Facing the voters: Kate Compton Barr
- Chuck Thompson
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
By Chuck Thompson | The Shelby Independent
Kate Barr doesn’t hide the fact that she is a Democrat running as a Republican. She has made it clear several times in the past; I even asked her point-blank, “So, you’re a Democrat running as a Republican?”
Her response, without hesitation – “Yes,” but then she explained that she feels more like “A woman without a partisan home.”
Barr expanded her answer, stating, “I want America to work for everyone; it never has, and probably never will – but we're not working to make that much better.”
Openly, she answered my questions, adding that transparency was important.
“I think transparency and integrity is lacking and we’re at a time where voters should have a choice and politicians not cake walk back to their seat – and I feel that way regardless of party, so this is the place that I could challenge.”
And that challenge she is referring to is challenging Republican Incumbent U.S. Representative Tim Moore of Cleveland County.
Barr said she has been a lifelong Democrat but describes herself as more progressive or even a populist and said she’s running on a tax cut – she claims that’s part of her platform, which confuses some voters of their perception of Barr – if only for a moment.
Until May 2025, Barr was a registered Democrat, having campaigned for office once before as a Democrat. Now, she is running as a Republican, against Tim Moore for the 14th U.S. Congressional District of North Carolina, and holds no qualms with admitting she’s not a real Republican.
“I don’t feel like I fit neatly in a box,” she noted. “I’m mad at everyone in DC to be completely honest.” She believes people have come to power in an unjust system, as she described it.
She also said she isn’t a far-leftist, when asked.
“I want to build something new,” she said. “If you put me in a box then I’m a Democrat, but I don’t want (people) to do that.” But Barr reiterated she is more Democrat, Unaffiliated, Populist and Progressive, than Republican.
Barr speaks with an accent more akin to a mix of Charlotte, Greensboro, or Raleigh, with a hint of Michigan / Minnesota, absent the typical Carolina Southern draw as found in Cleveland County. She said she spent about six years living in Michigan before moving back to North Carolina.
She was the C.E.O. of a company called Pip and Grow, before leaving in 2021 to pursue better work-life balance and focus on her career in behavioral science. The company is described as a social, environmental-conscious company based in North Carolina that manufactures safe, cardboard baby bassinets known as the "Smitten" baby box.
But Barr said she describes herself first, and most importantly, as a mom and a wife.
Married to her husband for 20 years, and the mom to two kids, she noted, “That is a job of a lifetime – and which is how I ended up doing this nonsense.”
That nonsense she is referring to is political activism and just politics itself.
Barr said she looks at her kids and doesn’t like the world they are growing up in and wants to change that.
“I feel like our country is on the wrong track and nobody is doing anything to stop it.” Barr insists that politicians are drawing maps to keep themselves power, “I can’t leave that world for my kids. I try being a good parent and leaving behind a democracy that works better than the one we have right now.”
Barr is referring to what she claims is Gerrymandering. It’s been the heavily central focus of her campaign this time and when she ran for the 37th district in 2024. Barr claims the districts are drawn to favors Republicans, in districts drawn that stretch to cover more voters of one party than another.
But when is it unfavorable? Depending on who is in office? Democrats in North Carolina have issues with the districts that are represented by Republicans, which have been the majority in the General Assembly for some time; but is that due to Gerrymandering or because of voters deciding?
“We are a super purple state,” Barr said. “The most purple, maybe, in the United States, and it should look that way.”
Barr explained that when she ran for the 37th NC Senate district (as a Democrat) it was to prove a point that Gerrymandering is real; knowing she would lose.
A candidate losing a race in one district doesn’t necessarily prove Gerrymandering, but Barr said that was the whole purpose of her campaign in 2024, noting, “I was radically transparent that I would lose and used it as an opportunity to show how our maps are drawn and use that to educate the public.”
But she also told The Shelby Independent that she decided to get into politics in 2016, when Trump was elected president the first time, stating, “I was so sad and frustrated and angry that I decided to use my background in behavioral sciences and blend it with politics.”
She said districts affect everything from traffic patterns to your wallet, to trash pick-up – something that for rural areas and small towns is usually based on either private, county, or town services, but Barr said is very much affected by who serves in congress.”
Since she believes districts are not fair in North Carolina, I asked Barr what she considered fair - an answer that varied on each location. She said that farmers should be represented by farmers and not be intermingled with the same people that, just as an example, are represented in Uptown Charlotte; that districts should be more of a circle, localized and balanced with a 50/50 split of republican a democrat voters – something that is hard to find when you have some deep red counties and deep blue counties – and idea almost impossible to achieve.
“It’s not as easy as we think it is – districts need to be compacted together,” she explained. “You don’t need one stretched from east to west, or north to south, but a circle or a square and each district needs to account for their own communities of interest.”
She continued, adding, “If you have a community of farmers, they need to elect a leader that can advocate for them – and if you’re in a business area, then that’s what is needed.”
