Four years ago, Gov. Bev Perdue announced that she would not be running for re-election. In the midst of the Great Recession, her approval ratings, like those of governors across the country, were in the tank. In addition, her administration was under investigation by the State Board of Elections and the FBI. She also faced an opponent who had been raising money and building an organization for most of the previous three years. She was so unpopular that she was booed when she was introduced at a UNC basketball game.
Fast forward four years. Incumbent Governor Pat McCrory can’t seem to get his poll numbers out of the gutter. He and his administration are being investigated by federal authorities for possible pay-to-play violations. Attorney General Roy Cooper has been running against him almost since he took office. And last week he was booed when he went to Charlotte, his home town, to send off the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowl.
McCrory, though, is sticking it out and running for re-election. He’s got a tough fight ahead. He’s been consistently out-raised by Cooper, who holds an almost $1 million cash advantage. And the most recent PPP polls show him trailing Cooper by 3 points.
Perdue and McCrory seem to be on a similar trajectory. According to PPP, just after her inauguration in January 2009, Perdue had a favorability rating of 43%, unfavorable 32%. At the same period in his tenure, McCroy’s numbers were 45% favorable, 19% unfavorable. Three years later Perdue was at 32% favorable, 51% unfavorable while McCrory is also underwater at 35% favorable, 48% unfavorable.
Perdue had difficulty finding her footing with the Republican-controlled legislature. The GOP leadership ignored most of her ideas and overrode her vetoes. McCrory, for his part, has been dissed by his fellow Republicans in the legislature. They’ve treated him like a distraction, ignoring his agenda and overriding his vetoes, too.
Perdue saw the writing on the wall. In a tough economy, her chances of re-election looked slim so she bowed out. McCrory faces very similar obstacles, but with a Republican majority in the legislature and Congressional seats, he had little choice but to stay. Still, he’s a damaged candidate facing a formidable opponent. In November, we’ll see if he can find a path to victory.
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 >
Frankly, if you paid attention back then you would know that Bev was in over her head. She has always had a problem finding common ground with her adversaries. She comes off as being pompous and unattached. She just wasn’t electable and she recognized it. She should not have run the first time. Her “rein” was a disaster. She should have stepped aside and let the party find a viable candidate.
She was tainted from the start by her association with “Sleasy” Easley who should be sitting in jail right now instead of enjoying his ill gotten real estate.
Roy Cooper is a nice man, obviously intelligent but he has trouble speaking and communicating. He stammers, shudders and clears his throat constantly. The party needs to find him a speech coach.
While the NC governor’s race is a currently a dead heat – all polls well within the margin of error – I still believe McCrory likely wins in the end. Of course if he’s indicted that would change – as would the entire presidential election should Clinton be indicted. But that’s a current unknown.
Even though PPP has McCrory slightly behind, their polls also show a large unfavorable for Obama in NC (54-42 unf), and they show all of the serious Republican candidates currently beating both Clinton and Sanders.
I just don’t think, with the current president’s unpopularity in our state, that November bodes well for Democrats in NC.
I never felt as if there was something terribly wrong about Governor Perdue. I was disappointed that she didn’t run.
The thing being sold as the Connect Bond, was developed for her. I’m not for it as a bond but want state and Federal Taxes used for what is left over after the all important superhighway from Morehead City to I-95 & I-40.
Roy Cooper could easily lose. He doesn’t say anything, but when he did it was along the lines of, “I agree with Pat, those refugees could be trouble.” If he starts saying that he’d do all he could to pass an increase in the minimum wage and point at those in this state who decide that it is great to have 25 percent of NC living in poverty, he’d do better against Pat McCrory whose presence on Facebook is always there either complaining about how the EPA is making everybody poor or smiling at some ground breaking.
There isn’t much that I have seen in his face to make me understand why he even wants to be Governor.
NC is difficult. There are an awful lot of self righteous know it alls on either side the ideological divides.
I actually think one of the reasons she bowed out was to make sure we had a Democratic primary… Otherwise, few Democrats would have showed up. If you recall, there was an amendment to be voted on making gay marriage against our constitutional law. She probably hoped that enough liberals would show up to defeat it. I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons, as well, but she fell on the sword for us at least a little.
There’s a great deal of misrepresentations and dispersions being cast in both this article and the comments above. Admittedly, former Gov. Perdue got off to a shaky start, but she was neither an unpopular governor nor was she ineffective, and she would have trounced McCrory in a fair electoral contest. As with Meg Phipps before her, who was framed primarily for not going along with the good-ole-boy network that has virtually run many aspects of this state from the shadows for decades, when you step on the ‘big boys’ toes they play dirty pool in turn; this is what happened to former Governor Purdue when she had the fortitude to place a moratorium on fracking in NC. in an effort to protect the public welfare over the designs of the US. energy industry. Had things been otherwise, Beverly Purdue, who was a longtime active democratic political insider, would never have opted to run for a second term, nor would the Democratic party have allowed that. The fact that she quit the race at the eleventh hour into the contest, a betrayal no loyal partisan candidate would ever do to their party faithful, is the smoking gun that points to foul play by the energy industry operatives. Also, it should be noted, former Governor Purdue to this day will not reveal the reasons for her decision under any circumstance, so whatever threats were made struck to the heart. Popularity polls are no bellwether of substance or outcome as they change with every new direction the wind blows, regardless of what Mr. Mills thinks. Witin days of taking office, McCrory reminded Purdue’s moratorium on fracking.
One major difference.
Purdue had a sense of shame.
McCrory does not.
You’re being too soft on Perdue. Her numbers really fell apart when Dems were running the GA, in large part because she looked fickle and unprincipled. And every governor had to deal with a bad economy, yet only she finished dead last in popularity. The bottom line is she did a terrible job as governor and cost our party mightily.
I think A.L. may be right in this one, Thomas. But much will depend on which Presidential campaign can best turn out their supporters.
But McCrory will have gobs of dark money boosting his candidacy via the Republican Governors Assn. and other outside sources, and he and his handlers are not above using innuendo and outright lies to tar his opposition. So I look at his trailing by 3 points as an easy deficit to overcome, and I think it will be overcome. McCrory will win by the narrowest of margins—I’m guessing narrow enough so that it will be determined, post-election, that Dem votes lost to the new GOP voter non-access law were likely key to his victory.
Unless, of course, the investigation into his pay-to-lay gambit leads to more discoveries and serious charges, or some other scandal comes to the fore….
Yes, but I’ll guess we’ll find out whether the deluge of out-of-state GOP dark money will be enough to neutralize McCrory’s many weaknesses as a candidate.