John Kerry
American politician and diplomat (born 1943)
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 in the administration of Barack Obama. A member of the Forbes family and of the Democratic Party, he previously represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1985 to 2013 and later served as the first U.S. special presidential envoy for climate from 2021 to 2024. Kerry was the Democratic nominee for president of the United States in the 2004 election, narrowly losing to then-incumbent president George W. Bush.
Kerry grew up in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. In 1966, after graduating from Yale University, he enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve, ultimately attaining the rank of lieutenant. During the Vietnam War, Kerry served a brief tour in South Vietnam. While commanding a Swift boat, he sustained three wounds in combat with the Viet Cong, for which he earned three Purple Heart medals. Kerry was also awarded the Silver Star Medal and the Bronze Star Medal for conduct in separate military engagements. After completing his active military service, Kerry returned to the United States and became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. He gained national recognition as an anti-war activist, serving as a spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War organization. Kerry testified in the Fulbright Hearings before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he described the United States government's policy in Vietnam as the cause of war crimes.
In 1972, Kerry entered electoral politics as a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in Massachusetts's 5th congressional district, losing to Republican Paul W. Cronin in the general election. He subsequently worked as a radio talk show host and as the executive director of an advocacy organization while attending law school. After a period in private legal practice, he was elected the 66th lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1982. In 1984, Kerry was elected to the United States Senate. In 2004, Kerry won the Democratic presidential nomination alongside Senator John Edwards. He lost the Electoral College and the popular vote by slim margins, winning 251 electors to Bush's 286 and 48.3% of the popular vote to Bush's 50.7%.
In January 2013, Kerry was nominated by President Obama to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and was subsequently confirmed by his Senate colleagues. He was U.S. secretary of state throughout the second term of the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017. During his tenure, he initiated the 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks and negotiated agreements restricting the nuclear program of Iran, including the 2013 Joint Plan of Action and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In 2015, Kerry signed the Paris Agreement on climate change on behalf of the United States.
In January 2021, Kerry returned to government, becoming the first person to hold the position of U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, under President Joe Biden. On March 6, Kerry left this position to work on Biden's 2024 presidential campaign. Kerry was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Biden in May 2024.
Early life and education (1943–1966).
John Forbes Kerry was born on December 11, 1943, at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado. He is the second of four children born to Richard John Kerry, a U.S. diplomat and lawyer, and Rosemary Forbes, a nurse and social activist. His father was raised Catholic (John's paternal grandparents were Austro-Hungarian Jewish immigrants who converted to Catholicism) and his mother was Episcopalian. He was raised with an elder sister Margaret, a younger sister Diana, and a younger brother Cameron. The children were raised in their father's Catholic faith, and John served as an altar boy.
Kerry was originally considered a military brat, until his father was discharged from the Army Air Corps in 1944. Kerry lived in Groton, Massachusetts his first year and Millis, Massachusetts afterwards before moving to the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. at age seven, when his father took a position in the Department of the Navy's Office of General Counsel and soon became a diplomat in the State Department's Bureau of United Nations Affairs.
As members of the Forbes and Dudley–Winthrop families, his maternal extended family enjoyed great wealth. Kerry's parents themselves were considered upper-middle class. They turned to his wealthy great-aunt, Clara Winthrop, who paid for his attendance at elite boarding schools, such as Institut Montana Zugerberg, in Zug, Switzerland. Through his maternal ancestry, Kerry also descends from Rev. James McGregor who was among the first 500 Scots-Irish immigrants to Boston Harbor in the 18th century.
At the age of ten, Kerry's father took a position as the U.S. Attorney for Berlin. When Kerry was twelve, he crossed into the Soviet Occupation Zone to visit Hitler's bunker and ride through the Brandenburg Gate.
In 1957, his father was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway, and Kerry was sent back to the United States to attend boarding school. He first attended the Fessenden School in Newton, Massachusetts, and later St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, where he learned skills in public speaking and began developing an interest in politics. Kerry founded the John Winant Society at St. Paul's to debate the issues of the day; the Society still exists there. In 1960, while at St. Paul's, he played bass in a minor rock band called The Electras with six of his classmates. The band had about five hundred copies of one album printed in 1961, which they sold some of at dances at the school; it was made available on streaming platforms many years later.
In 1962, Kerry attended Yale University, majoring in political science and residing in Jonathan Edwards College. By that year, his parents returned to Groton. While at Yale, Kerry briefly dated Janet Auchincloss, the younger half-sister of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Through Auchincloss, Kerry was invited to a day of sailing with then-President John F. Kennedy and his family.
Kerry played on the varsity Yale Bulldogs men's soccer team, earning his only letter in his senior year. He also played freshman and junior varsity hockey and, in his senior year, junior varsity lacrosse. In addition, he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and took flying lessons.
In his sophomore year, Kerry became the chairman of the Liberal Party of the Yale Political Union, and a year later he served as president of the union. Amongst his influential teachers in this period was Professor H. Bradford Westerfield, who was himself a former president of the Political Union. His involvement with the Political Union gave him an opportunity to be involved with important issues of the day, such as the civil rights movement and the New Frontier program. He also became a member of Skull and Bones Society, and traveled to Switzerland through AIESEC Yale.
Under the guidance of the speaking coach and history professor Rollin G. Osterweis, Kerry won many debates against other college students from across the nation. In March 1965, as the Vietnam War escalated, he won the Ten Eyck prize as the best orator in the junior class for a speech that was critical of U.S. foreign policy. In the speech he said, "It is the spectre of Western imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism and thus, it is self-defeating."
Kerry graduated from Yale with a bachelor of arts degree in 1966. Overall, he had below-average grades, graduating with a cumulative average of 76 over his four years. His freshman-year average was a 71, but he improved to an 81 average for his senior year. He never received an "A" during his time at Yale; his highest grade was an 89.
Military service (1966–1970).
Duty on USS "Gridley".
On February 18, 1966, Kerry enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He began his active duty military service on August 19, 1966. After completing 16 weeks of Officer Candidate School at the U.S. Naval Training Center in Newport, Rhode Island, Kerry received his officer's commission on December 16, 1966. During the 2004 election, Kerry posted his military records at his website, and permitted reporters to inspect his medical records. In 2005, Kerry released his military and medical records to the representatives of three news organizations, but has not authorized full public access to those records.
During his tour on the guided missile frigate , Kerry requested duty in South Vietnam, listing as his first preference a position as the commander of a Fast Patrol Craft (PCF), also known as a "Swift boat". These boats have aluminum hulls and have little or no armor, but are heavily armed and rely on speed. "I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing." However, his second choice of billet was on a river patrol boat, or "PBR", which at the time was serving a more dangerous duty on the rivers of Vietnam.
Military honors.
During the night of December 2 and early morning of December 3, 1968, Kerry was in charge of a small boat operating near a peninsula north of Cam Ranh Bay together with a Swift boat (PCF-60). According to Kerry and the two crewmen who accompanied him that night, Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis, they surprised a group of Vietnamese men unloading sampans at a river crossing, who began running and failed to obey an order to stop. As the men fled, Kerry and his crew opened fire on the sampans and destroyed them, then rapidly left. During this encounter, Kerry received a shrapnel wound in the left arm above the elbow. It was for this injury that Kerry received his first Purple Heart Medal.
Kerry received his second Purple Heart for a wound received in action on the Bồ Đề River on February 20, 1969. The plan had been for the Swift boats to be accompanied by support helicopters. On the way up the Bo De, however, the helicopters were attacked. As the Swift boats reached the Cửa Lớn River, Kerry's boat was hit by a B-40 rocket (rocket propelled grenade round), and a piece of shrapnel hit Kerry's left leg, wounding him. Thereafter, enemy fire ceased and his boat reached the Gulf of Thailand safely. Kerry continues to have shrapnel embedded in his left thigh because the doctors that first treated him decided to remove the damaged tissue and close the wound with sutures rather than make a wide opening to remove the shrapnel. Although wounded like several others earlier that day, Kerry did not lose any time off from duty.
Silver Star.
Eight days later, on February 28, 1969, came the events for which Kerry was awarded his Silver Star Medal. On this occasion, Kerry was in tactical command of his Swift boat and two other Swift boats during a combat operation. Their mission on the Duong Keo River included bringing an underwater demolition team and dozens of South Vietnamese Marines to destroy enemy sampans, structures and bunkers as described in the story "The Death Of PCF 43". Running into heavy small arms fire from the river banks, Kerry "directed the units to turn to the beach and charge the Viet Cong positions" and he "expertly directed" his boat's fire causing the enemy to flee while at the same time coordinating the insertion of the ninety South Vietnamese troops (according to the original medal citation signed by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt). Moving a short distance upstream, Kerry's boat was the target of a B-40 rocket round; Kerry charged the enemy positions and as his boat hove to and beached, a Viet Cong ("VC") insurgent armed with a rocket launcher emerged from a spider hole and ran. While the boat's gunner opened fire, wounding the VC in the leg, and while the other boats approached and offered cover fire, Kerry jumped from the boat to pursue the VC insurgent, subsequently killing him and capturing his loaded rocket launcher.
Kerry's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander George Elliott, stated to Douglas Brinkley in 2003 that he did not know whether to court-martial Kerry for beaching the boat without orders or give him a medal for saving the crew. Elliott recommended Kerry for the Silver Star, and Zumwalt flew into An Thoi to personally award medals to Kerry and the rest of the sailors involved in the mission. The Navy's account of Kerry's actions is presented in the original signed by Zumwalt. The engagement was documented in an after-action report, a press release written on March 1, 1969, and a historical summary dated March 17, 1969.
Bronze Star.
On March 13, 1969, on the Bái Háp River, Kerry was in charge of one of five Swift boats that were returning to their base after performing an Operation Sealords mission to transport South Vietnamese troops from the garrison at Cái Nước and MIKE Force advisors for a raid on a Vietcong camp located on the Rach Dong Cung canal. Earlier in the day, Kerry received a slight shrapnel wound in the buttocks from blowing up a rice bunker. Debarking some but not all of the passengers at a small village, the boats approached a fishing weir; one group of boats went around to the left of the weir, hugging the shore, and a group with Kerry's PCF-94 boat went around to the right, along the shoreline. A mine was detonated directly beneath the lead boat, PCF-3, as it crossed the weir to the left, lifting PCF-3 "about 2–3 ft out of water".
James Rassmann, a Green Beret advisor who was aboard Kerry's PCF-94, was knocked overboard when, according to witnesses and the documentation of the event, a mine or rocket exploded close to the boat. According to the documentation for the event, Kerry's arm was injured when he was thrown against a bulkhead during the explosion. PCF 94 returned to the scene and Kerry rescued Rassmann who was receiving sniper fire from the water. Kerry received the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V" for "heroic achievement", for his actions during this incident; he also received his third Purple Heart.
Return from Vietnam.
After Kerry's third qualifying wound, he was entitled per Navy regulations to reassignment away from combat duties. Kerry's preferred choice for reassignment was as a military aide in Boston, New York City or Washington, D.C. On April 11, 1969, he reported to the Brooklyn-based Atlantic Military Sea Transportation Service, where he would remain on active duty for the following year as a personal aide to an officer, Rear Admiral Walter Schlech. On January 1, 1970, Kerry was temporarily promoted to full lieutenant. Kerry had agreed to an extension of his active duty obligation from December 1969 to August 1970 in order to perform Swift Boat duty. John Kerry was on active duty in the United States Navy from August 1966 until January 1970. He continued to serve in the Naval Reserve until February 1978.
"Swiftboating" controversy.
With the continuing controversy that had surrounded the military service of George W. Bush since the 2000 presidential election (when he was accused of having used his father's political influence to gain entrance to the Texas Air National Guard, thereby protecting himself from conscription into the United States Army, and possible service in the Vietnam War), John Kerry's contrasting status as a decorated Vietnam War veteran posed a problem for Bush's re-election campaign, which Republicans sought to counter by calling Kerry's war record into question. As the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, approximately 250 members of a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT, later renamed Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) opposed Kerry's campaign. The group held press conferences, ran ads and endorsed a book questioning Kerry's service record and his military awards. The group included several members of Kerry's unit, such as Larry Thurlow, who commanded a swift boat alongside of Kerry's, and Stephen Gardner, who served on Kerry's boat. The campaign inspired the widely used political pejorative '"swiftboating," to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. Most of Kerry's former crewmates have stated that SBVT's allegations are false.
Anti-war activism (1970–1971).
After returning to the United States, Kerry moved to Waltham, Massachusetts and joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Then numbering about 20,000, VVAW was considered by some (including the administration of President Richard Nixon) to be an effective, if controversial, component of the antiwar movement. Kerry participated in the "Winter Soldier Investigation" conducted by VVAW of U.S. atrocities in Vietnam, and he appears in a film by that name that documents the investigation. According to Nixon Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, "I didn't approve of what he did, but I understood the protesters quite well", and he declined two requests from the Navy to court martial Reserve Lieutenant Kerry over his antiwar activity.
On April 22, 1971, Kerry appeared before a U.S. Senate committee hearing on proposals relating to ending the war. The day after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with thousands of other veterans in which he and other Vietnam War veterans threw their medals and service ribbons over a fence erected at the front steps of the United States Capitol building to dramatize their opposition to the war. Jack Smith, a Marine, read a statement explaining why the veterans were returning their military awards to the government. For more than two hours, almost 1,000 angry veterans tossed their medals, ribbons, hats, jackets, and military papers over the fence. Each veteran gave his or her name, hometown, branch of service and a statement. Kerry threw some of his own decorations and awards as well as some given to him by other veterans to throw. As Kerry threw his decorations over the fence, his statement was: "I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this country wake up once and for all."
Kerry was arrested on May 30, 1971, during a VVAW march to honor American POWs held captive by North Vietnam. The march was planned as a multi-day event from Concord to Boston, and while in Lexington, participants tried to camp on the village green. At 2:30a.m., local and state police arrested 441 demonstrators, including Kerry, for trespassing. All were given the Miranda Warning and were hauled away on school buses to spend the night at the Lexington Public Works Garage. Kerry and the other protesters later paid a $5 fine, and were released. The mass arrests caused a community backlash and ended up giving positive coverage to the VVAW.
Early political career (1972–1985).
1972 congressional election.
In 1970, Kerry had considered running for Congress in the Democratic primary against hawkish Democrat Philip J. Philbin of Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district, but deferred in favor of Robert Drinan, a Jesuit priest and anti-war activist, who went on to defeat Philbin. In February 1972, Kerry's wife bought a house in Worcester, with Kerry intending to run against the 4th district's aging thirteen-term incumbent Democrat, Harold Donohue. The couple never moved in. After Republican Congressman F. Bradford Morse of the neighboring 5th district announced his retirement and then resignation to become Under-Secretary-General for Political and General Assembly Affairs at the United Nations, the couple instead rented an apartment in Lowell, so that Kerry could run to succeed him.
Including Kerry, the Democratic primary race had 10 candidates, including attorney Paul J. Sheehy, State Representative Anthony R. DiFruscia, John J. Desmond and Robert B. Kennedy. Kerry ran a "very expensive, sophisticated campaign", financed by out-of-state backers and supported by many young volunteers. DiFruscia's campaign headquarters shared the same building as Kerry's. On the eve of the September 19 primary, police found Kerry's younger brother Cameron and campaign field director Thomas J. Vallely, breaking into where the building's telephone lines were located. They were arrested and charged with "breaking and entering with the intent to commit grand larceny", but the charges were dropped a year later. DiFruscia alleged that the two were trying to disrupt his get-out-the vote efforts. Vallely and Cameron Kerry maintained that they were only checking their own telephone lines because they had received an anonymous call warning that the Kerry lines would be cut.
Despite the arrests, Kerry won the primary with 20,771 votes (27.56%). Sheehy came second with 15,641 votes (20.75%), followed by DiFruscia with 12,222 votes (16.22%), Desmond with 10,213 votes (13.55%) and Kennedy with 5,632 votes (7.47%). The remaining 10,891 votes were split amongst the other five candidates, with 1970 nominee Richard Williams coming last with just 1,706 votes (2.26%).
