Jim Hunt’s Timeless Lessons Can Revitalize the Democratic Party

The story of a farmer whose belief in everyday people made North Carolina an economic powerhouse and defeated bigots has new promise in 2026 and 2028.

Jim Hunt speaks at the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 5, 2012 in North Carolina. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

North Carolina lost a giant in December when our beloved four-term governor, Jim Hunt, passed away at 88. The outpouring about his legacy from across the state, 25 years after he left office, shows how deeply a leader can matter to people when they build a unique and personal relationship with voters rooted in economic empowerment and community pride.

If Hunt had won the 1984 Senate race against Jesse Helms – the most expensive Senate election in American history, at the time – he almost certainly would have been a top Democratic presidential candidate. And his story contains timeless lessons about American politics that are specifically relevant now, as the Democratic Party continues to find its bearings after 2024. Especially when it comes to improving our standing with working people in the swing states and red states where we urgently need to be more competitive to win Senate majorities in the near future.

Hunt won his first campaign in 1972, when he was elected lieutenant governor despite a historic GOP wave that took Richard Nixon back to the White House and made a Republican the governor of North Carolina for the first time in nearly a century. Support for Democrats was collapsing across the South after Lyndon Johnson passed landmark civil rights laws that were beyond overdue. But at the state level, North Carolina emerged as the surprising exception to that rule – because we had an exceptional leader, Jim Hunt, who was sworn in as governor four years later and would ultimately be the Old North State’s defining modern figure.

Moral Unity and Economic Mobility

Hunt was more than the face of a political party. He became the beating heart of a populist movement that gave North Carolina a renewed, optimistic identity; one that saw economic investment in working families as a measure of community strength and conscience. Democrats can channel that approach today, when Americans hunger for a stronger sense of belonging, for hard work to pay off again, and for leaders who palpably believe in the country and in everyday people.

Hunt framed his arguments for progressive reforms around traditional values, which was instrumental to bringing the state together across racial, partisan, and regional lines behind a shared mission – short-circuiting the kind of reactionary hate that Donald Trump has made resurgent. He did so by following in the footsteps of his mentor, Governor Terry Sanford, whose commitment to integration was praised at the March on Washington and whose belief in education laid foundations that Hunt embraced. Crucially, Hunt didn’t disown all tradition because of the most painful chapters of our history, a trap some Democrats have fallen into. Instead, Hunt condemned what was wrong and sought to fix it, while at the same time harnessing the good, such as the call to be a good neighbor he’d learned from his Christian faith, to make the most inclusive, majority-building case possible for bold plans.

At a time when many Southern politicians like George Wallace and Jesse Helms were doubling down on prejudice and division, Hunt overcame that smallness by tapping into North Carolina’s love of home and eagerness for a more prosperous future. For all North Carolinians’ differences, Hunt knew there was a common challenge weighing on all of them: a lack of opportunity that kept horizons artificially low. That applies very much today, when a corrupt president is hoping that demonizing law-abiding immigrants will somehow hide his betrayal of all working families in service of billionaires.

Hunt’s relentless focus on moral unity and economic issues – like education, infrastructure, and research – transformed North Carolina from one of America’s most impoverished states into an economic powerhouse, blending New Deal ambition with Southern pragmatism. A farmer whose interest in public service was sparked by seeing his family’s dirt road paved, he wore his heartfelt passion for lifting up everyday people on his sleeve. That personal openness and intense commitment made Hunt’s salesmanship of policies a force without equal. This is something else we need to learn from, when too many candidates’ timidity and caution close voters’ ears before we’ve even started talking.

Hunt grasped the all-important link between education and economic success and never let go, beginning with “Smart Start,” his revolutionary early childhood education program now emulated all over the country. Hunt saw that our human capital could take us farther than anyone had dreamed if we modernized our whole education system – pre-K, K-12, community colleges, and public universities – and made it work in concert to give North Carolinians the skills they needed to thrive in the changing workforce. And he supported technological and scientific excellence, championing the research that gives the Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill its name. Compare that to how Washington Republicans are starving the federal research that has made the United States the innovation capital of the world.

Hunt’s industriousness didn’t just cause a record surge of private sector investment in North Carolina; it ensured working families were dealt into it. That goes to the crux of the biggest economic debates in America today – high costs and upward mobility. Nationally, the American Dream has been hollowed out by giveaways to the rich that rob current and future generations of opportunity. Today, with working families pushing themselves harder and harder to get less and less – and with AI and other technological developments making the workplace evolve faster than ever – determining the modern formula for the outcome Hunt achieved is essential. And education has to be at the core of it, along with higher taxes on the rich and big corporations, anti-monopoly reforms, and investments in healthcare, childcare, and research.

Lessons for Democrats

Entering 2026, Democrats are galvanized by voters’ top priority, affordability – as we should be. A natural extension of that theme is education, which has become the most neglected economic issue in the country. Case in point: The Trump administration and congressional Republicans just made the biggest education cuts in American history so they could lower taxes for the rich. That welfare for the connected couldn’t be more at odds with the values of Americans in (almost) every zip code.

So many Americans are demoralized because they feel powerless to give themselves and their children a better economic future. That has made them vulnerable to bad shepherds who appeal to our worst demons. Democrats in Hunt’s mold, like Roy Cooper and Josh Stein in North Carolina – and James Talarico in Texas, a former teacher himself – understand that revitalizing education in a way that matches the complexity and pace of the modern economy is the path to empowerment that calls on better angels instead. National voices across the breadth of the party, from Bernie Sanders to Rahm Emanuel, are beating that drum. So far, media executives have yawned at it. With tireless repetition, Democrats should make that harder to do.

When the Biden-Harris administration fought for universal pre-K and community college, mainstream media unthinkingly bought the derisive spin of our Republican opponents, labeling these “social” proposals as opposed to “economic” ones like infrastructure and energy. The facts show that these are some of the most valuable economic policies in existence – with proven results.

While Democrats run against the broken promises of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans in 2026 and 2028, voters will also want to know what we’re for. Pushing to give Americans more control over their own lives through education would go a long way – it has before – especially with tax handouts for the Mar-a-Lago class set as a foil.

Regardless of whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or neither, Americans are united by a fierce belief that everyone deserves a fair shot. They’re furious at a perverse system that has pulled the ladders of opportunity up, and at a president who promised help but is instead leeching off of them. The story of a farmer who never let anyone forget whom he was fighting for can make Democrats the antidote to corruption and end the confusion about who really has the guts to stand up for working people.

Andrew Bates, a North Carolina native, was White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary in the Biden-Harris administration and a top spokesperson on the 2020 Biden campaign.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.

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