Two weeks ago, Kay Hagan had a bad week. The polls reflected it. After maintaining a small but consistent lead for about six weeks, Tillis seemed to be closing the gap. It appears now, though, that the momentum was a blip instead of a shift. Despite ISIS and Ebola, Hagan seems to be holding her narrow lead.
A PPP poll released yesterday shows Hagan with a three point lead and few undecided voters. While the national media discounts PPP because it’s automated instead of live caller, Tom Jensen and Dean Debnam have been consistently polling North Carolina as long as any organization and have a solid track record down the stretch. They didn’t poll immediately after Hagan’s rough week, so their numbers reflect a return to the trend that has defined the race since mid-August.
While Tillis is verbally optimistic, his campaign looks more desperate. On social media, they are still trotting out more story lines. As Hagan was meeting with military families, they were trying to blame her for a Marine who was arrested and is being held in Mexico. Today, they will continue a drumbeat accusing Hagan of hiding from the electorate because of a couple of closed door meetings and not showing up at a debate she declined last summer.
It’s the kitchen sink strategy. The Tillis campaign has no single message about Hagan. Obamacare faded from view and the “95%” strategy didn’t stick so they are throwing everything at her and hoping the preponderance of evidence makes people vote against her.
At this point, though, the undecided voters are few and far between. North Carolina has been inundated with ads for a year straight. The people who haven’t chosen a candidate are extremely low information voters and may be what I call eeny-meeny-miny-moe voters. They won’t really use any information to make their decisions and will probably split relatively evenly between Hagan and Tillis.
Tillis still needs a game-changer and the national environment is still his best friend. More Ebola cases or big advances by ISIS are probably his best hope. A gaffe by Hagan or Obama continuing to run his mouth might do it, too. But, right now, Tillis has failed to give voters any real reason to vote for him and Hagan has successfully negated the attacks against her.
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 >
There is need for legislation to require a better political understanding starting in the schools.
The so called low information voter makes decisions based on questionable facts provided by the candidate. This approach makes the low information voter a target for some swede shoes salesmen, offering information which is not based on common sense and moreover appeals to their bias. A perfect example of this was a person who recently told me all the Pilgrims were christian folks and they wrote the Constitution. This, of course, is not true as some pilgrims crewing the ships and tradesmen were in fact from India, the middle east and other countries where the religion was not based on Christianity. They in fact settled in the new world. Moreover, the Constitution was drafted about 160 years, plus after the pilgrims arrival.
Folks have got to understand what the drafters of the Constitution intended by separation of church and state, freedom of religion and the ban on creating a national religion means in terms of the founders personal experiences and times. Moreover, apply these concepts to modern times.
Some voters actually believe republicans are family value folks. This of course is about as far from the truth as one can get. Family values among other things means protecting the ability of “your” folks to make a living. Factually, they have pushed for and enacted legislation which allows special interests to make a profit at the expense of the tax payer. An example of this would be the tax added to the price of fuel by North Carolina republicans to cover North Carolina loss of income due to tax breaks given special interests. Or the creation of toll roads to be built and operated by foreign business interest. The list goes on, not requiring business to pay women the same as men for equal work or raising the min. wage from a starvation level. Henry Ford realized this when said in effect pay an employee a good living wage and person will buy your product. Another personal favorite is the laws passed to allow hunters to use silencers on their rifles. A silencer has no practical value in the sport of hunting. Folks have been hunting for years without them. Many states regard silencers as a public nuisance. Allowing them to be attached to a rifle is just opening the door to all sorts of nefarious uses.
Once again, I appreciate the balanced nature of your reporting on this and the other NC races, Thomas. You seem to be one of the very few people covering NC politics capable of dropping the hyperbole, resisting the temptation to generate spin and walking that fine middle line. Good for you.
Thanks for the kind words, Katy. Hope you are doing well.
Another skewed poll sample. 81% of those in the latest PPP poll were demopublicans. Demopublicans are only 72% of the electorate.