In the general election, Kerry was initially favored to defeat the Republican candidate, former State Representative Paul W. Cronin, and conservative Democrat Roger P. Durkin, who ran as an Independent. A week after the primary, one poll put Kerry 26-points ahead of Cronin. His campaign called for a national health insurance system, discounted prescription drugs for the unemployed, a jobs program to clean up the Merrimack River and rent controls in Lowell and Lawrence. A major obstacle, however, was the district's leading newspaper, the conservative "The Sun". The paper editorialized against him. It also ran critical news stories about his out-of-state contributions and his "carpetbagging", because he had only moved into the district in April. Subsequently, released "Watergate" Oval Office tape recordings of the Nixon White House showed that defeating Kerry's candidacy had attracted the personal attention of President Nixon. Kerry himself asserts that Nixon sent operatives to Lowell to help derail his campaign.
The race was the most expensive for Congress in the country that year and four days before the general election, Durkin withdrew and endorsed Cronin, hoping to see Kerry defeated. The week before, a poll had put Kerry 10 points ahead of Cronin, with Durkin at 13%. In the final days of the campaign, Kerry sensed that it was "slipping away" and Cronin emerged victorious by 110,970 votes (53.45%) to Kerry's 92,847 (44.72%). After his defeat, Kerry lamented in a letter to supporters that "for two solid weeks, ["The Sun"] called me un-American, New Left antiwar agitator, unpatriotic, and labeled me every other 'un-' and 'anti-' that they could find. It's hard to believe that one newspaper could be so powerful, but they were." He later felt that his failure to respond directly to "The Sun"'s attacks cost him the race.
Law career.
After Kerry's 1972 defeat, he and his wife bought a house in the Belvidere section of Lowell, Massachusetts, entering a decade which his brother Cameron later called "the years in exile". He spent some time working as a fundraiser for the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), an international humanitarian organization. In September 1973, he entered Boston College Law School. While studying, Kerry worked as a talk radio host on WBZ and, in July 1974, was named executive director of Mass Action, a Massachusetts advocacy association.
Kerry received his juris doctor (J.D.) from Boston College in 1976. While in law school he had been a student prosecutor in the office of the District Attorney of Middlesex County, John J. Droney. After passing the bar exam and being admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1976, he went to work in that office as a full-time prosecutor and moved to Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
In January 1977, Droney promoted him to First Assistant District Attorney, essentially making Kerry his campaign and media surrogate because Droney was afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease). As First Assistant, Kerry tried cases, which included winning convictions in a high-profile rape case and a murder. He also played a role in administering the office, including initiating the creation of special white-collar and organized crime units, creating programs to address the problems of rape and other crime victims and witnesses, and managing trial calendars to reflect case priorities. In 1978, Kerry launched a criminal investigation against Senator Edward Brooke, regarding "misstatements" in his first divorce trial. The inquiry ended with no charges being brought after investigators and prosecutors determined that Brooke's misstatements were pertinent to the case, but were not material enough to have affected the outcome.
Droney's health was poor and Kerry had decided to run for his position in the 1978 election should Droney drop out. However, Droney was re-elected and his health improved; he went on to re-assume many of the duties that he had delegated to Kerry. Kerry thus decided to leave, departing in 1979 with assistant DA Roanne Sragow to set up their own law firm. Kerry also worked as a commentator for WCVB-TV and co-founded a bakery, Kilvert & Forbes Ltd., with businessman and former Kennedy aide K. Dun Gifford.
Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts.
In the 1982 Massachusetts gubernatorial election, Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O'Neill III declined to seek a third term, instead deciding to run for governor of Massachusetts. Kerry declared his candidacy, entering the primary election alongside Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs Evelyn Murphy, State Senator Samuel Rotondi, State Representative Lou Nickinello, and Lois Pines.
Kerry won the nomination with 325,890 votes (29%) to Murphy's 286,378 (25.48%), Rotondi's 228,086 (20.29%), Nickinello's 150,829 (13.42%) and Pines' 132,734 (11.81%). In the concurrent gubernatorial primary, former Governor Michael Dukakis defeated O'Neill and incumbent Governor Edward J. King. The Dukakis and Kerry ticket defeated the Republican ticket of John W. Sears and Leon Lombardi in the general election by 1,219,109 votes (61.92%) to 749,679 (38.08%).
As Lieutenant Governor, Kerry led meetings of the Massachusetts Governor's Council. Dukakis also delegated other tasks to Kerry, including serving as the state's liaison to the Federal government of the United States. He was also active on environmental issues, including combating acid rain.
1984 U.S. Senate election.
The junior U.S. senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas, announced in 1984 that he would be stepping down for health reasons. Kerry ran, and as in his 1982 race for Lieutenant Governor, he did not receive the endorsement of the party regulars at the state Democratic convention. Congressman James Shannon, a favorite of House Speaker Tip O'Neill, was the early favorite to win the nomination, and he "won broad establishment support and led in early polling". Again as in 1982, however, Kerry prevailed in a close primary.
In his general election campaign, Kerry promised to mix liberalism with tight budget controls. He defeated Republican Ray Shamie despite a nationwide landslide for the re-election of Republican President Ronald Reagan, for whom Massachusetts voted by a narrow margin. In his victory speech, Kerry asserted that his win meant that the people of Massachusetts "emphatically reject the politics of selfishness and the notion that women must be treated as second-class citizens".
Tsongas resigned on January 2, 1985, one day before the end of his term. Dukakis appointed Kerry to fill the vacancy, giving him seniority over other new senators who were sworn in on January 3, the scheduled start of their new terms.
U.S. Senate (1985–2013).
Iran–Contra hearings.
On April 18, 1985, a few months after taking his Senate seat, Kerry and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa traveled to Nicaragua and met the country's president, Daniel Ortega. Although Ortega had won internationally certified elections, the trip was criticized because Ortega and his leftist Sandinista government had strong ties to Cuba and the USSR and were accused of human rights abuses. The Sandinista government was opposed by the right-wing CIA-backed rebels known as the Contras. While in Nicaragua, Kerry and Harkin talked to people on both sides of the conflict. Through the senators, Ortega offered a cease-fire agreement in exchange for the U.S. dropping support of the Contras. The offer was denounced by the Reagan administration as a "propaganda initiative" designed to influence a House vote on a $14million Contra aid package, but Kerry said "I am willing... to take the risk in the effort to put to test the good faith of the Sandinistas." The House voted down the Contra aid, but Ortega flew to Moscow to accept a $200million loan the next day, which in part prompted the House to pass a larger $27million aid package six weeks later.
Meanwhile, Kerry's staff began their own investigations and, on October 14, issued a report that exposed illegal activities on the part of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who had set up a private network involving the National Security Council and the CIA to deliver military equipment to right-wing Nicaraguan rebels (Contras). In effect, North and certain members of the President's administration were accused by Kerry's report of illegally funding and supplying armed militants without the authorization of Congress. Kerry's staff investigation, based on a year-long inquiry and interviews with fifty unnamed sources, is said to raise "serious questions about whether the United States has abided by the law in its handling of the contras over the past three years".
The Kerry Committee report found that "the Contra drug links included... payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies." The U.S. State Department paid over $806,000 to known drug traffickers to carry humanitarian assistance to the Contras. Kerry's findings provoked little reaction in the media and official Washington.
The Kerry report was a precursor to the Iran–Contra affair. On May 4, 1989, North was convicted of charges relating to the Iran/Contra controversy, including three felonies. On September 16, 1991, however, North's convictions were overturned on appeal.
George H. W. Bush administration.
On November 15, 1988, at a businessmen's breakfast in East Lynn, Massachusetts, Kerry made a joke about then-President-elect George H. W. Bush and his running mate, saying "if Bush is shot, the Secret Service has orders to shoot Dan Quayle." He apologized the following day.
During their investigation of General Manuel Noriega, the "de facto" ruler of Panama, Kerry's staff found reason to believe that the Pakistan-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) had facilitated Noriega's drug trafficking and money laundering. This led to a separate inquiry into BCCI, and as a result, banking regulators shut down BCCI in 1991. In December 1992, Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, a Republican from Colorado, released "The BCCI Affair", a report on the BCCI scandal. The report showed that the bank was crooked and was working with terrorists, including Abu Nidal. It blasted the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, the Customs Service, the Federal Reserve Bank, as well as influential lobbyists and the CIA.
Kerry was criticized by some Democrats for having pursued his own party members, including former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, although Republicans said he should have pressed against some Democrats even harder. The BCCI scandal was later turned over to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
Precursors to presidential bid.
In 1996, Kerry faced a difficult re-election fight against Governor William Weld, a popular Republican incumbent who had been re-elected in 1994 with 71% of the vote. The race was covered nationwide as one of the most closely watched Senate races that year. Kerry and Weld held several debates and negotiated a campaign spending cap of $6.9million at Kerry's Beacon Hill townhouse. Both candidates spent more than the cap, with each camp accusing the other of being first to break the agreement. During the campaign, Kerry spoke briefly at the 1996 Democratic National Convention. Kerry won re-election with 52 percent to Weld's 45 percent.
In the 2000 presidential election, Kerry found himself close to being chosen as the vice presidential running mate.
A release from the presidential campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee Al Gore listed Kerry on the short list to be selected as the vice-presidential nominee, along with North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt, New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. Gore ultimately chose Lieberman.
"You get stuck in Iraq" controversy.
On October 30, 2006, Kerry was a headline speaker at a campaign rally being held for Democratic California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California. Speaking to an audience composed mainly of college students, Kerry said, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
The day after he made the remark, leaders from both sides of the political spectrum criticized Kerry's remarks, which he said were a botched joke. Republicans including President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain and then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, said that Kerry's comments were insulting to American military forces fighting in Iraq. Democratic Representative Harold Ford Jr. called on Kerry to apologize.
Kerry initially stated: "I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy". Kerry also responded to criticism from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Kerry said that he had intended the remark as a jab at President Bush, and described the remarks as a "botched joke", having inadvertently left out the key word "us" (which would have been, "If you don't, you get "us" stuck in Iraq"), as well as leaving the phrase "just ask President Bush" off of the end of the sentence. In Kerry's prepared remarks, which he released during the ensuing media frenzy, the corresponding line was "...you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush". He also said that from the context of the speech which, prior to the "stuck in Iraq" line, made several specific references to Bush and elements of his biography, that Kerry was referring to President Bush and not American troops in general.
After two days of media coverage, citing a desire not to be a diversion, Kerry apologized to those who took offense at what he called the misinterpretation of his comment.
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A "Washington Post" report in May 2011 stated that Kerry "has emerged in the past few years as an important envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan during times of crisis", as he undertook another trip to the two countries. The killing of Osama bin Laden "has generated perhaps the most important crossroads yet", the report continued, as the senator spoke at a press conference and prepared to fly from Kabul to Pakistan. Among matters discussed during the May visit to Pakistan, under the general rubric of "recalibrating" the bilateral relationship, Kerry sought and retrieved from the Pakistanis the tail-section of the U.S. helicopter which had had to be abandoned at Abbottabad during the bin Laden strike. In 2013, Kerry met with Pakistan's army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to discuss the peace process with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Voting record.
Overall.
Most analyses place Kerry's voting record on the left within the Senate Democratic caucus. During the 2004 presidential election he was portrayed as a staunch liberal by conservative groups and the Bush campaign, who often noted that in 2003 Kerry was rated the top Senate liberal by "National Journal". However, that rating was based only upon voting on legislation within that past year. In fact, in terms of career voting records, the "National Journal" found that Kerry is the 11th most liberal member of the Senate. Most analyses find that Kerry is at least slightly more liberal than the typical Democratic Senator. Kerry has stated that he opposes privatizing Social Security, supports abortion rights for adult women and minors, supports same-sex marriage, opposes capital punishment except for terrorists, supports most gun control laws, and is generally a supporter of trade agreements. In some of these, as in the case of abortion, Kerry distinguishes his personal views as in line with his Catholic faith, but believes that separation of church and state demands that he not legislate his religious beliefs upon those who do not share those beliefs. Kerry supported the North American Free Trade Agreement and Most Favored Nation status for China, but opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
In July 1997, Kerry joined his Senate colleagues in voting against ratification of the Kyoto Treaty on global warming without greenhouse gas emissions limits on nations deemed developing, including India and China. Since then, Kerry has attacked President Bush, charging him with opposition to international efforts to combat global warming.
On October 1, 2008, Kerry voted for Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the TARP bailout.
Iraq.
In the lead up to the Iraq War, Kerry said on October 9, 2002; "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Bush relied on that resolution in ordering the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Kerry also gave a January 23, 2003, speech to Georgetown University saying "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator; leading an oppressive regime he presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real." Kerry did, however, warn that the administration should exhaust its diplomatic avenues before launching war: "Mr. President, do not rush to war, take the time to build the coalition, because it's not winning the war that's hard, it's winning the peace that's hard."
After the invasion of Iraq, when no weapons of mass destruction were found, Kerry strongly criticized Bush, contending that he had misled the country: "When the President of the United States looks at you and tells you something, there should be some trust."
Libya.
In 2011, Kerry supported American military action in Libya.
Leadership.
Kerry chaired the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs from 1991 to 1993. The committee's report, which Kerry endorsed, stated there was "no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia". In 1994 the Senate passed a resolution, sponsored by Kerry and fellow Vietnam veteran John McCain, that called for an end to the existing trade embargo against Vietnam; it was intended to pave the way for normalization. In 1995, President Bill Clinton normalized diplomatic relations with the country of Vietnam.
Kerry was the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 1987 to 1989. He was reelected to the Senate in 1990, 1996 (after winning re-election against the then-Governor of Massachusetts Republican William Weld), 2002, and 2008. In January 2009, Kerry replaced Joe Biden as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
As a role model for campus leaders across the nation and strong advocate for global development, Kerry was honored by the Millennium Campus Network (MCN) as a Global Generation Award winner in 2011.
Committee assignments.
During his tenure, Kerry served on four Senate committees and nine subcommittees:
Seniority.
From the beginning of the 113th United States Congress until his resignation, Kerry ranked as the 7th most senior U.S. Senator. Due to the longevity of Ted Kennedy's service, Kerry was the most senior "junior Senator" in the 111th United States Congress. On Tuesday, August 25, 2009, Kerry became the senior senator from Massachusetts following Ted Kennedy's death.
Sponsorship of legislation.
Areas of concern in the bills Kerry introduced into the Senate included small business concerns, education, terrorism, veterans' and POW/MIA issues, and marine resource protection. A full list of Kerry's sponsored legislation was available on his Senate web site.
During his Senate career, Kerry was primary sponsor of the following bills (excluding resolutions and amendments sponsored). This table does not count bills which Kerry co-sponsored.
A chronological list of various bills and resolutions sponsored by Kerry follows.
2004 presidential campaign.
In the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries, John Kerry defeated several Democratic rivals, including Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina), former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and retired Army General Wesley Clark. His victory in the Iowa caucuses is widely believed to be the tipping point where Kerry revived his sagging campaign in New Hampshire and the February 3, 2004, primary states like Arizona, South Carolina and New Mexico. Kerry then went on to win landslide victories in Nevada and Wisconsin. Kerry thus won the Democratic nomination to run for President of the United States against incumbent George W. Bush. On July 6, 2004, he announced his selection of John Edwards as his running mate. Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who was Kerry's 2004 campaign adviser, wrote an article in "Time" magazine claiming that after the election, Kerry had said that he wished he had never picked Edwards, and that the two have since stopped speaking to each other. In a subsequent appearance on ABC's "This Week", Kerry refused to respond to Shrum's allegation, calling it a "ridiculous waste of time".
During his bid to be elected president in 2004, Kerry frequently criticized President George W. Bush for starting the Iraq War. While Kerry had initially voted in support of authorizing President Bush to use force in dealing with Saddam Hussein, he voted against an $87billion supplemental appropriations bill to pay for the subsequent war. His statement on March 16, 2004, "I actually did vote for the $87billion before I voted against it", helped the Bush campaign to paint him as a flip-flopper and has been cited as contributing to Kerry's defeat.
On November 3, 2004, Kerry conceded the race. Kerry won 59.03 million votes, or 48.3 percent of the popular vote; Bush won 62.04 million votes, or 50.7 percent of the popular vote. Kerry carried states with a total of 252 electoral votes. One Kerry elector voted for Kerry's running mate, Edwards, so in the final tally Kerry had 251 electoral votes to Bush's 286. He was the first Democrat since Michael Dukakis in 1988 to lose the popular vote in a presidential election, and until Kamala Harris's loss in 2024, he was the most recent Democrat to do so.
Subsequent presidential-election activities.
