North Carolina sits right in the middle of the pack — 32nd of 50 states on the health, food, jobs, crime, and education measures we track. Not a disaster, but not the thriving state its leaders like to sell either. And the numbers are moving in the wrong direction, because the people North Carolinians sent to Washington keep voting to make life here harder, not easier.
Here's the honest way to read this. The state's ranking measures where we stand today. What follows is what our own members of Congress just voted to pile on top of that — the cuts, the trade war, and the layoffs they signed their names to. When you see who loses, you'll also see who voted for it.
$49.9 billion in Medicaid — gone
North Carolina stands to lose an estimated $49.9 billion in federal Medicaid funds over the next decade. That's not an abstract budget line. It means fewer doctors, more strain on rural hospitals that were already hanging on by a thread, and worse care for families who struggle to see a doctor now.
An estimated 195,000 North Carolina residents are projected to lose their health coverage entirely. This is happening in a state that just expanded Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of people — coverage now on the chopping block. The members below voted for the budget bill that does it.
1 in 5 kids goes hungry — and they voted to cut food aid
Here in North Carolina, 1 in 5 kids faces hunger every single day. About 1.44 million North Carolinians receive SNAP benefits every month — nearly 13% of the whole state.
As food banks report rising demand, the same budget bill that guts Medicaid also cuts SNAP. When you take food off a hungry child's table to help pay for a tax cut, that's a choice. Every member on the roster below made it.
Their trade war is wiping out our farmers
Agriculture is North Carolina's largest industry, and the Trump tariffs are gutting it. A new report estimates the tariffs could wipe out roughly a third of North Carolina's net farm income — about $695 million — and cost 8,000 jobs, with total losses to the rural economy reaching an estimated $1.9 billion.
North Carolina grows 60% of all U.S. tobacco, but China left tobacco out of its trade deal and stopped buying the 2025 crop, knocking prices 20–25% below what farmers expected. Soybean growers are staring down a third straight year of losses. The members below cheered the tariffs on instead of standing up for the farmers in their own districts.
DOGE hit North Carolina harder than almost anywhere
This one is close to home. The Research Triangle was the hardest-hit congressional district in the entire country for DOGE cuts, losing 186 federal grants. All told, DOGE claims it cut more than $1.49 billion from North Carolina.
The damage is real jobs. RTI International — one of the Triangle's biggest research employers — lost about $1 billion in contracts and laid off a third of its workforce. UNC-Chapel Hill lost $38.4 million in federal grants; Duke lost more than $135 million. That's on top of the 606,000 layoffs across North Carolina in 2025. Our delegation stood by and cheered while the cuts landed on their own constituents.
The members who voted for this
These are North Carolina's Republicans in Congress — the ones who actually cast the federal votes behind the numbers above. Every one of them backed the agenda that put these cuts in motion:
- Addison McDowell
- Brad Knott
- Chuck Edwards
- David Rouzer
- Greg Murphy
- Mark Harris
- Pat Harrigan
- Richard Hudson
- Tim Moore
- Virginia Foxx
When these members duck the town halls where you could ask them about it — as North Carolina Republicans have been doing all year — that's not an accident. It's easier to vote for $49.9 billion in Medicaid cuts when you never have to look the people losing coverage in the eye.
What happens next is up to us
North Carolina doesn't have to slide down the rankings. The Medicaid cuts, the SNAP cuts, the trade war crushing our farmers, the DOGE grants ripped out of the Research Triangle — none of it was inevitable. It was voted for, name by name, by the people above. In 2026, North Carolinians get to decide whether the folks who did this keep their jobs. Look at the record before you fill out the ballot.
