still advocating for the district's needs.
"When you're in the majority, it's much easier to kind of float them along," he said of Sossamon's budget earmarks. "And if you're a good little soldier, you get rewarded. You get rewarded some money to be able to take back home. Certainly, his term in office was a much different term than what we just saw."
Cohn’s first term in the House has seen growth-fueled debates over the region’s water supply. He fought a bill that would have given neighboring Franklin County the power to seize land in the district to tap into Kerr Lake’s water supply.
"You can't have one county just declare that they're going to come into your county and take those water resources," he said. "It's insane. It's manifest destiny, and it's not something we're going to stand for."
He says a more collaborative approach is needed to manage the area’s water resources to handle more residents and industry. Sossamon also opposed the Franklin County bill, which didn't pass but could resurface in the future.
"What has to happen is we have to have a regional system where everybody's at the table, and where we're all working on conservation as well as distribution, and we're doing it in an equitable way," Sossamon said.
Affordability has also been a hot topic in the race. Sossamon says he’d sponsor a bill to eliminate the sales tax on groceries. "I'll create legislation and advocate to get it passed by both chambers to help give all of us some relief when we go purchase our groceries," he said.
Cohn has been working with fellow Democrats on legislation to address higher property tax bills.
"We put out a couple of bills which help bring transparency to that to that process — explain to me in plain English, what is it that I used to pay? What are we going to be reassessing, in terms of what is the percentage increase, and what's the range I can expect to pay in the future?"
In addition to the House race, Granville County is also a battleground for the state Senate. Democrats are trying to hold onto the seat held by Sen. Haseeb Fatmi, who was appointed earlier this year and faces Republican Chris Stock, a former legislative staffer. That district also includes parts of northern Wake County.
Granville County has also seen a heated debate this year over early voting sites. Republicans on the local board of elections initially sought to replace a popular voting site in Creedmoor — closest to Durham — with a new site in Stovall, in a more conservative rural area near the Virginia line. Eventually, election officials agreed to open both locations, but Cohn says he's still concerned that a previous location in downtown Oxford is being moved elsewhere.
"Moving a historic voting location from downtown Oxford to six or seven miles outside of city limits in the middle of nowhere is absurd, and it's done with one purpose in mind," he said. "90% of all the African-American voters who vote early vote at the old site here in downtown Oxford."
Hear full interviews with Cohn and Sossamon on the WUNC Politics Podcast.