Immediately after the 2004 election, some Democrats mentioned Kerry as a possible contender for the 2008 Democratic nomination. His brother had said such a campaign was "conceivable", and Kerry himself reportedly said at a farewell party for his 2004 campaign staff, "There's always another four years".
Kerry established a separate political action committee, Keeping America's Promise, which declared as its mandate "A Democratic Congress will restore accountability to Washington and help change a disastrous course in Iraq", and raised money and channeled contributions to Democratic candidates in state and federal races. Through Keeping America's Promise in 2005, Kerry raised over $5.5million for other Democrats up and down the ballot. Through his campaign account and his political action committee, the Kerry campaign operation generated more than $10million for various party committees and 179 candidates for the U.S. House, Senate, state and local offices in 42 states focusing on the midterm elections during the 2006 election cycle. "Cumulatively, John Kerry has done as much if not more than any other individual senator", Hassan Nemazee, the national finance chairman of the DSCC said.
On January 10, 2008, Kerry endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama for president. He was mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate for Senator Obama, although fellow Senator Joe Biden was eventually chosen. After Biden's acceptance of the vice presidential nomination, speculation arose that John Kerry would be a candidate for Secretary of State in the Obama administration. However, Senator Hillary Clinton was offered the position.
During the 2012 Obama reelection campaign, Kerry participated in one-on-one debate prep with the president, impersonating the Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
Secretary of State (2013–2017).
Nomination and confirmation.
On December 15, 2012, several news outlets reported that President Barack Obama would nominate Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, after Susan Rice, widely seen as Obama's preferred choice, withdrew her name from consideration citing a politicized confirmation process following criticism of her response to the 2012 Benghazi attack. On December 21, Obama proposed the nomination, which received positive commentary. His confirmation hearing took place on January 24, 2013, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the same panel where he first testified in 1971. The committee unanimously voted to approve him on January 29, 2013, and the same day the full Senate confirmed him on a vote of 94–3. In a letter to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Kerry announced his resignation from the Senate effective February 1.
Tenure.
Kerry was sworn in as Secretary of State on February 1, 2013.
While serving as the Secretary of State, Kerry spoke in the French language on several occasions in his official capacity.
After six months of rigorous diplomacy within the Middle East, Kerry was able to have Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree to start the 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks. Senior U.S. officials stated the two sides were able to meet on July 30, 2013, at the State Department without American mediators following a dinner the previous evening hosted by Kerry.
On September 27, 2013, he met with the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the P5+1 and Iran summit, which eventually led to the JCPOA nuclear agreement. It was the highest-level direct contact between the United States and Iran in the last six years, and made him the first U.S. Secretary of State to have met with his Iranian counterpart since 1979 Iranian Revolution.
In the State Department, Kerry quickly earned a reputation "for being aloof, keeping to himself, and not bothering to read staff memos". Career State Department officials complained that power became too centralized under Kerry's leadership, which slowed department operations when Kerry was on frequent overseas trips. Others in State described Kerry as having "a kind of diplomatic attention deficit disorder" as he shifted from topic to topic instead of focusing on long-term strategy. When asked whether he was traveling too much, he responded, "Hell no. I'm not slowing down." Despite Kerry's early achievements, morale at State was lower than under Hillary Clinton, according to department employees. However, after Kerry's first six months in the State Department, a Gallup poll found he had high approval ratings among Americans as Secretary of State. After a year, another poll showed Kerry's favorability continued to rise. Less than two years into Kerry's term, the Foreign Policy Magazine's 2014 Ivory Tower survey of international relations scholars asked, "Who was the most effective U.S. Secretary of State in the past 50 years?"; John Kerry and Lawrence Eagleburger tied for 11th place out of the 15 confirmed Secretaries of State in that period.
In January 2014, having met with Vatican Secretary of State Archbishop Pietro Parolin, Kerry said: "We touched on just about every major issue that we are both working on, that are issues of concern to all of us. First of all, we talked at great length about Syria, and I was particularly appreciative for the Archbishop's raising this issue, and equally grateful for the Holy Father's comments – the Pope's comments yesterday regarding his support for the GenevaII process. We welcome that support. It is very important to have broad support, and I know that the Pope is particularly concerned about the massive numbers of displaced human beings and the violence that has taken over 130,000 lives."
Kerry expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.
Kerry said the United States supported the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen because Saudi Arabia, an ally, was threatened "very directly" by the takeover of neighboring Yemen by the Houthis, but noted that the United States would not reflexively support Saudi Arabia's proxy wars against Iran.
On December 28, 2016, soon after United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 passed 14–0 with the U.S. abstaining, Kerry joined the rest of the U.N. Security Council in strongly criticizing Israel's settlement policies in a speech. His speech and criticisms met negative reactions from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while UK Prime Minister Theresa May distanced the UK from Kerry's strongly worded speech in what appeared to be an attempt to build bridges with the incoming Trump administration. Kerry's speech received positive reactions from Arab nations, but some criticized his remarks as too little, too late from the outgoing administration.
Syria.
Following the August 21, 2013, chemical weapons attack on the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus attributed to Syrian government forces, Kerry became a leading advocate for the use of military force against the Syrian government for what he called "a despot's brutal and flagrant use of chemical weapons".
On September 9, in response to a reporter's question about whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avert a military strike, Kerry said "He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done, obviously." This unscripted remark initiated a process that would lead to Syria agreeing to relinquish and destroy its chemical weapons arsenal, as Russia treated Kerry's statement as a serious proposal. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would work "immediately" to convince Syria relinquish and destroy its large chemical weapons arsenal. Syria quickly welcomed this proposal and on September 14, the UN formally accepted Syria's application to join the convention banning chemical weapons, and separately, the U.S. and Russia agreed on a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons by the middle of 2014, leading Kerry to declare on July 20, 2014: "we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out". On September 28, the UN Security Council passed a resolution ordering the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons and condemning the August 21 Ghouta attack.
Latin America.
In a speech before the Organization of American States in November 2013, Kerry remarked that the era of the Monroe Doctrine was over. He went on to explain, "The relationship that we seek and that we have worked hard to foster is not about a United States declaration about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other American states. It's about all of our countries viewing one another as equals, sharing responsibilities, cooperating on security issues, and adhering not to doctrine, but to the decisions that we make as partners to advance the values and the interests that we share."
Environmentalism.
In April 2016, he signed the Paris Climate Accords at the United Nations in New York.
On November 11, 2016, Kerry became the first Secretary of State and highest-ranking U.S. official to date to visit Antarctica. Kerry spent two days on the continent meeting with researchers and staying overnight at McMurdo Station.
In 1994, Kerry led opposition to continued funding for the Integral Fast Reactor, which resulted in the end of funding for the project. However, in light of increasing concerns regarding climate change, in 2017 Kerry reversed his position on nuclear power, saying "Given this challenge we face today, and given the progress of fourth generation nuclear: go for it. No other alternative, zero emissions."
Global Connect initiative.
In September 2015, the U.S. Department of State unveiled a new initiative called "Global Connect" which sought to provide internet access to more than 1.5 billion people around the world within five years. In 2016, in partnership with OPIC, Kerry announced an investment of $171million to enable "a low-cost and rapidly scalable wireless broadband network in India". OPIC's financing is aimed at helping its Indian Partner, Tikona Digital Networks, to provide Internet through wireless technology.
Out of government (2017–2021).
Kerry retired from his diplomatic work following the end of the Obama administration on January 20, 2017. He did not attend Donald Trump's inauguration on that day, and the following day took part in the 2017 Women's March in Washington, D.C.
Kerry has taken a strong stand against Trump policies and joined in filing a brief arguing against Trump's executive order banning entry of persons from seven Muslim countries. In November 2018, in a "Guardian Live" conversation with Andrew Rawnsley, sponsored by "The Guardian" at London's Central Hall, Kerry discussed several issues which have developed further since his tenure as Secretary of State, including migration into Europe and climate change.
On December 5, 2019, Kerry endorsed Joe Biden's bid for the Democratic nomination for president, saying "He'll be ready on day one to put back together the country and the world that Donald Trump has broken apart" and asserting that "Joe will defeat Donald Trump next November. He's the candidate with the wisdom and standing to fix what Trump has broken, to restore our place in the world, and improve the lives of working people here at home."
Following retirement from government service, Kerry signed an agreement with Simon & Schuster for publishing his planned memoirs, dealing with his life and career in government. In September 2018, he published "Every Day Is Extra".
Leaked audiotape.
On April 25, 2021, "The New York Times" published content from a leaked audiotape of a three-hour taped conversation between economist Saeed Leylaz and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The taped conversation was connected to an oral history project, known as "In the Islamic Republic the military field rules", which documents the work of Iran's current administration. The tape was obtained by the London-based news channel Iran International.
In the tape, which the "Times" referred to as "extraordinary", Zarif reveals that then-Secretary of State Kerry told him that Israel attacked Iranian assets in Syria, "at least 200 times". Although the tape has not been verified, the spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry did not deny its validity.
Nineteen Republican senators signed a letter asking President Biden to investigate Zarif's claim. On April 27, 2021, Republicans called on Kerry to resign from the Biden administration's National Security Council. In a tweet, Kerry denied Zarif's account, writing, "I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened — either when I was Secretary of State or since."
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (2021–2024).
On November 23, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden's transition team announced that Kerry would be taking a full-time position in the administration, serving as a special envoy for climate; in this role he will be a principal on the National Security Council. Kerry assumed office on January 20, 2021, following Biden's inauguration.
Climate cooperation with China.
In July 2023, John Kerry visited China for advance climate cooperation. The main achievement of the visit was some progress in the fields of: "methane reduction commitments; reducing China's reliance on coal; China's objections to trade restrictions on solar panel and battery components; and climate finance." This was obtained despite many currently existing obstacles to cooperation. The visit was made in the middle of the 2023 Asia heat wave that set a new record of in Sanbu, Xinjiang, China, which Kerry mentioned in particular.
Climate cooperation with India.
At the end of July 2023, John Kerry visited India. Among others he declared, the US will be committed to the target of delivering 100 billion dollars for climate action to low income countries and no future US president can retreat from climate commitment. He criticized Donald Trump for leaving the Paris agreement before.
Climate cooperation with countries in the Middle East.
In June 2023, Kerry made visits to Israel, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. In Israel, he emphasized the need for climate legislation to reach climate targets and reached an agreement about the renewal of "Memorandum of understanding between Israel and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Israel is one of the few developed countries which have still not approved a climate law and lags behind other OECD countries in climate action. Israeli environmental protection minister Idit Silman said that Israel intended to go to COP28 "with an ambitious and applicable climate law and put the State of Israel on the same level as the developed countries of the OECD."
Departure.
On January 13, 2024, at least three sources close to Kerry revealed that he would step down as U.S. climate envoy by the upcoming spring. He told the "Financial Times" he planned to stay active in the climate finance space. He officially resigned from his position on March 6, 2024.
Personal and family life.
Ancestry.
Kerry's paternal ancestors came from the Fränkel family, which owned a textile factory in Neustadt, Upper Silesia (now Prudnik, Poland), founded by Samuel Fränkel. The Fränkels originated from Hotzenplotz, Austria (now Osoblaha, Czech Republic) and Zülz, Prussia (now Biała Prudnicka, Poland). Kerry's paternal great-grandmother, Mathilda Fränkel, was born in Oberglogau (now Głogówek, near Prudnik) and married Benedikt Kohn from Bennisch (now Horní Benešov). His grandparents, shoe businessman Frederick A. "Fred" Kerry and musician Ida Löwe, immigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the U.S. Fred, his wife, and his brother converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1901, and changed their names from Kohn to Kerry. Ida was of remote ancestry of Rabbi Sinai Loew of Worms, brother of Judah Loew ben Bezalel. Fred and Ida Kerry emigrated to the United States in 1905, living at first in Chicago and eventually moving to Brookline, Massachusetts, by 1915. According to "The New York Times", "[the] brother and sister of John Kerry's paternal grandmother, Otto and Jenni Lowe, died in concentration camps". Kerry's Jewish ancestry was publicly revealed during his 2004 presidential campaign; he has stated that he was unaware of it until a reporter informed him of it in 2003.
Kerry's maternal ancestors were of Scottish and English descent, and his maternal grandparents were James Grant Forbes II of the Forbes family and Margaret Tyndal Winthrop of the Dudley–Winthrop family. Margaret's paternal grandfather Robert Charles Winthrop served as the 22nd Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Robert's father was Governor Thomas Lindall Winthrop. Thomas' father John Still Winthrop was a great-great-grandson of Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop and great-grandson of Governor Thomas Dudley. Through his mother, Kerry is a first cousin once removed of French politician Brice Lalonde.
Marriages and children.
Kerry was married to Julia Thorne in 1970, and they had two daughters together: documentary filmmaker Alexandra Kerry (born September 5, 1973) and physician Vanessa Kerry (born December 31, 1976).
Alexandra was born days before Kerry began law school. In 1982, Julia asked Kerry for a separation while she was suffering from severe depression. They were divorced on July 25, 1988, and the marriage was formally annulled in 1997. "After 14 years as a political wife, I associated politics only with anger, fear and loneliness", she wrote in "A Change of Heart", her book about depression. Thorne later married Richard Charlesworth, an architect, and moved to Bozeman, Montana, where she became active in local environmental groups such as the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Thorne supported Kerry's 2004 presidential run. She died of cancer on April 27, 2006.
Kerry and his second wife—Portuguese-born businesswoman and philanthropist Teresa Heinz, the widow of Kerry's late Pennsylvania Republican Senate colleague John Heinz—were introduced to each other by Heinz at an Earth Day rally in 1990. Early the following year, Senator Heinz was killed in a plane crash near Lower Merion. Teresa has three sons from her marriage to Heinz, Henry John IV, André, and Christopher. Heinz and Kerry were married on May 26, 1995, in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Net worth.
The "Forbes 400" survey estimated in 2004 that Teresa Heinz Kerry had a net worth of $750million. However, estimates have frequently varied, ranging from around $165million to as high as $3.2billion, according to a study in the "Los Angeles Times". Regardless of which figure is correct, Kerry was the wealthiest U.S. Senator while serving in the Senate. Independent of Heinz, Kerry is wealthy in his own right, and is the beneficiary of at least four trusts inherited from Forbes family relatives, including his mother, Rosemary Forbes Kerry, who died in 2002. "Forbes" magazine (named for the Forbes family of publishers, unrelated to Kerry) estimated that if elected, and if Heinz family assets were included, Kerry would have been the third-richest U.S. president in history, when adjusted for inflation. This assessment was based on Heinz's and Kerry's combined assets, but the couple signed a prenuptial agreement that keeps their assets separate. Kerry's financial disclosure form for 2011 put his personal assets in the range of $230,000,000 to $320,000,000, including the assets of his spouse and any dependent children. This included slightly more than $3,000,000 worth of H. J. Heinz Company assets, which increased in value by over $600,000 in 2013 when Berkshire Hathaway announced their intention to purchase the company.
In April 2017, Kerry purchased an 18-acre property on the northwest corner of Martha's Vineyard overlooking Vineyard Sound in the town of Chilmark, Massachusetts. The property is located in Seven Gates Farm and according to property records, cost $11.75million for the seven bedroom home.
Religious beliefs.
Kerry is a Roman Catholic, and is said to have carried a religious rosary, a prayer book, and a St. Christopher medal (the patron saint of travelers) when he campaigned. Discussing his faith, Kerry said: "I thought of being a priest. I was very religious while at school in Switzerland. I was an altar boy and prayed all the time. I was very centered around the Mass and the church." He also said that the Letters of Paul (Apostle Paul) moved him the most, stating that they taught him to "not feel sorry for myself".
Kerry told "Christianity Today" in October 2004:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />I'm a Catholic and I practice, but at the same time I have an open-mindedness to many other expressions of spirituality that come through different religions... I've spent some time reading and thinking about religion and trying to study it, and I've arrived at not so much a sense of the differences, but a sense of the similarities in so many ways.
He said that he believed that the Torah, the Quran, and the Bible all share a fundamental story which connects with readers.
Health.
In 2003, Kerry was diagnosed with and successfully treated for prostate cancer. On May 31, 2015, Kerry broke his right leg in a biking accident in Scionzier, France, and was flown to Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital for recovery. MGH Hip and Knee Replacement Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Dennis Burke, who had met Kerry in France and had accompanied him in the plane from France to Boston, set Kerry's right leg on Tuesday, June 2, in a four-hour operation.
