Trumpin’ North Carolina
Donald Trump is in North Carolina today helping two Republican candidates for Congress raise money. Both incumbent Rep. Ted Budd (NC-13) and Republican nominee Mark Harris (NC-09) trail their Democratic challengers in fundraising, according to the second quarter FEC...
It’s the turnout, stupid
Yesterday, I spent a good portion of the day reviewing turnout in elections over the past decade. The numbers give a lot of insight into what happened as Democrats collapsed. They also give a roadmap for Democrats to recover. The simple answer to Democratic problems...
Lessons from Florida?
My late business partner Ross Bates used to say, “Everything works until it doesn’t.” In Florida last night, we may have seen what’s not working anymore. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum won the Democratic nomination for Florida governor by defeating former...
More electoral chaos
North Carolina’s election cycle has been thrown into chaos yet again. The U.S. District Court again found the Congressional districts drawn by the legislature in 2016 unconstitutional. They also suggested that those districts should not be used this year. There’s not...
A look at state senate races
Prognosticators watching the North Carolina legislative races believe that Democrats’ best hope of overcoming the GOP’s veto proof majority lies with the House. In the Senate, Republicans hold a 35-15 majority. Democrats would need to win six seats to sustain a veto...
Like 2006
Back in 2006, the economy was chugging along at a modest rate. Unemployment was about 4.5% and economic growth was around 3%. Americans said health care and its rising costs were their greatest domestic concern. The war in Iraq had no end in sight despite George Bush...
Felling Sam
I must say, my first reaction when I saw Silent Sam lying with his face in the dirt was, “Well, he was made of better material than that statue in Durham.” Sam looked pretty much intact as he lay there. The Durham Confederate crumbled into a heap of scrap metal when...
What Holding’s numbers mean
Republican Congressman George Holding (NC-02) is clearly getting nervous. He sent out a fundraising email saying that he trails his Democratic opponent by three points. He’s not sharing his poll so it’s not clear how accurate that number is. Is it an initial...
Threatening the Supreme Court
GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse leveled a threat at the North Carolina Supreme Court that would make authoritarians the world over proud. He said that that if the court ruled against the GOP in the question of ballot language in this year’s constitutional...
The state of house races
Our maps at PoliticsNC have been updated. (Thanks, Amanda.) It’s time to take a look at the lay of the land in legislative races as we approach the end of August and the beginning of the real campaign season in September. We'll start with the House. Republicans hold a...
