For years, Democrats in the South mastered the art of tacitly supporting the Democratic nominee for president and then avoiding any contact with him for the duration of the campaign. Rob Christensen recently illustrated the point when he related the story of Walter Mondale’s 1984 campaign stop in North Carolina. Jim Hunt was governor and in the midst of his famous US Senate race against Jesse Helms. Attorney General Rufus Edminsten, the Democrat, was in a battle with then-Congressman Jim Martin for governor. Neither Hunt nor Edminsten greeted the presidential nominee when his plane arrived in the state and the highest ranking Democrat to welcome him was Agriculture Secretary Jim Graham. Even hiding couldn’t save the Democrats from the Republican wave that year, though. Hunt narrowly lost to Helms and Martin became only the second Republican governor of North Carolina since Reconstruction.
Back in those days, Democrats at the state level had to win in spite of the presidential nominee, not because of him–and they were all “hims.” This year, Republicans might need to learn the same trick. Donald Trump may be the Republican nominee, but he’s stuck with an approval rating that is -25 or so. Numbers like that should scare anybody in a competitive race.
Republicans like Richard Burr and Pat McCrory will face a tougher task than the Democrats before them. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Democrats didn’t count on North Carolina to win the presidency. In 2016, Trump has to have it to win the White House. He will undoubtedly campaign here and McCrory, Burr and other Republicans will need to make a choice. They can either campaign with him and risk alienating middle of the road voters, particularly women, who find Trump so distasteful, or they can risk alienating the fickle Trump supporters who made him the nominee. Not many of those folks would forgive a candidate for dissing their guy.
Hillary Clinton could make the race even tougher for Republicans. She’s already putting staff on the ground in North Carolina. By making Trump fight for the state, she’ll force him to spend more time here instead of other states he needs to reach 270 electoral votes. McCrory, Burr and a host of Congressional candidates will need to answer where they stand on the presidential nominee and whatever craziness he might have unleashed that week. For Republicans in North Carolina, 2016 could be a very long year.
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 >
Consequently, our US Senate race will be very competitive, perhaps the closest in the entire country–again. Tillis only beat Kay Hagan by 1.7%, and that happened without Trump on the ballot.
It is distressing to witness time and again how blind people become to their own folly, especially where politics is concerned. In the case at hand, the presumptive Democratic nominee is by far the worst evil, yet they demonize a populist republican nominee. We’ll see how that negative 25% approval rating pans out if the democrats proceed with their republican neo-con agenda of placing HRC in the White House.
That’s a very interesting point that the Donald will have to campaign here. It’s probably safe to hang with the Donald out in the hinterlands, but my understanding is that he’s not going over well in the suburbs. For the Dems to make progress in the NCGA, it’s necessary to win the burbs of Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem.
And guess what? The unholy gerrymandering of 2010 combined swaths of the burbs with rural areas in district after district. So many of the GOP districts contain, by design, a mix of suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas. This is gonna be fun to watch, because what is a necessity in one part of the district may well be toxic in another. And vice versa.
The law of unintended consequences has many ways to bite, it must be remembered. But this particular bit of grief couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch. Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo is keeping score of how national GOP officials are handing Trumps ascendancy. He’s broken it into 5 categories: 1) Endorse, 2) “Supporting the Nominee”, 3) Mum’s the Word, 4) Fuzzball and 5) NeverTrump. Perhaps someone (hint, hint) should keep a similar list of NCGA elected officials?