Athletics and sailing.
In addition to the sports he played at Yale, Kerry is described by "Sports Illustrated", among others, as an "avid cyclist", primarily riding on a road bike. Prior to his presidential bid, Kerry had participated in several long-distance rides. During his many campaigns, he was reported to have visited bicycle stores in both his home state and elsewhere. His staff requested recumbent stationary bikes for his hotel rooms. He has also been a snowboarder, windsurfer, and sailor.
The "Boston Herald" reported on July 23, 2010, that Kerry commissioned construction on a new $7million yacht (a Friendship 75) in New Zealand and moored it in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where the Friendship yacht company is based. The article claimed this allowed him to avoid paying Massachusetts taxes on the property including approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $500. On July 27, Kerry stated he would voluntarily pay $500,000 in Massachusetts taxes on his yacht.
Honors.
John Kerry was awarded:
Honorary degrees.
John Kerry has received several honorary degrees in recognition of his service to the United States, These include:
References.
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Further reading.
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2004 United States presidential election
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Republican President George W. Bush and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Dick Cheney, were re-elected to a second term. They narrowly defeated the Democratic ticket of John Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, and his running mate John Edwards, a senator from North Carolina.
Bush and Cheney were renominated by their party with no difficulty. Meanwhile, the Democrats engaged in a competitive primary. Kerry emerged as the early-front runner but was faced with serious opposition by former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who briefly surged ahead of Kerry in the polls. Kerry won the first set of primaries in January and re-emerged as the front-runner, and Dean dropped out in February. Kerry clinched his party's nomination in March after a series of primary victories over runner-up Edwards, who he ultimately selected to be his running mate.
The September 11 attacks in 2001 decisively reshaped Bush's foreign policy goals and garnered him near-universal support early in his term. However, by 2004 his handling of the war on terror attracted serious debate, particularly over his handling of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Bush presented himself as a decisive leader and attacked Kerry as a "flip-flopper". Kerry criticized Bush's conduct of the Iraq War, despite having voted for it himself. Domestic issues were debated as well, including the economy and jobs, health care, abortion, same-sex marriage, and embryonic stem cell research.
Bush won by a narrow margin of 35 electoral votes and took 50.7% of the popular vote. Bush swept the South and the Mountain states and took the crucial swing states of Ohio, Iowa, and New Mexico, the last two flipping Republican. Although Kerry flipped New Hampshire, Bush won both more electoral votes and states than in 2000. Ohio was the tipping-point state, and was considered to be the state that allowed Bush to win reelection. Some aspects of the election process were subject to controversy, although not to the degree seen in the 2000 presidential election. Bush won Florida by a 5% margin, a significant improvement over his razor-thin victory margin in the state four years earlier which led to a legal challenge in "Bush v. Gore". This remains the most recent presidential election in which the Republican candidate won Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia.
At the time, Bush received the most popular votes in history, a record which would be broken in 2008. Bush's win was the only Republican popular vote victory during the eight elections from 1992 to 2020. As of 2025, Bush is the only Republican president since 1984 to have won re-election to a consecutive second term.
Background.
George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000 after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in "Bush v. Gore" remanded the case to the Florida Supreme Court, which declared there was not sufficient time to hold a recount without violating the U.S. Constitution. Just eight months into his presidency, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, suddenly transformed Bush into a wartime president. Bush's approval ratings surged to near 90%. Within a month, the forces of a coalition led by the United States entered Afghanistan, which had been sheltering Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks. The Taliban had been removed by December, although a long reconstruction would follow.
The Bush administration then turned its attention to Iraq and argued the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq had become urgent. Among the stated reasons were that Saddam's regime had tried to acquire nuclear material and had not properly accounted for biological and chemical material it was known to have previously possessed. Both the possession of these weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and the failure to account for them, would violate the UN sanctions. The assertion about WMD was hotly advanced by the Bush administration from the beginning, but other major powers including China, France, Germany, and Russia remained unconvinced that Iraq was a threat and refused to allow passage of a UN Security Council resolution to authorize the use of force. Iraq permitted UN weapon inspectors in November 2002, who were continuing their work to assess the WMD claim when the Bush administration decided to proceed with war without UN authorization and told the inspectors to leave the country. The United States invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, along with a "coalition of the willing" that consisted of additional troops from the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent, from Australia and Poland. Within about three weeks, the invasion caused the collapse of both the Iraqi government and its armed forces; however, the U.S. and allied forces failed to find any weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. Nevertheless, on May 1, Bush landed on the aircraft carrier , in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing the end of "major combat operations" in the Iraq War.
Nominations.
Republican nomination.
Bush was able to ward off any serious challenge to the Republican nomination. Senator Lincoln Chafee from Rhode Island considered challenging Bush on an anti-war platform in New Hampshire but decided not to run after the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003. On March 10, 2004, Bush officially attained the number of delegates needed to be nominated at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. He accepted the nomination on September 2, 2004, and retained Vice President Dick Cheney as his running mate. During the convention and throughout the campaign, Bush focused on two themes: defending America against terrorism and building an ownership society. The ownership society included allowing people to invest some of their Social Security in the stock market, increasing home and stock ownership, and encouraging more people to buy their own health insurance.
Democratic Party nomination.
Democratic primaries.
The 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries took place from January 14 to June 8, 2004, to select the Democratic Party's nominee for president. Before the primaries, Vermont governor Howard Dean was a favorite to win the nomination; however, Massachusetts senator John Kerry won victories in two early races: the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. These wins strengthened Kerry's previously weak campaign. By March 11, Kerry had received enough delegates to win the nomination. Other major candidates included North Carolina senator John Edwards and retired U.S. Army general Wesley Clark. Kerry asked Republican senator John McCain to be his running mate but McCain turned down his offer. On July 6, Kerry selected Edwards as his running mate, shortly before the 2004 Democratic National Convention was held later that month in Boston.
Democratic National Convention.
Heading into the convention, the Kerry–Edwards ticket unveiled its new slogan: a promise to make America "stronger at home and more respected in the world". Kerry made his Vietnam War experience the convention's prominent theme. The keynote address at the convention was delivered by Illinois state senator and U.S. Senate candidate and future president Barack Obama; the speech was well received, and it elevated Obama's status within the Democratic Party.
Other nominations.
There were four other presidential tickets on the ballot in a number of states totaling enough electoral votes to have a theoretical possibility of winning a majority in the Electoral College. They were:
Issues unique to the election.
Electronic voting machines.
Ahead of the 2004 election, some states implemented electronic voting systems. Critics raised several issues about voting machines, particularly those made by Diebold Election Systems. Cybersecurity professionals found security vulnerabilities in Diebold machines. Voting machines made by several companies were also criticized for their lack of a paper trail, which would have made results easier to verify. Democrats also criticized various executives at Diebold, Inc. (the parent company of Diebold Election Systems) for their support of Bush's campaign, stating that it constituted a conflict of interest. Following these issues, California banned the use of Diebold's AccuVote TSX voting machines for elections in 2004.
Campaign law changes.
The 2004 election was the first to be affected by the campaign finance reforms mandated by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. The act created restrictions on fundraising by political parties and candidates. A large number of independent 527 groups were created to bypass these restrictions. Named for a section of the Internal Revenue Code, these groups were able to raise large amounts of money for various political causes as long as they did not coordinate their activities with political campaigns. Examples of 527s include Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, MoveOn.org, the Media Fund, and America Coming Together. These groups were active throughout the campaign season, spending a record $556 million for all elections in 2004.
The Stand by Your Ad provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act required political advertisements on television to include a verbal disclaimer identifying the organization or campaign responsible for the advertisement. This provision was intended to force campaigns to take responsibility for negative advertisements. Campaign strategists criticized this requirement, stating that it would waste time and cause voters to be confused.
General election campaign.
Campaign issues.
Bush focused his campaign on national security, presenting himself as a decisive leader and contrasted Kerry as a "flip-flopper." This strategy was designed to convey to American voters the idea that Bush could be trusted to be tough on terrorism while Kerry would be "uncertain in the face of danger." In the final months before the election, Kerry's campaign focused on domestic issues such as the economy and health care. Kerry's campaign managers believed that Kerry had an advantage on domestic issues. Bush's campaign also focused on increasing voter turnout among conservatives. According to one exit poll, people who voted for Bush cited the issues of terrorism and traditional values as the most important factors in their decision. Kerry supporters cited the war in Iraq, the economy and jobs, and health care.
Economy.
Tax cuts were passed in 2001 and 2003 under the Bush administration with Bush's support. Kerry voted against these tax cuts. During the 2004 campaign, Bush praised these tax cuts, stating that they helped to grow the economy. On the other hand, Kerry attacked Bush for failing to create jobs under his presidency. Kerry stated that he wanted to reduce the United States budget deficit by capping government spending while ending various tax breaks for businesses. Kerry also supported tax credits for businesses that hire additional workers. Bush attacked Kerry for his economic proposals, stating that they would cause Americans to pay higher taxes. Bush also attacked Kerry for previously supporting tax raises, such as a proposed increase on the federal gas tax.
Foreign policy.
Bush defended the Iraq War, arguing that it was necessary to stop terrorism. He also said that the United States had made progress stopping terrorism in other nations. Bush attacked Kerry for opposing the Iraq War after voting to authorize it in 2002, characterizing the shift as one of many flip-flops by Kerry. Kerry argued that Bush had misled the American public in pursuing the Iraq War, noting that no illegal weapons had been found in Iraq. He said that the Iraq War was a mistake and a diversion from terrorism in other nations such as Afghanistan. After the election, exit polls found that foreign policy concerns were the most important issues for voters.
Health care.
Health savings accounts (HSAs) were introduced in 2004 as part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, signed by Bush in December 2003. As part of his 2004 campaign, Bush supported the expansion of HSAs. He proposed tax cuts to help Americans purchase their own health insurance. He also proposed a plan that would allow small businesses to purchase health insurance in large groups. Kerry's health care proposals included government subsidies for businesses that provide health insurance and the expansion of government-run health care programs. Health policy experts stated that Bush's proposals would have a more limited impact than Kerry's proposals. Kerry also attacked Bush for his policy on stem cell research. In 2001, the Bush administration restricted embryonic stem cell research to existing stem cell lines. Kerry stated that this restriction was a barrier to conducting important research.
Same-sex marriage.
In July 2004, Bush announced his support for a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, shortly before the Senate voted on the amendment. Although Kerry stated that he opposed same-sex marriage, he also opposed the amendment, saying that the legality of same-sex marriage should be decided by individual states. The Senate vote failed on July 14.
Controversies.
Bush military service controversy.
During the campaign, Bush was accused of failing to fulfill his required service in the Texas Air National Guard. A scandal occurred at CBS News after they aired a segment on "60 Minutes Wednesday", introducing what became known as the Killian documents. These documents were allegedly written by Jerry B. Killian, Bush's squadron commander, and they contained various allegations about Bush's service. Serious doubts about the documents' authenticity quickly emerged, leading CBS to appoint a review panel that eventually resulted in the firing of the news producer and other significant staffing changes. The Killian documents were eventually concluded to be forgeries.
Kerry military service controversy.
Kerry was accused by the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth of distorting his military service in Vietnam. The group challenged the legitimacy of each of the combat medals awarded to Kerry by the U.S. Navy, and the disposition of his discharge. The organization spent $22.4 million in advertisements against Kerry. After the election, political analysts described their advertising campaign as effective. The term swiftboating was used during the campaign to describe the organization's negative advertising, which Democrats saw as unfair. It was also used after the campaign to generally describe a harsh attack by a political opponent that is dishonest, personal and unfair.
Presidential debates.
Three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate were organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, and held in the autumn of 2004.
Osama bin Laden videotape.
On October 29, four days before the election, excerpts of a video of Osama bin Laden addressing the American people were broadcast on al Jazeera. In his remarks, bin Laden mentions the September 11 attacks, and taunted Bush over his response to them. In the days following the video's release, Bush's lead over Kerry increased by several points.
Electoral College forecasts.
Elections analysts and political pundits issue probabilistic forecasts of the composition of the Electoral College. These forecasts use a variety of factors to estimate the likelihood of each candidate winning the Electoral College electors for that state. Most election predictors use the following ratings:
Below is a list of states considered by one or more forecast to be competitive; states that are deemed to be "safe" or "solid" by forecasters "The Cook Political Report", "The New York Times", and CNN.
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Results.
Source (Electoral and Popular Vote): Federal Elections Commission Electoral and Popular Vote Summary
Voting age population: 215,664,000
Percent of voting age population casting a vote for president: 56.70%
(a) "One faithless elector from Minnesota cast an electoral vote for John Edwards (written as John Ewards) for president."
(b) "In Montana, Karen Sanchirico was listed on the ballot as Nader's running mate, not Camejo. In Alabama, Jan D. Pierce was Nader's running mate. In New York, Nader appeared on two distinct tickets, one with Camejo and one with Pierce."
(c) "Because Arrin Hawkins, then aged 28, was constitutionally ineligible to serve as vice president, Margaret Trowe replaced her on the ballot in some states. James Harris replaced Calero on certain other states' ballots."
Results by state.
Of the 3,154 counties/districts/independent cities making returns, Bush won the popular vote in 2,568 (81.42%) while Kerry carried 586 (18.58%). The following table records the official vote tallies for each state as reported by the official Federal Election Commission report. The column labeled "Margin" shows Bush's margin of victory over Kerry (the margin is negative for states and districts won by Kerry).
Although Guam has no votes in the Electoral College, it has held a straw poll for its presidential preference since 1980. In 2004, the results were Bush 21,490 (64.1%), Kerry 11,781 (35.1%), Nader 196 (0.58%) and Badnarik 67 (0.2%). Maine and Nebraska each allowed for their electoral votes to be split between candidates. In both states, two electoral votes were awarded to the winner of the statewide race and one electoral vote was awarded to the winner of each congressional district.
Close states.
Red font color denotes those won by Republican President George W. Bush; blue denotes states won by Democrat John Kerry.
States where margin of victory was under 1% (22 electoral votes):
States where margin of victory was more than 1% but less than 5% (93 electoral votes):
States where margin of victory was more than 5% but less than 10% (149 electoral votes):
Statistics.
Counties with highest percent of vote (Republican)
Counties with highest percent of vote (Democratic)
Finance.
Money spent
Source: FEC
2004 United States Electoral College.
One elector in Minnesota cast a ballot for president with the name of "John Ewards" ["sic"] written on it. The Electoral College officials certified this ballot as a vote for Edwards for president. The remaining nine electors cast ballots for Kerry. All ten electors in the state cast ballots for Edwards for vice president (Edwards's name was spelled correctly on all ballots for vice president). This was the first time in U.S. history that an elector had cast a vote for the same person to be both president and vice president. Electoral balloting in Minnesota was performed by secret ballot, and none of the electors admitted to casting the Edwards vote for president, so it may never be known who the faithless elector was. It is not even known whether the vote for Edwards was deliberate or unintentional; the Republican Secretary of State and several of the Democratic electors have expressed the opinion that this was an accident.
Statistical analysis.
During the campaign and as the results came in on the night of the election, there was much focus on Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. These three swing states were seen as evenly divided, and with each casting 20 electoral votes or more, they had the power to decide the election. As the final results came in, Kerry took Pennsylvania and then Bush took Florida, focusing all attention on Ohio.
The morning after the election, the winner was still undetermined. The result in Ohio would decide the winner, although the results in New Mexico and Iowa were also undetermined. Bush led in Ohio, but the state was still counting provisional ballots. In the afternoon of the day after the election, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell announced that there were roughly 135,000 provisional ballots remaining. Kerry's campaign believed that it was statistically impossible to erase Bush's lead. Faced with this announcement, Kerry conceded defeat.
Bush became the first Republican to ever win without carrying New Hampshire, and the first to win the popular vote without Vermont and Illinois. This was the last time a president was re-elected to a consecutive term with a higher share of the electoral vote. Bush carried Colorado despite the state being Kerry's birth state. Bush simultaneously lost his own birth state of Connecticut, making this the only election since 1864 where neither candidate carried their birth state. This election was the first time since 1976 that New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, Illinois, Michigan, and California voted for the losing candidate in the popular vote, as well as the first since 1980 that Maryland did so, and the first since 1948 that Delaware did so. Bush's 2.4% popular vote margin is the smallest ever for a re-elected incumbent president, surpassing the 1812 election.
