A stable race

by | Oct 27, 2014 | 2014 Elections, Editor's Blog, US Senate

Two polls were released yesterday that show the race for US Senate in North Carolina is essentially unchanged. Tillis supporters will point to the NBC/Marist poll that shows the race tied after Hagan holding a four point lead in September. But the CBS/New York Times/YouGov poll shows Hagan ahead by three. Combined with polls released by PPP and WRAL last week, that puts the race where it’s been for the past few weeks–Hagan up by low single digits.

The campaigns also telegraph their moves. I haven’t watched much broadcast television lately, but during the World Series Saturday night, I saw about six Tillis ads to a single Hagan ad. The Tillis ads are all aimed at persuading voters in general and bashing Hagan. The Hagan ad was clearly targeted to women.

The Hagan campaign seems to have shifted its focus to shaping the electorate. The DSCC is running two ads designed to separate Tillis from his Tea Party base. Tea Partiers don’t trust Tillis and are particularly mad at him for his support of toll roads. The DSCC ads blast Tillis for that support and hope that Tea Partiers will either skip the race or vote for Sean Haugh.

The Democratic turnout machine is also out in full force. In-person early vote started on Thursday and so far Democrats are dominating it. Registered Democrats have cast 48% of the vote so far, Republicans 31% and Unaffiliated voters 20%. Of those, 24% are African-Americans.

With six more days of early voting, Republicans have plenty of time to catch up. Or maybe they are preparing to replicate their highly successful “72 hour program” from 2004 and load up the polls on Election Day. Right now, though, Democrats are banking votes and a lot of them come from people who didn’t vote in 2010.

If the race comes down to turnout, like so many people have said, Hagan has the advantage. This is the fourth cycle that the GOTV effort pioneered in the Obama 2008 has been employed. They have veteran volunteers and organizers on the ground and the process is essentially the same even if the technology and data are more advanced. The GOP may have upped its ground game, but, so far, they haven’t put numbers on the board.

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