The polls have Bernie Sanders trailing in North Carolina. Here are the numbers:
PPP: Clinton +19
SurveyUSA: Clinton +24
Civitas: Clinton +29
The average lead for Clinton is 24. In North Carolina, a “major win” for Hillary in terms of expectations would be winning two-thirds of the vote. The same would be true for Sanders if keeps the margin within single digits.
That said, where can Sanders win tonight? Here’s a look at some of the counties where he might do well:
Watauga – The quintessential college county. The college kids are going to give Bernie a big win here. In fact, his final margin here might be stunning.
Buncombe – Contains Asheville, just the sort of city where Sanders tends to do well. Like Watauga, it contains a UNC system school – UNC-Asheville.
Orange – A couple months ago PPP had a poll showing Hillary beating Bernie in Chapel Hill. But that was a long time ago. Chapel Hill, and the rest of Orange County, will “feel the Bern” tonight.
Wake – I’m not sure how Wake will go. It has establishment Democrats, liberals, and blacks. But I think Bernie can do well here – really well.
New Hanover – An overwhelmingly white county with a fairly liberal city, Wilmington. Bernie should not have any difficulty here.
Various rural counties – Jackson, Transylvania, Polk, Henderson, Madison. Each of them have a higher proportion of white liberals than one might think given its Appalachia location. Sanders will also do well in a rural-to-suburban county in the Triangle, Chatham.
Regardless of how well Sanders does in North Carolina, his support should strongly correlate with the “Against” vote for Amendment 1. Bernie has a solid hold on the liberal vote and has added a number of blue-collar whites to his coalition. But he’s going to struggle for the black vote and that should once again show up in the election results tonight.
John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.
Also, it is quite interesting how well he did in overwhelmingly Republican strongholds such Avery and Mitchell counties in the mountains. In both counties only about 10-12% of registered voters are Democrats. Sanders handily won both of them by double digits although fewer than 800 votes were cast in either county’s Democratic presidential primary.
Could his reputation of being more “gun friendly” have been a factor?
Jackson County, which Sanders did carry, is also the home of another UNC system school, Western Carolina University and it likely had more influence on his win there than UNC-A in Asheville given that WCU is larger and the overall Jackson County population much smaller than Asheville/Buncombe.