The Elon University poll came out this week. North Carolina voters are an ornery bunch right now. They don’t like much of anything. In particular, though, they don’t like Kay Hagan. Her approval rating is upside down at 35-47. According to most public polls, it’s been stuck there for awhile.
Her numbers were initially driven down by the slew of anti-Obamacare ads launched against her last fall and winter. They are staying down because voters haven’t been given any reason to change their minds and their general view of Congress is dismal. The danger for Hagan is that the numbers solidify.
Right now, Hagan’s still an undefined quantity in the minds of many voters. At some point, though, her approval numbers will become more ingrained and they’ll be hard to change. Historically, that phenomena takes place closer to the election after the ad campaigns have begun and voters are tuning into the election. This year, the advertising began six months ago even though voters are still relatively disengaged. Who knows when the general perception will set in?
If I were running the campaign, (but I’m not and I don’t have access to internal polling) I would try to get her approval rating up. With $8.5 million on hand, she can afford to start talking to voters about herself and not just her opponent. Here’s my first ad of the cycle:
Hagan to the camera in an office setting or living room.
I’m Kay Hagan. A little over five years ago, you sent me to Washington to make a difference.
You asked me to stand up for North Carolina families and I have.
I’ve resisted the partisan gridlock that’s made Congress so dysfunctional.
I’ve chosen what’s right for the people at home instead of just toeing the party line.
That’s why National Journal named me Washington’s most moderate Senator.
I’m Kay Hagan and I approve this message. Help me make Washington work again.
To win, I think Hagan needs to differentiate herself from the problems in Washington. She also needs to let voters know that she understands their dissatisfaction with Congress. And she needs to let the moderate voters who determine elections that she’s not one of the ideologues causing gridlock and partisan rancor. Finally, by asking for help, she is acknowledging the power of the electorate to make a difference.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
And Tillis will be Ted Cruz 2.0. In my eyes, the best and the most appealing thing about Kay is, she isn’t Thom Tillis. There’s no challenge to her being moderate and in that regard, she strongly represents the majority of North Carolina people.
Tillis’ own ads communicate what he is. He disparages politicians, and yet, he wants to be one on a bigger scale. He touts being a ‘businessman’ like that is a badge of honor or unique. He has spearheaded some of the most egregious legislation that has come before this or any other state house in the nation of recent memory and is self-righteously proud of it.
I don’t agree with some of the things Kay has committed to. I don’t think anyone in that position would enjoy universal approval across a broad spectrum of issues but as a moderate, she appeals to a large segment of the population. Tillis can’t say that, as Alex Jones surmised yesterday in his piece.
Thom Tillis is a self-professed and practicing conservative. The only moderate thing about him is the approach he takes to his media ads. Tillis is the wolf in moderate clothing and will do and say anything to get to Washington.
Thom Tillis; he doesn’t want to shepherd the flock, he wants to devour it.
Troy — and isn’t the the only viable tactic here for Kay, to go negative? I mean, here we are, and no one from the Dem side says that she’s the next Dem Senate savior, or more than a “not GOP” vote.
The counter to that will be to keep doing what they are doing — that unless Kay and other Dems are gone, you’re not gonna get rid of the Dem leadership, and therefore, no changes to the current situation INCLUDING an ACA fix.
From a simple strategic view, the Dems should’ve pushed their Senate leadership overboard 2 years ago right after the election. But Reid holds the keys to the election funds (as does Nan in the House) and none dare raise their hand against them.
Geek, Kay needs to firm up her positives first. She has to define herself to the voters (and yes I know 5 years should have been enough time to do that). A good ad campaign can improve her image enough so the voters aren’t looking at a pure ‘lesser of two evils’ choice. Besides like most everyone else this cycle Kay will mostly keep her hands clean until closer to the election and let the DSCC and third party groups do the mudslinging.
Well, the “positives” should be things that aren’t easy to refute, which is what I guess I was saying.
Frankly, I think all she need do is go point by tortureous point onTillis’ record. The voters will decide how well they can live by sending him to Washington or keeping him in North Carolina.