Bush won three states that have not voted Republican since: Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico. Virginia had voted Republican in every election from 1968 to 2004 but conversely has voted Democratic in every election since 2008. In contrast, this is the last election in which the losing candidate won any of the following states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This is also the last time a Republican was elected without carrying Maine's 2nd congressional district. This election is the only time in history that every Northeastern state voted Democratic and every former Confederate state voted Republican in the same election. Thus, Bush is the only candidate to win without carrying any Northeastern electoral votes. Furthermore, this was the last election where both major party tickets consisted entirely of white men. This is also the last election where both parties flipped states and is also the most recent year when an incumbent candidate from either party would flip any states, with Bush taking the two which he did not win in 2000, in both New Mexico and Iowa.
Until 2024[ [update]], this was the last time Nevada voted for the Republican presidential candidate, and the only presidential election since 1988 in which the Republican nominee won the popular vote with a majority, and it remains the only presidential election since 1984 in which the incumbent Republican president won a second consecutive term. Bush also became the only incumbent president to win consecutive re-election after previously losing the popular vote. Bush is the seventh Republican to have won re-election to a consecutive term, along with Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. The 2004 election had the highest turnout rate among eligible voters since 1968. This is one of only four U.S. presidential elections in which the winner did not carry any of the three Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; the others were 2000, 1916 and 1884.
This was the first presidential election since 1988 where a candidate won a majority of the popular vote. This was the last time a Republican candidate won the national popular vote until Donald Trump in 2024. This remains the most recent presidential election in which both major party candidates flipped at least one state. In addition, this was one of only two elections in the 21st century in which a candidate from either party won fewer than 20 states, with the other being 2024, when Kamala Harris also won 19 states. This is the earliest presidential election of which all four of the presidential and vice presidential candidates of both major parties are still alive, and is the most recent to date in which both major party tickets did not include a woman or person of color. This along with the previous election would be the only ones between 1980 and 2024 where the winner won fewer than 300 electoral votes (or below 55% of the electoral college vote).
Voter demographics.
Source: "CNN" exit poll ()
Aftermath.
This is one of only two U.S. presidential elections, held since the Democrats and Republicans became the two major parties in U.S. politics, in which the winner did not carry any of the three Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; the other was 2000, when Bush was first elected.
Voting problems in Ohio.
After the election, activists and election scholars criticized various issues with the election in Ohio. Long lines at polling places over seven hours were reported. An electronic voting machine erroneously gave thousands of extra votes to Bush. Professor Edward B. Foley stated that he believed that Ohio's voting problems did not affect the outcome.
Objections and conspiracy theories.
After the election, many blogs published false rumors claiming to show evidence that voter fraud had prevented Kerry from winning. Although the overall result of the election was not challenged by the Kerry campaign, Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik obtained a recount in Ohio. This recount was completed December 28, 2004, although on January 24, 2007, a jury convicted two Ohio elections officials of selecting precincts to recount where they already knew the hand total would match the machine total, thereby avoiding having to perform a full recount. Independent candidate Ralph Nader obtained a recount in 11 New Hampshire precincts that used Accuvote voting machines.
At the official counting of the electoral votes on January 6, an objection was made under the Electoral Count Act (now  § 15) to Ohio's electoral votes. Because the motion was supported by at least one member of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the law required that the two houses separate to debate and vote on the objection. In the House of Representatives, the objection was supported by 31 Democrats. It was opposed by 178 Republicans, 88 Democrats and one independent. Not voting were 52 Republicans and 80 Democrats. Four people elected to the House had not yet taken office, and one seat was vacant. In the Senate, it was supported only by its maker, Barbara Boxer, with 74 senators opposed and 25 not voting. During the debate, no Senator argued that the outcome of the election should be changed by either court challenge or revote. Boxer claimed that she had made the motion not to challenge the outcome but "to cast the light of truth on a flawed system which must be fixed now".
Kerry would later state that "the widespread irregularities make it impossible to know for certain that the [Ohio] outcome reflected the will of the voters". In the same article, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said: "I'm not confident that the election in Ohio was fairly decided... We know that there was substantial voter suppression, and the machines were not reliable. It should not be a surprise that the Republicans are willing to do things that are unethical to manipulate elections. That's what we suspect has happened."
Notes.
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References.
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North Carolina
U.S. state
North Carolina ( ) is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia to the southwest, and Tennessee to the west. The state is the 28th-largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. Along with South Carolina, it makes up the Carolinas region of the East Coast. At the 2020 census, the state had a population of 10,439,388. Raleigh is the state's capital and Charlotte is its most populous city. The Charlotte metropolitan area, with an estimated population of 2,805,115 in 2023, is the most populous metropolitan area in North Carolina, the 22nd-most populous in the United States, and the largest banking center in the nation after New York City. The Research Triangle, with an estimated population of 2,368,947 in 2023, is the second-most populous combined metropolitan area in the state, 31st-most populous in the United States, and is home to the largest research park in the United States, Research Triangle Park.
The earliest evidence of human occupation in North Carolina dates back 10,000 years, found at the Hardaway Site. North Carolina was inhabited by Carolina Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan speaking tribes of Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans. King Charles II granted eight lord proprietors a colony they named Carolina after the king and which was established in 1670 with the first permanent settlement at Charles Town (Charleston). Because of the difficulty of governing the entire colony from Charles Town, the colony was eventually divided and North Carolina was established as a royal colony in 1729 and was one of the Thirteen Colonies. The Halifax Resolves resolution adopted by North Carolina on April 12, 1776, was the first formal call for independence from Great Britain among the American Colonies during the American Revolution.
On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the United States Constitution. In the run-up to the American Civil War, North Carolina reluctantly declared its secession from the Union on May 20, 1861, becoming the tenth of eleven states to join the Confederate States of America. Following the Civil War, the state was restored to the Union on July 4, 1868. On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully piloted the world's first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina's Outer Banks. North Carolina often uses the slogan "First in Flight" on state license plates to commemorate this achievement, alongside a newer alternative design bearing the slogan "First in Freedom" in reference to the Mecklenburg Declaration and Halifax Resolves.
North Carolina is defined by a wide range of elevations and landscapes. From west to east, North Carolina's elevation descends from the Appalachian Mountains to the Piedmont and Atlantic coastal plain. North Carolina's Mount Mitchell at is the highest point in North America east of the Mississippi River. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone; however, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate.
History.
Native Americans, lost colony, and permanent settlement.
North Carolina was inhabited for at least 10,000 years by succeeding prehistoric Indigenous cultures. The Hardaway Site saw major periods of occupation dating to 10,000 years BCE. Before 200 AD, people were building earthwork platform mounds for ceremonial and religious purposes. Succeeding peoples, including those of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture, established by 1000 AD in the Piedmont and mountain region, continued to build this style of mounds. In contrast to some of the larger centers of the classic Mississippian culture in the area that became known as the western Carolinas, northeastern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee, most of the larger towns had only one central platform mound. Smaller settlements had none, but were close to more prominent towns. This area became known as the homelands of the historic Cherokee people, who are believed to have migrated over time from the Great Lakes area.
In the 500–700 years preceding European contact, the Mississippian culture built elaborate cities and maintained far-flung regional trading networks. Its largest city was Cahokia, which had numerous mounds for different purposes, a highly stratified society, and was located in present-day southwestern Illinois near the Mississippi River. Starting in 1540, the Native polities of the Mississippian culture fell apart and reformed as new groups, such as the Catawba, due to a series of destabilizing events known as the "Mississippian shatter zone". Introduction of colonial trading arrangements and hostile native groups from the north such as the Westo Indians hastened changes in an already tenuous regional hierarchy. As described by anthropologist Robbie Ethridge, the Mississippian shatter zone was a time of great instability in what is now the American South, caused by the instability of Mississippian chiefdoms, high mortality from new Eurasian diseases, conversion to an agricultural society and the accompanying population increase, and the emergence of Native "militaristic slaving societies".
Historically documented tribes in the North Carolina region include the Carolina Algonquian-speaking tribes of the coastal areas, such as the Chowanoc, Roanoke, Pamlico, Machapunga, and Coree, who were the first encountered by the English; the Iroquoian-speaking Meherrin, Cherokee, and Tuscarora of the interior; and Southeastern Siouan-speaking tribes, such as the Cheraw, Waxhaw, Saponi, Waccamaw, Cape Fear Indians, and Catawba of the Piedmont.
In the late 16th century, the first Spanish explorers traveling inland recorded meeting Mississippian culture people at Joara, a regional chiefdom near what later developed as Morganton. Records of Hernando de Soto attested to his meeting with them in 1540. In 1567, Captain Juan Pardo led an expedition to claim the area for the Spanish colony and to establish another route to reach silver mines in Mexico. Pardo made a winter base at Joara, which he renamed "Cuenca". His expedition built Fort San Juan and left a contingent of 30 Spaniards there, while Pardo traveled further. His forces built and garrisoned five other forts. He returned by a different route to Santa Elena on Parris Island, South Carolina, then a center of Spanish Florida. In the spring of 1568, natives killed all but seventy four of the Spaniards and burned the six forts in the interior, including Fort San Juan. Although the Spanish never returned to the interior, this effort marked the first European attempt at colonization of the interior of what became the United States. A 16th-century journal by Pardo's scribe Bandera, and archaeological findings since 1986 at Joara, have confirmed the settlement.
Anglo-European settlement.
In 1584, Elizabeth I granted a charter to Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom the state capital is named, for land in present-day North Carolina (then part of the territory of Virginia). It was the second American territory that the English attempted to colonize. Raleigh established two colonies on the coast in the late 1580s, but both failed. The colony established in 1587 saw 118 colonists 'disappear' when John White was unable to return from a supply run during battles with the Spanish Armada. The fate of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island remains one of the most widely debated mysteries of American history. Two native Chieftains, Manteo and Wanchese, of which the former helped the colonists and the latter was distrustful, had involvement in the colony and even accompanied Raleigh to England on a previous voyage in 1585. Manteo was also the first Indigenous North American to be baptized by English settlers. Upon White's return in 1590, neither native nor Englishman were to be found. Popular theory holds that the colonists either traveled away with or assimilated into local native culture. Virginia Dare, the first English person to be born in North America, was born on Roanoke Island on August 18, 1587; the surrounding Dare County is named for her.
As early as 1650, settlers from the Virginia colony had moved into the Albemarle Sound region. By 1663, King Charles II of England granted a charter to start a new colony on the North American continent; this would generally establish North Carolina's borders. He named it "Carolina" in honor of his father, CharlesI. By 1665, a second charter was issued to attempt to resolve territorial questions. This charter rewarded the Lords Proprietors, eight Englishmen to whom King Charles II granted joint ownership of a tract of land in the state. All of these men either had remained loyal to the Crown or aided Charles's restoration to the English throne after Cromwell. In 1712, owing to disputes over governance, the Carolina colony split into North Carolina and South Carolina. North Carolina became a crown colony in 1729.
Most of the English colonists had arrived as indentured servants, hiring themselves out as laborers for a fixed period to pay for their passage. In the early years the line between indentured servants and African slaves or laborers was fluid. Some Africans were allowed to earn their freedom before slavery became a lifelong status. Most of the free colored families formed in North Carolina before the Revolution were descended from unions or marriages between free whites and enslaved or free Africans or African-Americans. If the mothers were free, their children were born free. Many had migrated or were descendants of migrants from colonial Virginia. As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in Great Britain, planters imported more slaves, and the state's legal delineations between free and slave status tightened, effectively hardening the latter into a racial caste. Conditions for both slaves and workers worsened as the ranks of the former eclipsed the latter and expansion of farming operations into former Indigenous territories lowered prices. Unable to establish deep water ports such as at Charles Town and Norfolk, the economy's growth and prosperity was thus based on cheap labor and slave plantation systems, devoted primarily to the production of tobacco, then later cotton and textiles.
In 1738–1739, smallpox caused high fatalities among the Native Americans, who had no immunity to the new disease (it had become endemic over centuries in Europe). According to the historian Russell Thornton, "The 1738 epidemic was said to have killed one-half of the Cherokee, with other tribes of the area suffering equally."
Colonial period.
After the Spanish in the 16th century, the first permanent European settlers of North Carolina were English colonists who migrated south from Virginia. Virginia had grown rapidly and land was less available. Nathaniel Batts was documented as one of the first of these Virginian migrants. He settled south of the Chowan River and east of the Great Dismal Swamp in 1655. By 1663, this northeastern area of the Province of Carolina, known as the Albemarle Settlements, was undergoing full-scale English settlement. During the same period, the English monarch CharlesII gave provincial land grants to the Lords Proprietors, the group of noblemen who had helped restore him to the throne in 1660. These grants were predicated on an agreement that the Lords would use their influence to bring in colonists and establish ports of trade. This new Province of Carolina was named in honor and memory of his father, CharlesI (Latin: "Carolus").
Lacking a viable coastal port city due to geography, towns grew at a slower pace and remained small. By the late 17th century, Carolina was essentially two colonies, one centered in the Albemarle region in the north and the other located in the south around Charleston. In 1705 South Carolinian John Lawson purchased land on the Pamlico River and laid out Bath, North Carolina's first town. After returning to England, he published the book A New Voyage to Carolina, which became a travelogue and a marketing piece to encourage new colonists to Carolina. Lawson encouraged Baron Christoph Von Graffenried, the leader of a group of Swiss and German Protestants, to immigrate to Carolina. Von Graffenried purchased land between the Neuse and the Trent Rivers and established the town of New Bern. After an attack on New Bern in which hundreds were killed or injured, Lawson was caught then executed by Tuscarora Indians. A large revolt happened in the state in 1711, known as Cary's Rebellion. In 1712, North Carolina became a separate colony, and in 1729 it became a royal colony, with the exception of the Earl Granville holdings.
In June 1718, "Queen Anne's Revenge", the flagship of pirate Blackbeard, ran aground at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, in present-day Carteret County. After the grounding, her crew and supplies were transferred to smaller ships. In November 1718, after appealing to the governor of North Carolina, who promised safe-haven and a pardon, Blackbeard was killed in an ambush by troops from Virginia. In 1996, Intersal, Inc., a private maritime research firm, discovered the remains of a vessel likely to be the "Queen Anne's Revenge", which was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
North Carolina became one of the Thirteen Colonies and with the territory of South Carolina was originally known as the Province of North Carolina. The northern and southern parts of the original province separated in 1712, with North Carolina becoming a royal colony in 1729. Originally settled by small farmers, sometimes having a few slaves, who were oriented toward subsistence agriculture, the colony lacked large cities or towns. Pirates menaced the coastal settlements, but by 1718 piracy in the Carolinas was on the decline. Growth was strong in the middle of the 18th century, as the economy attracted Scots-Irish, Quaker, English and German immigrants. A majority of the North Carolina colonists generally supported the American Revolution, although there were some Loyalists. Loyalists in North Carolina were fewer in number than in some other colonies such as Georgia, South Carolina, Delaware, and New York.
During colonial times, Edenton served as the state capital beginning in 1722, followed by New Bern becoming the capital in 1766. Construction of Tryon Palace, which served as the residence and offices of the provincial governor William Tryon, began in 1767 and was completed in 1771. In 1788, Raleigh was chosen as the site of the new capital, as its central location protected it from coastal attacks. Officially established in 1792 as both county seat and state capital, the city was named after Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsor of Roanoke, the "lost colony" on Roanoke Island. The population of the colony more than quadrupled from 52,000 in 1740 to 270,000 in 1780 from high immigration from Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, plus immigrants from abroad.
North Carolina did not have any printer or print shops until 1749, when the North Carolina Assembly commissioned James Davis from Williamsburg Virginia to act as their official printer. Before this time the laws and legal journals of North Carolina were handwritten and were kept in a largely disorganized manner, prompting the hiring of Davis. Davis settled in New Bern, married, and in 1755 was appointed by Benjamin Franklin as North Carolina's first postmaster. In October of that year the North Carolina Assembly awarded Davis a contract to carry mail between Wilmington, North Carolina and Suffolk, Virginia. He was also active in North Carolina politics as a member of the Assembly and later as the Sheriff. Davis also founded and printed the "North-Carolina Gazette", North Carolina's first newspaper, printed in his printing house in New Bern.
