*By Christian Smith*
North Carolina may be gun safety advocates' best bet for making legislative inroads this November, said Sarah Ullman, filmmaker and founder of One Vote at a Time, a PAC that creates free campaign ads for pro-gun safety candidates.
"I think North Carolina is really interesting right now," Ullman said Monday in an interview on Cheddar. "People smell an opportunity to make huge, huge gains for Democrats."
North Carolina, a state with a strong firearms culture and deep ties to the NRA, might seem an unlikely place for gun safety advocates.
But thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling requiring the state to redistrict in an effort to curb gerrymandering, Ullman believes Democrats can make real progress.
Republicans in North Carolina currently hold a supermajority in both the state's House and Senate, which means both bodies can box Democrats out of policy decisions. Ullman hopes that through her team's work, Democrats can win back enough seats and end the GOP's stronghold on the state legislature.
This year, One Vote at a Time will work with 190 candidates across 10 states, she said. To make the cut, a candidate must stand a chance of winning and also be pro-gun safety ー the definition of which the PAC determines on a state-by-state basis.
"What it means to be pro-gun safety is very different in Texas versus North Carolina," Ullman said. "We have a political adviser, we talk to different political people in the state to make an assessment on which candidates are the best for us."
The cost of ads varies, since different states have vastly different rules about the amount of money a PAC can contribute to a campaign. To limit costs, One Vote at a Time executes many simultaneous ad shoots for candidates in a single day, so the organization can distribute the cost across several campaigns.
The ads run online and, if the candidate's campaign can afford it, on local broadcast networks.
One Vote at a Time has raised just over a $1 million this year.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/from-films-to-filings-why-one-director-decided-to-make-her-own-super-pac).
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