As for my views of the race, they’re quite simple actually. I grew up in a blue collar middle class family that moved constantly in pursuit of better wages and working conditions. Both of my parents were born and raised in the North Carolina mountains. Both endured the effects of The Great Depression and what it did to those of simple means. I won’t regale you with some of the adjectives and descriptions my father had for Republicans. Suffice to say that if you had a (R) behind your name as a politician, Satan himself would have been more welcome at the dinner table in our house, had it come to that.
I’m not that concrete in my stance on Republicans and the Republican party, but I’m not that far off either. But one thing I heard over and over again has stuck it holds my view and sway in the context of what is meant by it. “A working man that would vote a Republican ticket – – By God, aughta starve.”
Dad’s been dead almost 30 years. Thom Tillis never laid eyes on him nor heard him utter those words, but it’s like Thom sees them as prophecy in how he deals with those that work for someone else and depend on gainful employment provided by another as a means of providing for their subsistence.
So even though I have an undergrad in politics and a graduate degree in public administration, my views and political trappings don’t stray far from that simple premise. Nor my thoughts far from those I’ve suffer as a result of it. People that out of desperation were forced to a live an existence outside the realm of normalcy and in some instances, outside the law, just to survive.
I don’t like some of the planks in the Democratic platform, gun control being chief among them. But I also know it is easier to fight, if we must, on full stomachs than empty ones. At least the Democratic party shows some empathy towards the working class still. Not as much as it should, not as much as it purports, but some.
I realize too that those views, those tenets prefaced above, are of a Democratic party of a by-gone era. But if you step back and look at it with eyes wide open, that is where the Democrats are losing in my view. It looks not at ‘working man’ and see him as being blue. No, it divides, sub-divides, and then quarters than on down; race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, physical or mental impairment.
If you work for someone else, if you’re a small business owner, and 15 employees or less is what I call a small business owner, the Republican party wants you…just until you get in and out of the voting booth. Democrats emerse themselves in what I will term ‘high browed socially utopic ideals’ that many neither understand or embrace. It’s time they lost that locus of identity, at least in part, and appeal to the young and old alike. Find allegiance with the working class, the common folk who live in obscurity and all they ask for is a way to earn a living and improve their lives and make life easier for children and families in the process. That used to be referred to as the American Dream. Now it simply resonates as hollow and meaningless. All things are possible as long as people have hope. But given the current state of affairs, hope is rapidly evaporating. Embrace those people, help those that are down on their fortunes or short on opportunity, no matter hard they might work to get ahead. Oh sure I’ve heard, “give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” Well, it doesn’t do a lot of good to teach a man to fish and then take him to a dry lake to cast his line into.
Now my views may not be viably mainstream for the modern Democratic electorate, or the new crop of voters that need to be enticed. They do, however, work for me.
Absolutely entirely agreed Troy.
Given your hatred for Kay, I’d say your reluctance for her to go negative is all we need to know…YES, go for the throat.
Tom — I do admire your skills. I admire your loyalty.
But no one believes that ad. Sorry. And I’m only gonna point out what you’d say if the party shoe was on the other foot. And if you don’t address that inevitable response, you’re just wasting money.
She’s basically an extra vote for Nevada (100% vote agreement with Reid). She answers THAT phone call in person, not letting her Young Democrat staff have the chance to mess it up. Mind you — this is the way the world works, that Senators (and Reps!) are pretty much in lock step with their leadership. But this is hardly ” stand up for North Carolina families.”
She’s in the bottom 50% in leadership in the Senate, #37 out of 53 among Dems.
I look at the list of bills she’s sponsored, and I fail to see that she’s taken an active role in anything that most NC families value.
And get this… NOTHING she’s introduced as become law in her almost 6 years. NOTHING. She’s not a leader by any means.
So she’s not a leader. And she doesn’t do good constituent services either.
Except for the fact that a vote for a republican is a vote to destroy civilization. “Not part of the partisian gridlock” is disingenous because the Republicans ARE the reason for partisian gridlock and being cowardly is not the way out.
Tillis will be a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME and get nothing done. Want an add that will work? Portray repubclians as the lazy folks they are. Make Tillis answer why the house is so lazy and isn’t passing bills and working so few days. A republican senate is a LAZY senate.
Oh and they’ll also get into your bedroom.
Based on your experience and admiring your insight I think you’re offering the senator good advice, I hope she heeds it.