A blip or a shift?

by | Oct 14, 2014 | 2014 Elections, Editor's Blog, US Senate | 16 comments

It seems Thom Tillis got a reprieve. The National Republican Senatorial Committee decided to invest in North Carolina after all. The good polling numbers Tillis so desperately needed showed up following debate week.

The shifts weren’t big, but they were enough to keep the national GOP interested. Tillis has been trailing consistently by two to five points, but polls released after the debates showed Hagan’s advantage had narrowed. The Republicans must have seen similar numbers in their internals.

Tillis’ movement might just reflect Hagan’s bad week, the first she’s had in a long time. In his remarks the previous weekend, the president tried to nationalize the election when Democrats, particularly in North Carolina, are trying to localize it. Then, Hagan lost the second debate in the pressroom after winning it on TV. Neither episode should be a game changer, as some conservative pundits claimed, but they gave Tillis a break he’s needed for awhile.

But the numbers could also be a trend. Maybe the state is shifting focus. The NRSC thinks it’s worth the investment to find out. Their $6.5 million buy is a significant expenditure.

Close campaigns usually move more than this one has. For Tillis to get a little momentum at this point in the cycle is not surprising. Hagan and her campaign need to make sure that they continue to control the narrative over the next three weeks. If they do, the numbers will probably stabilize and maybe move back to her advantage.

The tightening indicates what most people have been predicting for months: this election will go down to the wire. If the candidates are tied going into Election Day, the get-out-the-vote efforts will likely determine the outcome. If that happens, my money is still on Hagan.

16 Comments

  1. Mick

    And Tillis somehow ensures “the safety and freedom within this nation”? Oh, puleeze…

  2. Thomas in Jacksonville

    For the safety and freedom within this nation we can only hope Hagan is crushed.

  3. Mick

    Nick, get a clue, please? You have a right to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

    The first Moral Monday protest was launced on the last Monday of April 2013 (4/29/13). That was some 3 and 1/2 months (for you, who can’t count, well over 100 days) into McCrory’s term (he was inaugurated in a private ceremony on Jan 5, 2013). During those first days, he indicated that he would not expand Medicaid, would not set up ACA health insurance exchanges, would cut off unemployment benefits, and had already instituted cuts on existing agency budgets. And he had also submitted his first miserly budget on March 20, 2013—again, well before the first NAACP-sponsored Moral Monday protest at the Capitol. And the first march also occurred after bills in the NCGA had been proposed on voting restrictions.

    I’d say those were all GOP actions that were appropriately “protestable”.

  4. Mick

    ScaredTeacher And I have close friends who have many years in as NC educators but who have actually gotten a cut to their salaries due to that shell game Tillis and Berger played with longevity pay. Like so many others, you forget that 2008-1010 was the worst economic time in the US and in NC since the Great Depression, and despite that, Perdue attempted to ameliorate adverse effects on teacher pay but was overruled by the GOP-led NCGA in both 20111 and 2012. But you go ahead and continue to care only that “you got yours” and keep believing exactly what the Tillis and the NCGOP want the gullible to believe.

  5. ScaredTeacher

    If Hagan wins it will be because her lies were believed. This mess with education started long before Thom Tillis made it to the general assembly. The ad where the teacher/lawyer (yes, she’s a lawyer) says, “Ask a teacher.” Well, I’m a teacher and I KNOW our cuts started about 8 years ago when her party was in control. Our salaries were frozen and we were even furloughed under Bev Perdue’s disastrous term. In the last couple of years since the Republicans gained the majority I have seen at least a hint of an improvement. For the first time in almost a decade I received a significant raise. Please, please, please…VOTE FOR THOM TILLIS!!

    • Tom

      Just not true. The first problem for teachers and others was the disaster of the US economy which almost all seem to now agree was the result of policies of a Republican national administration – some of which the current GOP leadership is willing to try again. Gov. Perdue tried to restore some of the cuts and raise teachers salaries but was prevented by a Republican legislature. She worked hard – including using her veto – and tried to put almost one billion dollars back in the budget mostly for education. The taxes involved were the equivalent of asking each citizen of NC to give up a BigMac every two weeks for a year for the future of the state and it is an insult to the spirit of this state that Republicans said people would not do that. This teacher may be scared but not nearly as much as I am if he/she is teaching history, economics or political science.