“What I want is fair map making; I’m a map person – if we could draw a million map iterations that could result in different outcomes I want the map that is chosen that has the most common result – like a bell curve that lands in one medium of standard deviation and that’s where independent districting is so important.”
Barr continued by stating that she would like to see as many districts as possible with a 50/50 or at least a 49/51 split, but that would be difficult in many places as possible, as she said, “But I’m also realistic … there’s just not a lot of flexibility in there,” noting that due to where voters live that she said would still be participating in Gerrymandering – stating that it just isn’t something that could ever be perfectly designed to please everyone.
So, the big question remained – which was asked: If you go to congress elected as a Republican, but you’re not really a Republican, would you vote with the Democrats most of the time?
Barr said she expects congress to behave in a partisan position – she said she most identifies as a pragmatist, but…
“Maybe,” she said truthfully, when asked if she would vote Democrat.
The next question asked if the local GOP county parties have any type of relationship with her.
“Oh, they hate me,” she replied, expanding on her answer, blaming Tim Moore for the district being drawn as it is, but acknowledging voters are voters and they get to choose.
“I think he (Moore) has to answer for it and explain his situation,” but she said it’s up to the people, “Let the people choose and make sure they have a voice; and if they don’t choose you that’s okay. I’m so tired of shenanigans and promising one thing and doing another – and if they agree then they vote for me, and if not, then not.”
The conversational interview then jumped to the cost of living, an issue she wanted to discuss as our time was running out. Mentioning a set of bills that she would like to see passed to become law.
“My primary focus is fair (district) maps, but this trio of bills, and what those bills do is, make the first $100,000 income tax free."
A nice idea that looks good on paper but requires both the House and the Senate and then have the President sign into law.
This first $100,000 would be tax free income, something she wants to see across the board, regardless of your income or net worth. However, Barr said when you make more than a million dollars a year, your taxes go way up.
“If you’re making that kind of money you’re most absolutely benefiting from infrastructure.”
When asked if she could further explain her infrastructure comment, she said the roads and bridges, etc., used to travel every day, for shipping and selling of goods, that the infrastructure is benefiting them more than anyone else that uses the same infrastructure every day.
“It (the income tax) gets pretty high,” she said, when asked what percentage. Stating it would be somewhere around 37-42 percent federal taxes (plus there is state income tax not included). The current tax rate on a million dollars is 37% not including state taxes, and she also included capital gains and inheritance tax, which could possibly greatly change things and potentially affect the economy if capital gains were to be taxed at 42% as income. The current rate varies from 0% to 15%, 20% and 37% on short-term gains, but if increased to 42%, could possibly see a sudden overnight shift of overseas multimillionaires and billionaires – that which New York and California are experiencing now, as their high-earning residents flee for tax-friendlier states, such as Florida, South Dakota, Texas and Tennessee, just to name a few.
Once you hit 100 million net worth? – never got a definitive answer but the general idea was most of it would be taxed.
'So, you're saying they should be punished for making it?' was the question.
“Yeah,” she answered quickly.
(Kate Barr interview continued below)
“We have to treat every dollar the same,” she explained. “That dollar should be treated the same as the dollar on the stock market or inherited from grandma.”
Are you a Socialist? Was the follow-up question, to which she replied by saying that President Donald Trump was more of a socialist than she was, but there was not a clear alleged 'no' - nor an alleged 'yes.'
However, she would also like to see a minimum wage of $20 an hour, as she shifted the conversation.
“Our minimum wage has been stuck, and inflation has still gone up,” she replied.
Research on California's $20 fast-food minimum wage that went into effect in 2024, showed that many small business and large chains raised prices and laid off employees to offset higher labor costs, effectively putting most things right back where they were but with a different price, ultimately which will lead to demands to raise the minimum wage yet again. A vicious cycle that never fixes itself in the long term that has to constantly increase over time to fight the ever-increasing prices that come with paying higher wages. A Catch-22 that never ends.
Also, supply and demand, a lack of products and materials during the Covid era, caused the most recent inflation in the past five years. The increase in prices were mostly driven due to limited availability for appliances and other materials, and a strain on housing as first time buyers had to compete with other families fleeing certain areas, large corporations and institutional investors as the population swelled during the Biden administration due to unmitigated immigration.
Barr had a closing comment, wanting unaffiliated voters to know they can vote in the primary for either party.
“They absolutely can and I hope they do, whether they vote in the Republican or Democrat primary; this is important."
She closed by saying, “I hope all of the Unaffiliated voters and Republican voters in District 14 know this is their opportunity to decide who goes to Congress. I hope they do their homework and make the choice that feels good to them when it comes to the decision they are making.”
The 2026 Primary is March 3.
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Chuck Thompson is a reporter and columnist for The Shelby Independent.
The Shelby Independent.