Differences in the settlement patterns of eastern and western North Carolina, or the Atlantic coastal plain and uplands, affected the political, economic, and social life of the state from the 18th until the 20th century. Eastern North Carolina was settled chiefly by immigrants from rural England and Gaelic speakers from the Scottish Highlands. The Piedmont upcountry and western mountain region of North Carolina was settled chiefly by Scots-Irish, English, and German Protestants, the so-called "cohee". Arriving during the mid-to-late 18th century, the Scots-Irish, people of Scottish descent who migrated to and then emigrated from what is today Northern Ireland, were the largest non-English immigrant group before the Revolution; English indentured servants were overwhelmingly the largest immigrant group before the Revolution.
Revolutionary War.
During the American Revolutionary War, the English and Gaelic speaking Highland Scots of eastern North Carolina tended to remain loyal to the British Crown, because of longstanding business and personal connections with Great Britain. The English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and German settlers of western North Carolina tended to favor American independence from Britain. British loyalists dubbed the Mecklenburg County area to be 'a hornet's nest' of radicals, birthing the name of the future Charlotte NBA team. On April 12, 1776, the colony became the first to instruct its delegates to the Continental Congress to vote for independence from the British Crown, through the Halifax Resolves passed by the North Carolina Provincial Congress. The date of this event is memorialized on the state flag and state seal. Throughout the Revolutionary War, fierce guerrilla warfare erupted between bands of pro-independence and pro-British colonists. In some cases the war was also an excuse to settle private grudges and rivalries.
North Carolina had around 7,800 Patriots join the Continental Army under General George Washington; and an additional 10,000 served in local militia units under such leaders as General Nathanael Greene. There was some military action, especially in 1780–81. Many Carolinian frontiersmen had moved west over the mountains, into the Washington District (later known as Tennessee), but in 1789, following the Revolution, the state was persuaded to relinquish its claim to the western lands. It ceded them to the national government so the Northwest Territory could be organized and managed nationally.
A major American victory in the war took place at King's Mountain along the North Carolina–South Carolina border; on October 7, 1780, a force of 1,000 Patriots from western North Carolina (including what is today the state of Tennessee) and southwest Virginia overwhelmed a force of some 1,000 British troops led by Major Patrick Ferguson. Most of the soldiers fighting for the British side in this battle were Carolinians who had remained loyal to the Crown (they were called "Tories" or Loyalists). The American victory at King's Mountain gave the advantage to colonists who favored American independence, and it prevented the British Army from recruiting new soldiers from the Tories.
The road to Yorktown and America's independence from Great Britain led through North Carolina. As the British Army moved north from victories in Charleston and Camden, South Carolina, the Southern Division of the Continental Army and local militia prepared to meet them. Following General Daniel Morgan's victory over the British Cavalry Commander Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, southern commander Nathanael Greene led British Lord Charles Cornwallis across the heartland of North Carolina, and away from the latter's base of supply in Charleston, South Carolina. This campaign is known as "The Race to the Dan" or "The Race for the River".
In the Battle of Cowan's Ford, Cornwallis met resistance along the banks of the Catawba River at Cowan's Ford on February 1, 1781, in an attempt to engage General Morgan's forces during a tactical withdrawal. Morgan had moved to the northern part of the state to combine with General Greene's newly recruited forces. Generals Greene and Cornwallis finally met at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in present-day Greensboro on March 15, 1781. Although the British troops held the field at the end of the battle, their casualties at the hands of the numerically superior Continental Army were crippling. Following this "Pyrrhic victory", Cornwallis chose to move to the Virginia coastline to get reinforcements, and to allow the Royal Navy to protect his battered army. This decision would result in Cornwallis' eventual defeat at Yorktown, Virginia, later in 1781. The Patriots' victory there guaranteed American independence. On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the twelfth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
Antebellum period.
After 1800, cotton and tobacco became important export crops. The eastern half of the state, especially the Coastal Plain region, developed a slave society based on a plantation system and slave labor. Planters owning large estates wielded significant political and socio-economic power in antebellum North Carolina. They placed their interests above those of the generally non-slave-holding yeoman farmers of North Carolina. While slaveholding was slightly less concentrated compared to some other Southern states, according to the 1860 census, more than 330,000 people, or 33% of the population out of 992,622 people in total, were enslaved African Americans. They lived and worked chiefly on plantations in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain regions of the state. In addition, 30,463 free people of color lived in the state. They were also mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal plain, especially at port cities such as Wilmington and New Bern, where a variety of jobs were available. Most were descendants from free African Americans who had migrated along with neighbors from Virginia during the 18th century. The majority were the descendants of unions in the working classes between white women, indentured servants or free, and African men, indentured, slave or free.
After the American Revolution, Quakers and Mennonites worked to persuade slaveholders to free their slaves. Some were inspired by their efforts and the language of the Revolution to arrange for manumission of their slaves. The number of free people of color rose markedly in the first couple of decades after the Revolution. Many free people of color migrated to the frontier, along with their European-American neighbors, where the social system was looser. By 1810, nearly three percent of the free population consisted of free people of color, who numbered slightly more than 10,000. The western areas of North Carolina were mainly white families of European descent, especially Scotch-Irish, who operated small subsistence farms. In the early national period, the state became a center of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, with a strong Whig presence, especially in the western part of the state. After Nat Turner's slave uprising in 1831, North Carolina and other southern states reduced the rights of free blacks. In 1835, the legislature withdrew their right to vote.
In mid-century, the state's rural and commercial areas were connected by the construction of a wooden plank road, known as a "farmer's railroad", from Fayetteville in the east to Bethania (northwest of Winston-Salem). On October 25, 1836, construction began on the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad to connect the port city of Wilmington with the state capital of Raleigh. In 1840, the state capitol building in Raleigh was completed, and still stands today.
In 1849, the North Carolina Railroad was created by act of the legislature to extend that railroad west to Greensboro, High Point, and Charlotte. During the Civil War, the Wilmington-to-Raleigh stretch of the railroad was vital to the Confederate war effort; supplies shipped into Wilmington were moved by rail through Raleigh to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
American Civil War.
In 1860, North Carolina was a slave state, in which one-third of the state's total population were African-American slaves. The state did not vote to join the Confederacy until President Abraham Lincoln called on it to invade its sister state, South Carolina, becoming the last or penultimate state to officially join the Confederacy. The title of "last to join the Confederacy" has been disputed; although Tennessee's informal secession on May 7, 1861, preceded North Carolina's official secession on May 20, the Tennessee legislature did not formally vote to secede until June 8, 1861.
Around 125,000 troops from North Carolina served in the Confederate Army, and about 15,000 North Carolina troops (both black and white) served in Union Army regiments, including those who left the state to join Union regiments elsewhere. Over 30,000 North Carolina troops died from combat or disease during the war. Elected in 1862, Governor Zebulon Baird Vance tried to maintain state autonomy against Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond. The state government was reluctant to support the demands of the national government in Richmond, and the state was the scene of only small battles. In 1865, Durham County saw the largest single surrender of Confederate soldiers at Bennett Place, when Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee and all remaining Confederate forces still active in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, totalling 89,270 soldiers.
Confederate troops from all parts of North Carolina served in virtually all the major battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy's most famous army. The largest battle fought in North Carolina was at Bentonville, which was a futile attempt by Confederate General Joseph Johnston to slow Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's advance through the Carolinas in the spring of 1865. In April 1865, after losing the Battle of Morrisville, Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Bennett Place, in what is today Durham. North Carolina's port city of Wilmington, was the last Confederate port to fall to the Union, in February 1865, after the Union won the nearby Second Battle of Fort Fisher, its major defense downriver.
The first Confederate soldier to be killed in the Civil War was Private Henry Wyatt from North Carolina, in the Battle of Big Bethel in June 1861. At the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the 26th North Carolina Regiment participated in Pickett/Pettigrew's Charge and advanced the farthest into Union lines of any Confederate regiment. During the Battle of Chickamauga, the 58th North Carolina Regiment advanced farther than any other regiment on Snodgrass Hill to push back the remaining Union forces from the battlefield. At Appomattox Court House in Virginia in April 1865, the 75th North Carolina Regiment, a cavalry unit, fired the last shots of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. The phrase "First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, and Last at Appomattox", later became used through much of the early 20th century.
After secession, some North Carolinians refused to support the Confederacy. Some of the yeoman farmers chiefly in the state's mountains and western Piedmont region remained neutral during the Civil War, with others covertly supporting the Union cause during the conflict. Approximately 15,000 North Carolinians (both black and white) from across the state enlisted in the Union Army. Numerous slaves also escaped to Union lines, where they became essentially free.
Reconstruction era through late 19th century.
Following the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865, North Carolina, along with other former Confederate States (except Tennessee), was put under direct control by the U.S. military and was relieved of its constitutional government and representation within the United States Congress in what is now referred to as the Reconstruction era. To earn back its rights, the state had to make concessions to Washington, one of which was ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment. Congressional Republicans during Reconstruction, commonly referred to as "radical Republicans", constantly pushed for new constitutions for each of the Southern states that emphasized equal rights for African-Americans. In 1868, a constitutional convention restored the state government of North Carolina. Though the Fifteenth Amendment was also adopted that same year, it remained in most cases ineffective for almost a century, not to mention paramilitary groups and their lynching with impunity.
The elections in April 1868 following the constitutional convention led to a narrow victory for a Republican-dominated government, with 19 African-Americans holding positions in the North Carolina State Legislature. In attempt to put the reforms into effect, the new Republican Governor William W. Holden declared martial law on any county allegedly not complying with law and order using the passage of the Shoffner Act.
A Republican Party coalition of black freedmen, northern carpetbaggers and local scalawags controlled state government for three years. The white conservative Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1870, in part by Ku Klux Klan violence and terrorism at the polls, to suppress black voting. Republicans were elected to the governorship until 1876, when the Red Shirts, a paramilitary organization that arose in 1874 and was allied with the Democratic Party, helped suppress black voting. More than 150 black Americans were murdered in electoral violence in 1876.
Post–Civil War-debt cycles pushed people to switch from subsistence agriculture to commodity agriculture. Among this time the notorious Crop-Lien system developed and was financially difficult on landless whites and blacks, due to high amounts of usury. Also due to the push for commodity agriculture, the free range was ended. Prior to this time people fenced in their crops and had their livestock feeding on the free range areas. After the ending of the free range people now fenced their animals and had their crops in the open.
Democrats were elected to the legislature and governor's office, but the Populists attracted voters displeased with them. In 1896 a biracial, Populist-Republican Fusionist coalition gained the governor's office and passed laws that would extend the voting franchise to blacks and poor whites. The Democrats regained control of the legislature in 1896 and passed laws to impose Jim Crow and racial segregation of public facilities. Voters of North Carolina's 2nd congressional district elected a total of four African-American congressmen through these years of the late 19th century.
Political tensions ran so high a small group of white Democrats in 1898 planned to take over the Wilmington government if their candidates were not elected. In the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, white Democrats led around 2,000 of their supporters that attacked the black newspaper and neighborhood, killed an estimated 60 to 300 people, and ran off the white Republican mayor and aldermen. They installed their own people and elected Alfred M. Waddell as mayor, in the only successful coup d'état in United States history.
In 1899, the state legislature passed a new constitution, with requirements for poll taxes and literacy tests for voter registration which disenfranchised most black Americans in the state. Exclusion from voting had wide effects: it meant black Americans could not serve on juries or in any local office. After a decade of white supremacy, many people forgot North Carolina had ever had thriving middle-class black Americans. Black citizens had no political voice in the state until after the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed to enforce their constitutional rights. It was not until 1992 that another African American was elected as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina.
Early through mid-20th century.
After the reconstruction era, North Carolina had become a one-party state, dominated by the Democratic Party. The state mainly continued with an economy based on tobacco, cotton textiles and commodity agriculture. Large towns and cities remained in few numbers. However, a major industrial base emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century, in the counties of the Piedmont Triad, based on cotton mills established at the fall line. Railroads were built to connect the new industrializing cities.
The state was the site of the first successful controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air flight, by the Wright brothers, near Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903.
In the first half of the 20th century, many African Americans left the state to go North for better opportunities, in the Great Migration. Their departure changed the demographic characteristics of many areas.
North Carolina was hard hit by the Great Depression, but the New Deal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt for cotton and tobacco significantly helped the farmers. After World War II, the state's economy grew rapidly, highlighted by the growth of such cities as Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham in the Piedmont region.
Research Triangle Park, established in 1959, serves as the largest research park in the United States. Formed near Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, the Research Triangle metro is a major area of universities and advanced scientific and technical research.
The Greensboro sit-ins in 1960 played a crucial role in the Civil Rights Movement to bring full equality to American blacks. By the late 1960s, spurred in part by the increasingly leftward tilt of national Democrats, conservative whites began to vote for Republican national candidates and gradually for more Republicans locally.
Late 20th century to present.
Since the 1970s, North Carolina has seen steady increases in population growth. This growth has largely occurred in metropolitan areas located within the Piedmont Crescent, in places such as Charlotte, Concord, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham and Raleigh. The Charlotte metropolitan area has experienced large growth mainly due to its finance, banking, and tech industries.
By the 1990s, Charlotte had become a major regional and national banking center. Towards Raleigh, North Carolina State, Duke University, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have helped the Research Triangle area attract an educated workforce and develop more jobs.
In 1988, North Carolina gained its first professional sports franchise, the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The hornets team name stems from the American Revolutionary War, when British General Cornwallis described Charlotte as a "hornet's nest of rebellion". The Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL) became based in Charlotte as well, with their first season being in 1995. The Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League (NHL) moved to Raleigh in 1997, with their colors being the same as the NC State Wolfpack, who are also located in Raleigh.
By the late 20th century and into the early 21st century, economic industries such as technology, pharmaceuticals, banking, food processing, vehicle parts, and tourism started to emerge as North Carolina's main economic drivers. This marked a shift from the state's former main industries of tobacco, textiles, and furniture. Factors that played a role in this shift were globalization, the state's higher education system, national banking, the transformation of agriculture, and new companies moving to the state.
Geography.
North Carolina is bordered by South Carolina on the south, Georgia on the southwest, Tennessee on the west, Virginia on the north, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. The United States Census Bureau places North Carolina in the South Atlantic division of the southern region. It has a total area of , of which is land and (9.66%) is water.
North Carolina consists of three main geographic regions: the Atlantic coastal plain, occupying the eastern portion of the state; the central Piedmont region, and the mountain region in the west, which is part of the Appalachian Mountains. The coastal plain consists of more specifically defined areas known as the Outer Banks, a string of sandy, narrow barrier islands separated from the mainland by sounds or inlets, including Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound, the native home of the venus flytrap, and the inner coastal plain, where longleaf pine trees are native.
So many ships have been lost off Cape Hatteras that the area is known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic"; more than a thousand ships have sunk in these waters since records began in 1526. The most famous of these is the "Queen Anne's Revenge" (flagship of the pirate Blackbeard), which went aground in Beaufort Inlet in 1718.
The coastal plain transitions to the Piedmont region along the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, the elevation at which waterfalls first appear on streams and rivers. The Piedmont region of central North Carolina is the state's most populous region, containing the six largest cities in the state by population. It consists of gently rolling countryside frequently broken by hills or low mountain ridges. Small, isolated, and deeply eroded mountain ranges and peaks are located in the Piedmont, including the Sauratown Mountains, Pilot Mountain, the Uwharrie Mountains, Crowder's Mountain, King's Pinnacle, the Brushy Mountains, and the South Mountains. The Piedmont ranges from about in elevation in the east to about in the west.
The western section of the state is part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of the larger Appalachian Mountain range. Among the subranges of the Blue Ridge Mountains located in the state are the Great Smoky Mountains and the Black Mountains. The Black Mountains are the highest in the eastern United States, and culminate in Mount Mitchell at , the highest point east of the Mississippi River.
North Carolina has 17 major river basins. The five basins west of the Blue Ridge Mountains flow to the Gulf of Mexico, while the remainder flow to the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 17 basins, 11 originate within the state of North Carolina, but only four are contained entirely within the state's border—the Cape Fear, the Neuse, the White Oak, and the Tar–Pamlico basin.
Climate.
Elevation above sea level is most responsible for temperature change across the state, with the mountainous regions being coolest year-round. The climate is also influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf Stream, especially in the coastal plain. These influences tend to cause warmer winter temperatures along the coast, where temperatures only occasionally drop below the freezing point at night. The coastal plain averages around of snow or ice annually, and in many years, there may be no snow or ice at all.