      • Nick

        The NCAAP was protesting McCrory less than 2 months in. You can’t with a straight face say that 45 days into the term it was the Republicans fault. The left did what it always does…protest and ask for more government money.

      • Lily

        You got it right Tom. Scared Teacher has not clearly analyzed the facts which leads me to doubt his or her motives. There is no way in hell Thom and his little band of buddies have done anything for education in this state. But what they have done is raise the tax on fuel, allowed Duke to pass the cost of cleaning up their coal ash mess along to the consumer.

    • Lily

      Really, you must not teach math.The simple truth, If you have been teaching for more then 10 years, and received longevity pay, your salary was cut, .when Thom and his little buddies eliminated longevity pay. So in effect he cut the salaries of many teachers.

  6. Mick

    As I have always believed, that consistent 2-4 point lead of Hagan’s would slip as the election nears. I have always gotten a morbid feeling of late whenever hearing commenters say “Tillis is toast.” There’s enough money behind Tillis, his ads have gotten harsher and louder and more misrepresentative, and there are just too many NC’ers who are willing to swallow the claptrap that Tillis offers up.

    I also believe the more progressive trend seen of late in the news on social issues as well as continued difficulties the federal government has had in addressing some key issues is mustering Tillis’ regressive base and right-leaning undecideds. The negating of NC’s SSM amendment and the controversy re: the guns at the Fair, compounded by continued advancement of ISIS in Iraq and failure to totally contain Ebola in TX is reinforcing that contention that the progressives are gaining ground and the federal government is broken.

    So I am disappointed and sobered by this past week’s shift, albeit small, in the Hagan vs.Tillis poll numbers, and now believe that Tillis will win it by a few thousand votes. Too bad, as a Tillis loss is badly needed on several levels, including (1) keeping NC from sending another self-serving, clueless and obstructive partisan to DC, (2) possibly keeping the US Senate out of the hands of the nutzoids, and (3) sending a message within NC that its regressive slide will not be continuing.

    • Tom

      Survey USA poll just out has Hagan lead growing to 3.

    • feedup republican

      exactly, there are enough issues to talk about with the broken system that we currently have and all the errors in policy and foreign policy that if Tillis would actually take a stand and talk about the issues and sound like a he has no clue about the issues or what the people of NC actually want he would win by a landslide. but…………..

  7. larry

    Sen Hagan lost my support when she foolishly voted against the DREAM ACT. She did so to prove I suppose she was a moderate and to pander to the still conservative quasi Democrats she seems to be beholden to in the Piedmont. She has repeatedly taken stances that are anything but Latino friendly. Now she and other Democratic Senators (all supposedly center right Democrats) will pay the piper. The few percentage points Hagan will need here in North Carolina to win may not be there because they will stay home or skip the Senatorial line. In close states like North Carolina it would behoove Democratic candidates to understand the demographics of this state and how they have changed over the past ten years. I am a yellow dog Democrat and will vote “against” Tom Tillis not for Sen Hagan . I suspect the race might not be as razor thin for Hagan had she been a little less moderate as it relates to the Latino community.

    • Tom

      Careful how you use your vote to make a statement of disagreement on an issue. You sometimes get exactly what you deserve but all the rest of us do as well. In 1968 folks who were for Humphrey but wanted to strike out at him because he was not enough anti-war did not vote for him and got Richard Nixon and Watergate. In 2000 people who were upset with Gore for not being right on an issue or two voted for Nader or did not vote at all and they got Bush and tens of thousands for people died including thousands of young Americans. Shame on them and shame on you. Whatever your disappointment surely you know the difference in good sense, good intentions and understanding of this state and this country between Tillis and Hagan is dramatic. Your slap at Hagan hits too many of the rest of us.

      • Frank McGuirt

        Single issues should not determine where you vote goes. A voter should consider the whole package not one issue and certainly one vote cast in a chamber. Self goverance is too important for that.

      • Bob

        Very well said Tom.

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