• What Happened: Lakeshia M. Alston, a lifelong Democrat who voted in Democratic primaries as recently as 2024, filed as the sole Republican candidate for North Carolina Senate District 22, ran completely unopposed, and is now officially the GOP nominee for November.
  • Why It Matters: In a Daily Caller interview, when asked about her conservative principles, Alston said "I am down for ISIS" five separate times, later claiming she meant ICE. She also admitted she doesn't "really understand the aims and values" of the Republican Party.
  • Bottom Line: North Carolina's open primary system just handed a niqab-wearing Democrat with zero campaign website, zero policy platform, and a history of voting Democrat since 2008 the Republican nomination for a state Senate seat.

You truly cannot make this up.

Lakeshia M. Alston is now the official Republican nominee for North Carolina State Senate District 22. She is a lifelong Democrat who voted in Democratic primaries as recently as 2024. She has no campaign website, no published policy platform, and an abandoned X account with two followers. She submitted her official candidate photo to the Durham County Board of Elections wearing a full black niqab, revealing nothing but her eyes. And she ran completely unopposed.

Alston filed her candidacy on December 17, 2025, as the sole Republican in the race. With no other Republicans entering before the filing deadline, the primary was canceled entirely. She advanced to the November 3 general election automatically, without receiving a single vote.

Public voter records tell the story clearly. Alston has participated in Democratic primaries and general elections since at least 2008. She voted for Democrats in 2012, 2020, and again in 2024, just one year before filing as a Republican. Under North Carolina law, candidates must be affiliated with their party for at least 90 days before filing, meaning she switched her registration no later than September 2025, immediately after casting her last Democratic ballot.

When the Daily Caller sat down with her for an exclusive interview, the results were extraordinary. Asked to name her conservative principles, Alston replied: "I am down for ISIS." She said it five times. She later claimed she meant ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, though she never clarified that during the interview itself.

She also told the interviewer: "I'm a Republican, and I don't really understand the aims and the values of what that party represents."

When pressed on why conservatives were questioning her GOP affiliation, she responded: "Are we going back to segregation time?"

The district she will represent in November is one of the bluest in North Carolina. Kamala Harris carried District 22 with 78% of the vote in 2024. The Democratic incumbent, Sophia Chitlik, won her own primary and will face Alston in the general election.

Conservatives and legal analysts are now sounding the alarm about what this exposes. North Carolina's semi-open primary system creates a loophole allowing a single person to walk into a low-turnout GOP primary unopposed and claim the nomination outright. No votes needed. No vetting required. Just a filing form and a party switch.

According to one Grok analysis, "It's a loophole that lets one person hijack a whole nomination. If this spreads, every blue district could get ghost candidates."

The North Carolina Republican Party has not commented publicly. They may want to start.