Although Republicans first nominated a candidate for President of the United States, John C. Fremont, in 1856,[2] the party was not established in North Carolina until 1867, after the American Civil War.

With the help of the newly enfranchised freedmen, Republicans were briefly successful in state politics, dominating the convention that wrote the Constitution of North Carolina of 1868 and electing several governors.

[4][5] To prevent this kind of challenge, after Democrats regained control of the state legislature, in 1900 they adopted a constitutional suffrage amendment which required prepayment of a poll tax and an educational qualification (to be assessed by a registrar, which meant that it could be subjectively applied), and lengthened the residence period required before registration.

[10] White members of the Republican Party generally lived in the Piedmont near Charlotte and Winston-Salem, and the mountains in the western part of the state.

The elections of 2010 led to Republican control of both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly for the first time since 1896[14] when it had gained success in a fusionist campaign with the Populist Party.

In February 2021, the North Carolina Republican Party censured Senator Richard Burr after he voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in inciting a pro-Trump mob to storm the U.S.

[17] The next month, the party did not censure House Representative Madison Cawthorn amid numerous accusations of sexual harassment, as well as exposure of false and baseless claims that he had made about himself.

[17] In 2016, North Carolina Republicans passed laws to order transgender people to use bathrooms according to their sex assigned at birth.

On March 23, 2016, Governor McCrory signed the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act (commonly known as House Bill 2 or HB2), described at the time as the most anti-LGBT legislation in the United States.