The Atlantic Ocean exerts less influence on the climate of the Piedmont region, which has hotter summers and colder winters than along the coast, though winters are still mild.
North Carolina experiences severe weather both in summer and in winter, with summer bringing threat of hurricanes, tropical storms, heavy rain, and flooding. Destructive hurricanes that have hit North Carolina include Hurricane Fran, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Hugo, and Hurricane Hazel, the latter being the strongest storm ever to make landfall in the state, as a Category4 in 1954. Hurricane Isabel ranks as the most destructive of the 21st century.
North Carolina averages fewer than 20 tornadoes per year, many of them produced by hurricanes or tropical storms along the coastal plain. Tornadoes from thunderstorms are a risk, especially in the eastern part of the state. The western Piedmont is often protected by the mountains, which tend to break up storms as they cross over; the storms will often re-form farther east. A phenomenon known as "cold-air damming" often occurs in the northwestern part of the state, which can weaken storms but can also lead to major ice events in winter.
In April 2011, the worst tornado outbreak in North Carolina's history occurred. Thirty confirmed tornadoes touched down, mainly in the Eastern Piedmont and Sandhills, killing at least 24 people. In September 2019 Hurricane Dorian hit the area.
Parks and recreation.
North Carolina provides a large range of recreational activities, from swimming at the beach to skiing in the mountains. North Carolina offers fall colors, freshwater and saltwater fishing, hunting, birdwatching, agritourism, ATV trails, ballooning, rock climbing, biking, hiking, skiing, boating and sailing, camping, canoeing, caving (spelunking), gardens, and arboretums. North Carolina has theme parks, aquariums, museums, historic sites, lighthouses, elegant theaters, concert halls, and fine dining.
North Carolinians enjoy outdoor recreation using numerous local bike paths, 34 state parks, and 14 national parks. National Park Service units include the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore, Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site at Flat Rock, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site at Manteo, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in Greensboro, Moores Creek National Battlefield near Currie in Pender County, the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, Old Salem National Historic Site in Winston-Salem, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, and Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills.
National Forests include Uwharrie National Forest in central North Carolina, Croatan National Forest in Eastern North Carolina, Pisgah National Forest in the western mountains, and Nantahala National Forest in the southwestern part of the state.
Major cities.
In 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau released the 2023 population estimates for municipalities in North Carolina. Charlotte has the largest population, while Raleigh has the second-largest population in North Carolina.
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Most populous counties.
After the 2020 census, Wake County—with a population of 1,129,410—became the most populous county in the state, overtaking Mecklenburg County—with a population of 1,115,482—by a margin of about 14,000. Both counties are still the only to have populations over one million in North Carolina and the Carolinas region.
Statistical areas.
North Carolina has four major combined statistical areas (CSA) with a population over 1 million (as of 2023):
Demographics.
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The United States Census Bureau determined the population of North Carolina was 10,439,388 at the 2020 census. Based on numbers in 2012 of the people residing in North Carolina 58.5% were born there; 33.1% were born in another state; 1.0% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S. island areas, or born abroad to American parent(s); and 7.4% were foreign-born.
According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 9,382 homeless people in North Carolina.
The top countries of origin for North Carolina's immigrants were Mexico, India, Honduras, China and El Salvador, as of 2018[ [update]].
Race and ethnicity.
At the 2010 census, the racial composition of North Carolina was: White: 68.5% (65.3% non-Hispanic white, 3.2% White Hispanic), Black or African American: 21.5%, Latin and Hispanic American of any race: 8.4%, some other race: 4.3%, Multiracial American: 2.2%, Asian American: 2.2%, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander: 1%. In 2020, North Carolina like much of the U.S. experienced a decline in its non-Hispanic white population; at the 2020 census, non-Hispanic whites were 62.2%, Blacks or African Americans 20.5%, American Indian and Alaska Natives 1.2%, Asians 3.3%, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders 0.1%, people from other race 5.9%, and multiracial Americans 6.8%.
The majority of the Black American population is concentrated in the urban areas and northeastern part of the state.
North Carolina's Hispanic population has grown rapidly. The Hispanic population more than doubled in size between 1990 and 2000. Many of North Carolina's Hispanic residents are of Mexican descent. Many of North Carolina's newer Latino residents came from Mexico largely to work in agriculture, manufacturing, or on one of North Carolina's military installations.
The most common ancestries in North Carolina are African-American, American, German, English, and Irish.
North Carolina has the eighth-largest Native American population in the country. The state is home to eight Native American tribes and four urban Native American organizations.
Languages.
North Carolina is home to a spectrum of different dialects of Southern American English and Appalachian English.
In 2010, 89.66% (7,750,904) of North Carolina residents age five and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 6.93% (598,756) spoke Spanish, 0.32% (27,310) French, 0.27% (23,204) German, and Chinese (which includes Mandarin) was spoken as a main language by 0.27% (23,072) of the population five and older. In total, 10.34% (893,735) of North Carolina's population age five and older spoke a mother language other than English. In 2019, 87.7% of the population aged 5 and older spoke English and 12.3% spoke another language. The most common non-English language was Spanish at the 2019 American Community Survey.
Religion.
North Carolina residents since the colonial era have historically been overwhelmingly Protestant—first Anglican, then Baptist and Methodist. In 2010, the Southern Baptist Convention was the single largest Christian denomination, with 4,241 churches and 1,513,000 members. The second largest in 2024 was the Roman Catholic Church which is organised into two dioceses. In the west is the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte which includes Charlotte and has 530,000 members in 196 parishes. In the east is the Diocese of Raleigh with a total of 80 parishes and nearly 500,000 Catholics. The third largest was the United Methodist Church, with 660,000 members and 1,923 churches. The fourth largest was the Presbyterian Church (USA), with 186,000 members and 710 congregations; this denomination was brought by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled the backcountry in the colonial era. In 2020, the Southern Baptists remained the largest with 1,324,747 adherents, though Methodists and others were collectively overtaken by non/interdenominational Protestants numbering 1,053,564.
In 1845, the Baptists split into regional associations of the Northern United States and Southern U.S., over the issue of slavery. These new associations were the Northern Baptist Convention (today the American Baptist Churches USA) and Southern Baptist Convention. By the late 19th century, the largest Protestant denomination in North Carolina were Baptists. After emancipation, black Baptists quickly set up their own independent congregations in North Carolina and other states of the South, as they wanted to be free of white supervision. Black Baptists developed their own state and national associations, such as the National Baptist Convention. Other primarily African American Baptist conventions which grew in the state since the 20th century were the Progressive National Baptist Convention and Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship.
Methodists (the second largest group among North Carolinian Protestants) were divided along racial lines in the United Methodist Church and African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist tradition tends to be strong in the northern Piedmont, especially in populous Guilford County. Other prominent Protestant groups in North Carolina as of the Pew Research Center's 2014 study were non/interdenominational Protestants and Pentecostalism. The Assemblies of God and Church of God in Christ are the largest Pentecostal denominations operating in the state, while notable minorities include Oneness Pentecostals primarily affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International.
The state also has a special history with the Moravian Church, as settlers of this faith (largely of German origin) settled in the Winston-Salem area in the 18th and 19th centuries. Historically Scots-Irish have had a strong presence in Charlotte and in Scotland County.
A wide variety of non-Christian faiths are practiced by other residents in the state, including: Judaism, Islam, Baháʼí, Buddhism, and Hinduism. The rapid influx of Northerners and immigrants from Latin America is steadily increasing ethnic and religious diversity within the state. The number of Roman Catholics and Jews in the state has increased, along with general religious diversity as a whole. There are also a substantial number of Quakers in Guilford County and northeastern North Carolina. Many universities and colleges in the state have been founded on religious traditions, and some currently maintain that affiliation, including:
The state also has several major seminaries, including the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, and the Hood Theological Seminary (AME Zion) in Salisbury.
Economy.
North Carolina's 2018 total gross state product was $496 billion. Based on American Community Survey 2010–2014 data, North Carolina's median household income was $46,693. It ranked forty-first out of fifty states plus the District of Columbia for median household income. North Carolina had the fourteenth highest poverty rate in the nation at 17.6%, with 13% of families that were below the poverty line.
The state has a very diverse economy because of its great availability of hydroelectric power, its pleasant climate, and its wide variety of soils. The state ranks third among the South Atlantic states in population, but leads the region in industry and agriculture. North Carolina leads the nation in the production of tobacco.
Charlotte, the state's largest city, is a major textile and trade center. According to a Forbes article written in 2013, employment in the "Old North State" has gained many different industry sectors. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) industries in the area surrounding North Carolina's capital have grown 17.9 percent since 2001. Raleigh ranked the third best city for technology in 2020 due to the state's growing technology sector. In 2010, North Carolina's total gross state product was $424.9 billion, while the state debt in November 2012, according to one source, totaled $2.4 billion, while according to another, was in 2012 $57.8 billion. In 2011, the civilian labor force was at around 4.5 million with employment near 4.1 million.
North Carolina is the leading U.S. state in production of flue-cured tobacco and sweet potatoes, and comes second in the farming of pigs and hogs, trout, and turkeys. In the three most recent USDA surveys (2002, 2007, 2012), North Carolina also ranked second in the production of Christmas trees.
North Carolina has 15 metropolitan areas, and in 2010 was chosen as the third-best state for business by Forbes Magazine, and the second-best state by chief executive officer Magazine. Since 2000, there has been a clear division in the economic growth of North Carolina's urban and rural areas. While North Carolina's urban areas have enjoyed a prosperous economy with steady job growth, low unemployment, and rising wages, many of the state's rural counties have suffered from job loss, rising levels of poverty, and population loss as their manufacturing base has declined. According to one estimate, one-half of North Carolina's 100 counties have lost population since 2010, primarily due to the poor economy in many of North Carolina's rural areas. However, the population of the state's urban areas is steadily increasing.
Arts and culture.
North Carolina has traditions in art, music, and cuisine. The nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $1.2billion in direct economic activity in North Carolina, supporting more than 43,600 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $119million in revenue for local governments and the state of North Carolina. North Carolina established the North Carolina Museum of Art as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding and continues to bring millions into the NC economy.
One of the more famous arts communities in the state is Seagrove, the handmade-pottery capital of the U.S., where artisans create handcrafted pottery inspired by the same traditions that began in this community more than two hundred years ago.
Music.
North Carolina boasts a large number of noteworthy jazz musicians, some among the most important in the history of the genre. These include: John Coltrane, (Hamlet, High Point); Thelonious Monk (Rocky Mount); Billy Taylor (Greenville); Woody Shaw (Laurinburg); Lou Donaldson (Durham); Max Roach (Newland); Tal Farlow (Greensboro); Albert, Jimmy and Percy Heath (Wilmington); Nina Simone (Tryon); and Billy Strayhorn (Hillsborough).
North Carolina is also famous for its tradition of old-time music, and many recordings were made in the early 20th century by folk-song collector Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Musicians such as the North Carolina Ramblers helped solidify the sound of country music in the late 1920s, while the influential bluegrass musician Doc Watson also hailed from North Carolina. Both North and South Carolina are hotbeds for traditional rural blues, especially the style known as the Piedmont blues.
Ben Folds Five originated in Winston-Salem, and Ben Folds still records and resides in Chapel Hill.
The British band Pink Floyd is named, in part, after Chapel Hill bluesman Floyd Council.
The Research Triangle area has long been a well-known center for folk, rock, metal, jazz and punk. James Taylor grew up around Chapel Hill, and his 1968 song "Carolina in My Mind" has been called an unofficial anthem for the state. Other famous musicians from North Carolina include J. Cole, DaBaby, 9th Wonder, Shirley Caesar, Roberta Flack, Clyde McPhatter, Nnenna Freelon, Link Wray, Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring, Michael Houser, Eric Church, Future Islands, Randy Travis, Ryan Adams, Ronnie Milsap, Anthony Hamilton, The Avett Brothers, Charlie Daniels, and Luke Combs.
Metal and punk acts such as Corrosion of Conformity, Between the Buried and Me, and Nightmare Sonata are native to North Carolina.
EDM producer Porter Robinson hails from Chapel Hill.
North Carolina is the home of more "American Idol" finalists than any other state: Clay Aiken (season two), Fantasia Barrino (season three), Chris Daughtry (season five), Kellie Pickler (season five), Bucky Covington (season five), Anoop Desai (season eight), Scotty McCreery (season ten), and Caleb Johnson (season thirteen). North Carolina also has the most "American Idol" winners with Barrino, McCreery, and Johnson.
In the mountains, the Brevard Music Center hosts choral, operatic, orchestral, and solo performances during its annual summer schedule.
North Carolina has five professional opera companies: Opera Carolina in Charlotte, NC Opera in Raleigh, Greensboro Opera in Greensboro, Piedmont Opera in Winston-Salem, and Asheville Lyric Opera in Asheville. Academic conservatories and universities also produce fully staged operas, such as the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, the Department of Music of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and UNC Greensboro.
Among others, there are three high-level symphonic orchestras: NC Symphony in Raleigh, Charlotte Symphony, and Winston-Salem Symphony. The NC Symphony holds the North Carolina Master Chorale. The Carolina Ballet is headquartered in Raleigh, and there is also the Charlotte Ballet.
The state boasts three performing arts centers: DPAC in Durham, Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, and the Blumenthal Performing Art Centers in Charlotte. They feature concerts, operas, recitals, and traveling Broadway musicals.
Shopping.
North Carolina has a variety of shopping choices. SouthPark Mall in Charlotte is the largest and most upscale mall in the Carolinas, featuring multiple luxury tenants with their sole location in the state. Other major malls in Charlotte include Northlake Mall and Carolina Place Mall in nearby suburb Pineville. Other major malls throughout the state include Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, The Thruway Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Crabtree Valley Mall, North Hills Mall, and Triangle Town Center in Raleigh; Friendly Center and Four Seasons Town Centre in Greensboro; Oak Hollow Mall in High Point; Concord Mills in Concord; Valley Hills Mall in Hickory; Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville; and The Streets at Southpoint in Durham and Independence Mall in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Tanger Outlets in Charlotte, Nags Head, Blowing Rock, and Mebane, North Carolina.
Cuisine and agriculture.
A culinary staple of North Carolina is pork barbecue. There are strong regional differences and rivalries over the sauces and methods used in making the barbecue. The common trend across Western North Carolina is the use of premium grade Boston butt. Western North Carolina pork barbecue uses a tomato-based sauce, and only the pork shoulder (dark meat) is used. Western North Carolina barbecue is commonly referred to as Lexington barbecue after the Piedmont Triad town of Lexington, home of the Lexington Barbecue Festival, which attracts more than 100,000 visitors each October. Eastern North Carolina pork barbecue uses a vinegar-and-red-pepper-based sauce and the "whole hog" is cooked, thus integrating both white and dark meat.
Krispy Kreme, an international chain of doughnut stores, was started in North Carolina; the company's headquarters are in Winston-Salem. Pepsi-Cola was first produced in 1898 in New Bern. A regional soft drink, Cheerwine, was created and is still based in the city of Salisbury. Despite its name, the hot sauce Texas Pete was created in North Carolina; its headquarters are also in Winston-Salem. The Hardee's fast-food chain was started in Rocky Mount. Another fast-food chain, Bojangles', was started in Charlotte, and has its corporate headquarters there. A popular North Carolina restaurant chain is Golden Corral. Started in 1973, the chain was founded in Fayetteville, with headquarters located in Raleigh. Popular pickle brand Mount Olive Pickle Company was founded in Mount Olive in 1926. Fast casual burger chain Hwy 55 Burgers, Shakes & Fries also makes its home in Mount Olive. Cook Out, a popular fast-food chain featuring burgers, hot dogs, and milkshakes in a wide variety of flavors, was founded in Greensboro in 1989 and has begun expanding outside North Carolina. In 2013 "Southern Living" named Durham–Chapel Hill the South's "Tastiest City".
Over the last decade, North Carolina has become a cultural epicenter and haven for internationally prize-winning wine (Noni Bacca Winery), internationally prized cheeses (Ashe County), "L'institut International aux Arts Gastronomiques: Conquerront Les Yanks les Truffes, January 15, 2010" international hub for truffles (Garland Truffles), and beer making, as tobacco land has been converted to grape orchards while state laws regulating alcohol by volume (ABV) in beer allowed a jump from six to fifteen percent. The Yadkin Valley in particular has become a strengthening market for grape production, while Asheville recently won the recognition of being named "Beer City USA". Asheville boasts the largest number of breweries per capita of any city in the United States. Recognized and marketed brands of beer in North Carolina include Highland Brewing, Duck Rabbit Brewery, Mother Earth Brewery, Weeping Radish Brewery, Big Boss Brewing, Foothills Brewing, Carolina Brewing Company, Lonerider Brewing, and White Rabbit Brewing Company.
North Carolina has large grazing areas for beef and dairy cattle. Truck farms can be found in North Carolina. A truck farm is a small farm where fruits and vegetables are grown to be sold at local markets. The state's shipping, commercial fishing, and lumber industries are important to its economy. Service industries, including education, health care, private research, and retail trade, are also important. Research Triangle Park, a large industrial complex located in the Raleigh-Durham area, is one of the major centers in the country for electronics and medical research.
Tobacco was one of the first major industries to develop after the Civil War. Many farmers grew some tobacco, and the invention of the cigarette made the product especially popular. Winston-Salem is the birthplace of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR), founded by R. J. Reynolds in 1874 as one of sixteen tobacco companies in the town. By 1914 it was selling 425 million packs of Camels a year. Today it is the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S. (behind Altria Group). RJR is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., which in turn is 42% owned by British American Tobacco.
Ships named for the state.
Several ships have been named after the state, most famously in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II. Now decommissioned, she is part of the USS "North Carolina" Battleship Memorial in Wilmington. Another , a nuclear attack submarine, was commissioned in Wilmington on May 3, 2008.
State parks.
The state maintains a group of protected areas known as the North Carolina State Park System, which is managed by the North Carolina Division of Parks & Recreation (NCDPR), an agency of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (NCDNCR).
Armed forces installations.
Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville and Southern Pines, is a large and comprehensive military base and is the headquarters of the XVIII Airborne Corps, 82nd Airborne Division, and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Serving as the air wing for Fort Bragg is Pope Field, also located near Fayetteville.
Located in Jacksonville, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, combined with nearby bases Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, MCAS New River, Camp Geiger, Camp Johnson, Stone Bay and Courthouse Bay, makes up the largest concentration of Marines and sailors in the world. MCAS Cherry Point is home of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Located in Goldsboro, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base is home of the 4th Fighter Wing and 916th Air Refueling Wing. One of the busiest air stations in the United States Coast Guard is located at the Coast Guard Air Station in Elizabeth City. Also stationed in North Carolina is the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point in Southport.
On January 24, 1961, a B-52G broke up in midair and crashed after suffering a severe fuel loss, near Goldsboro, dropping two nuclear bombs in the process without detonation. In 2013, it was revealed that three safety mechanisms on one bomb had failed, leaving just one low-voltage switch preventing detonation.
Tourism.
Charlotte is the most-visited city in the state, attracting 28.3million visitors in 2018. Area attractions include Carolina Panthers NFL football team and Charlotte Hornets basketball team, Carowinds amusement park, Catawba Two Kings Casino (in nearby Kings Mountain), Charlotte Motor Speedway, U.S. National Whitewater Center, Discovery Place, Great Wolf Lodge, Sea Life Aquarium, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Billy Graham Library, Carolinas Aviation Museum, Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Levine Museum of the New South, McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Mint Museum, and the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Every year the Appalachian Mountains attract several million tourists to the western part of the state, including the historic Biltmore Estate. The scenic Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park are the two most visited national park and unit in the United States with more than 25million visitors in 2013. The City of Asheville is consistently voted as one of the top places to visit and live in the United States, known for its rich art deco architecture, mountain scenery and outdoor activities.
In Raleigh, many tourists visit the capital, African American Cultural Complex, Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, Gregg Museum of Art & Design at NCSU, Haywood Hall House & Gardens, Marbles Kids Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina Museum of History, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, Raleigh City Museum, J. C. Raulston Arboretum, Joel Lane House, Mordecai House, Montfort Hall, and the Pope House Museum. The Carolina Hurricanes NHL hockey team is also located in the city.
In the Conover–Hickory area, attractions include Hickory Motor Speedway, RockBarn Golf and Spa, home of the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn; Catawba County Firefighters Museum, the SALT Block, and Valley Hills Mall.
The Piedmont Triad, or center of the state, is home to Krispy Kreme, Mayberry, Texas Pete, the Lexington Barbecue Festival, and Moravian cookies. The internationally acclaimed North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro attracts visitors to its animals, plants, and a 57-piece art collection along of shaded pathways in the world's largest-land-area natural-habitat park. Seagrove, in the central portion of the state, attracts many tourists along Pottery Highway (NC Hwy 705). MerleFest in Wilkesboro attracts more than 80,000 people to its four-day music festival; and Wet 'n Wild Emerald Pointe water park in Greensboro is another attraction.
The Outer Banks and surrounding beaches attract millions of people to the Atlantic beaches every year.
The mainland northeastern part of the state, having recently adopted the name the Inner Banks, is also known as the Albemarle Region, for the Albemarle Settlements, some of the first settlements on North Carolina's portion of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The region's historic sites are connected by the Historic Albemarle Tour.
Transportation.
Transportation systems in North Carolina consist of air, water, road, rail, and public transportation including intercity rail via Amtrak and light rail in Charlotte. North Carolina has the second-largest state highway system in the country as well as the largest ferry system on the East Coast.
North Carolina's airports serve destinations throughout the United States and international destinations in Canada, Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean. In July 2022, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, which serves as the second busiest hub for American Airlines, ranked as the 11th busiest airport in the United States with Raleigh-Durham International Airport, a focus-city for Delta Air Lines and formerly a hub for American Airlines and Midway Airlines, ranked as the 37th busiest airport in the United States.
North Carolina has a growing passenger rail system with Amtrak serving most major cities. Charlotte is also home to North Carolina's only light rail system known as LYNX.
Education.
Primary and secondary education.
Elementary and secondary public schools are overseen by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction is the secretary of the North Carolina State Board of Education, but the board, rather than the superintendent, holds most of the legal authority for making public education policy. In 2009, the board's chairman also became the "chief executive officer" for the state's school system. North Carolina has 115 public school systems, each of which is overseen by a local school board. A county may have one or more systems within it. The largest school systems in North Carolina are the Wake County Public School System, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Guilford County Schools, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, and Cumberland County Schools. In total there are 2,425 public schools in the state, including over 200 charter schools. North Carolina Schools were segregated until the "Brown v. Board of Education" trial and the release of the Pearsall Plan.
Previously the SAT was the dominant university entrance examination students took. In 2004 76% of NC high school students took the SAT. In 2012 state law changed which required 11th grade students to take the ACT. The SAT testing rate fell to 46% in 2019. Because students now can take that test for free, the ACT became the dominant university entrance examination. This also caused SAT average scores to rise, as in 1996 North Carolina was 48th nationally in SAT scores, but the profile of students taking the SAT has gotten smaller.
Colleges and universities.
In 1795, North Carolina opened the first public university in the United States—the University of North Carolina (now named the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). More than 200 years later, the University of North Carolina System encompasses 16 public universities, which are Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Western Carolina University, and Winston-Salem State University, and one public, boarding high school, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Along with its public universities, North Carolina has 58 public community colleges in its community college system. The largest university in North Carolina is currently North Carolina State University, with more than 34,000 students.
North Carolina is also home to many well-known private colleges and universities, including Barton College, Belmont Abbey College (the only Catholic college in the Carolinas), Campbell University, Davidson College, Duke University, Elon University, Guilford College, High Point University, Laurel University, Lees-McRae College, Lenoir-Rhyne University (the only Lutheran university in North Carolina), Livingstone College, Meredith College, Methodist University, Montreat College, North Carolina Wesleyan University, Pfeiffer University, Salem College, Shaw University (the first historically black college or university in the South), University of Mount Olive, Wake Forest University, William Peace University, and Wingate University.
North Carolina is also home to the oldest and largest folk school in the United States, the John C. Campbell Folk School.
Health.
The residents of North Carolina have a lower life expectancy than the U.S. national average of life expectancy. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, in 2014, males in North Carolina lived an average of 75.4 years compared to the national average of 76.7 years. Females in North Carolina lived an average of 80.2 years compared to the national average of 81.5 years. Male life expectancy in North Carolina between 1980 and 2014 increased by an average of 6.9 years, slightly higher than the male national average of a 6.7-year increase. Life expectancy for females in North Carolina between 1980 and 2014 increased by 3.2 years, lower than the female national average of a 3.9-year increase.
Using 2017–2019 data, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation calculated that life expectancy for North Carolina counties ranged from 71.4 years for Swain County to 82.3 years for Orange County. Life expectancy for the state was 78.1 years. The Foundation estimated that life expectancy for the United States as a whole in 2021 was 79.2 years.
Media.
Early newspapers were established in the eastern part of North Carolina in the mid-18th century. The Fayetteville Observer, established in 1816, is the oldest newspaper still in publication in North Carolina. The Wilmington Star-News, established 1867, is the oldest continuously running newspaper. As of January 1, 2020, there were approximately 240 North Carolina newspapers in publication in the state of North Carolina.
The News and Observer was founded in 1871 and is the largest in circulation in the state. In 2006, The Charlotte Observer was acquired by the company, it is the second largest circulating news paper in the state.
Government and politics.
The government of North Carolina is divided into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. These consist of the Council of State (led by the Governor), the bicameral legislature (called the General Assembly), and the state court system (headed by the North Carolina Supreme Court). The state constitution delineates the structure and function of the state government. Most municipalities in North Carolina operate under council–manager governments.
North Carolina's party loyalties have undergone a series of important shifts in the last few years: While the 2010 midterms saw Tarheel voters elect a bicameral Republican majority legislature for the first time in more than a century, North Carolina has also become a Southern swing state in presidential races. Since Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter's comfortable victory in the state in 1976, the state had consistently leaned Republican in presidential elections until Democrat Barack Obama narrowly won the state in 2008. In the 1990s, Democrat Bill Clinton came within a point of winning the state in 1992 and also only narrowly lost the state in 1996. In 2000, Republican George W. Bush easily won the state by more than 13 points.
By 2008, demographic shifts, population growth, and increased liberalization in densely populated areas such as the Research Triangle, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, and Asheville, propelled Barack Obama to victory in North Carolina, the first Democrat to win the state since 1976. In 2012, North Carolina was again considered a competitive swing state, with the Democrats even holding their 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. However, Republican Mitt Romney ultimately eked out a two-point win in North Carolina, the only 2012 swing state Obama lost, and one of only two states (along with Indiana) to flip from Obama in 2008 to the GOP in 2012. Furthermore, Republican Donald Trump carried the state in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
In 2012, the state elected a Republican governor (Pat McCrory) and lieutenant governor (Dan Forest) for the first time in more than two decades, while also giving the Republicans veto-proof majorities in both the State House of Representatives and the State Senate. Several U.S. House of Representatives seats flipped control in 2012, with the Republicans holding nine seats to the Democrats' four. In the 2014 midterm elections, Republican David Rouzer won the state's 7th congressional district seat, increasing the congressional delegation party split to 10–3 in favor of the GOP, a split they retained in subsequent elections until 2020, when it narrowed to 8–5 in favor of the GOP. In 2016, despite Donald Trump winning the state, North Carolina voters elected Democrat Roy Cooper as governor, in part due to an unpopular law passed by former governor Pat McCrory known as HB2. Cooper went on to win re-election in 2020, despite Donald Trump narrowly winning the state again against Joe Biden.
As a result of the 2020 census, North Carolina gained another seat in the 118th United States Congress, for a total of 14. After the 2024 elections, the state was represented by 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats.
In a 2020 study, North Carolina was ranked as the 23rd easiest state for citizens to vote in.
Gerrymandering.
The state has been sued for racially gerrymandering the districts, which resulted in minority voting power being diluted in some areas, resulting in skewed representation. In 2000, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ruled that the 12th congressional district was an illegal racial gerrymander. This was again appealed, now as "Easley v. Cromartie". The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Eastern District of North Carolina in 2001 and ruled that the 12th district boundaries were not racially based but was a partisan gerrymander. They said this was a political question that the courts should not rule upon.
In 2015, federal courts again ordered redistricting. Two lawsuits challenging the state congressional district map were led by "two dozen voters, the state Democratic Party, the state chapter of the League of Women Voters, and the interest group Common Cause". They contend that the redistricting resulted in deliberate under-representation of a substantial portion of voters. This case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2019, which also heard a related partisan gerrymandering case from Maryland.
On February 4, 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the congressional and state legislative district maps drawn by the GOP-controlled General Assembly on terms of partisan gerrymandering in a 4–3 ruling. Later that month, a panel of three former judges chosen by the Wake County Superior Court drew and approved a remedial congressional map after the new map proposed by the General Assembly was struck down by the North Carolina Supreme Court. Though, the state legislative maps proposed by the General Assembly were allowed to be used. The General Assembly would then redraw all three maps for the 2024 elections in the state.
On April 28, 2023, the North Carolina Supreme Court—after Republicans gained a majority in the court following the 2022 judicial elections—overturned the same ruling in a 5–2 decision, which cleared the way for gerrymandering in the next redistricting cycle. New maps were approved by the General Assembly on October 25, 2023. All three new maps heavily favor the GOP, with allegations of racial bias made against the maps as well.
In November 2023, a lawsuit was filed against the North Carolina Senate district map—specifically the 1st and 2nd Senate districts—in the Eastern District of North Carolina, arguing the map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In December 2023, two lawsuits were filed in the Middle District of North Carolina, with the first challenging the 1st, 6th, 12th, and 14th congressional districts in the map, and the second, challenging multiple specific districts in all three maps, as racial gerrymanders. Both lawsuits were consolidated together in March 2024.
On January 26, 2024—regarding the lawsuit currently in the Eastern District of North Carolina—a preliminary injunction to block the current North Carolina Senate district map was denied, citing the "Purcell" principle. The ruling was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which upheld the lower court's decision on March 28, 2024. The lawsuit will continue in the district court, but no ruling will be made until after the 2024 elections.
Sports.
North Carolina is home to four major league sports franchises: the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League, the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association, and Charlotte FC of Major League Soccer are based in Charlotte, while the Raleigh-based Carolina Hurricanes play in the National Hockey League. The Panthers and Hurricanes are the only two major professional sports teams that have the same geographical designation while playing in different metropolitan areas. The Hurricanes are the only major professional team from North Carolina to have won a league championship, having captured the Stanley Cup in 2006. North Carolina is also home to two other top-level professional teams — the Charlotte Hounds of Major League Lacrosse and the North Carolina Courage of the National Women's Soccer League.
While North Carolina has no Major League Baseball team, it does have numerous Minor League Baseball teams, with the highest level of play coming from the Triple-A Charlotte Knights and Durham Bulls. Additionally, North Carolina has minor league teams in other team sports including soccer and ice hockey, most notably North Carolina FC and the Charlotte Checkers, both of which play in the second tier of their respective sports.
In addition to professional team sports, North Carolina has a strong affiliation with NASCAR and stock-car racing, with Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord hosting two Cup Series races every year. Charlotte also hosts the NASCAR Hall of Fame, while Concord is the home of several top-flight racing teams, including Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing, GMS Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, and Chip Ganassi Racing. Numerous other tracks around North Carolina host races from low-tier NASCAR circuits as well.
Golf is a popular summertime leisure activity, and North Carolina has hosted several important professional golf tournaments. Pinehurst Resort in Pinehurst has hosted a PGA Championship, Ryder Cup, two U.S. Opens, and one U.S. Women's Open. The Wells Fargo Championship is a regular stop on the PGA Tour and is held at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, and Quail Hollow has also played host to the PGA Championship. The Wyndham Championship is played annually in Greensboro at Sedgefield Country Club.
College sports are also popular in North Carolina, with 18 schools competing at the Division I level. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is headquartered in Greensboro, and both the ACC Football Championship Game (Charlotte) and the ACC men's basketball tournament (Greensboro) were most recently held in North Carolina. Additionally, the city of Charlotte is home to the National Junior College Athletics Association's (NJCAA) headquarters. College basketball is very popular in North Carolina, buoyed by the Tobacco Road rivalries between ACC members North Carolina, Duke, North Carolina State, and Wake Forest. The ACC Championship Game and the Duke's Mayo Bowl are held annually in Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium, featuring teams from the ACC and the Southeastern Conference. Additionally, the state has hosted the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four on two occasions, in Greensboro in 1974 and in Charlotte in 1994.
References.
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