NC Democrats’ Green Party problem

by | Mar 28, 2018 | 2018 elections, Editor's Blog, NC Politics | 17 comments

The state got a new political party this week when the state board of elections voted to certify the Green Party. The party that nominated Jill Stein in 2016 and Ralph Nader in 2000 joins Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians on the ballot. In 2016, North Carolina was one of only three states that did not allow Stein on ballot because the Green Party was not officially a party.

The GOP passed election reform laws that allowed easier access to the ballot. Now, any party that gets on the ballot in 35 states during a presidential election is automatically eligible. Parties can also get on the ballot with about 12,000 signatures. In the past, parties needed to get signatures from about 90,000 registered voters to get on the ballot and needed to receive at least 2% of the vote to stay on the ballot in subsequent elections.

The Libertarian Party is the only other party that’s been able to stay on the ballot in North Carolina. They don’t seem to pull from either party directly. They’re against regulation and taxes which appeals to Republicans but they’re also pro-choice, pro-LGBT rights, and pro-marijuana legalization. If they pull from the GOP, they would pulling from the middle where the most pragmatic Republicans live.

In the long term, these changes could transform elections in North Carolina. The two dominant parties are struggling to hold their coalitions together. Democrats’ left flank is perpetually dissatisfied with centrist candidates who can win statewide, accusing them of being Republican-lite. Republicans’ right flank call their centrists RINOs, for Republican in Name Only. The fastest growing segment of registered voters is unaffiliated.

Imagine a bunch of single-issue parties. We could see a gun-rights party or abortion rights party. There’s apparently a Constitutional Party trying to get on the ballot. Any of those parties could syphon votes from one of the major parties, especially in a presidential year.

The Green Party probably won’t play much of a role in a midterm like 2018 but could pose a significant problem for Democrats in 2020 and beyond. They excite the aspirations of the Democrats’ left-wing with a platform promoting renewable energy, universal health care, a protectionist foreign policy and an emphasis on equal rights. In a state where the governor’s race was decided by about 10,000 votes, the Green Party could offer people disgruntled over something like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline a place to go.  Unlike the Libertarian Party, which has little appeal to the GOP’s right flank, the Green Party platform is an uncompromising version of parts of the Democratic Party’s agenda.

That’s not the only possible outcome, of course. The arrival of the Green Party could also force the Democrats to articulate more of a vision, making it  a stronger party. By 2020, we could also see right-wing populist parties that steal GOP votes, offsetting any losses Democrats see. Over time, we could become a multi-party state like New York. Democrats and Republicans will likely remain dominant but in the most competitive state in the nation, a few votes here and a few votes there could make a big difference.

17 Comments

  1. Lee Mortimer

    Rather than new parties being a “problem” or liability for the two major parties, they could become assets for generating enthusiasm and participation from voters who might otherwise stay on the sidelines. But to do that, we have to move away from plurality, winner-take-all elections that make “spoiler” outcomes inevitable.

    Several ways exist for moving beyond that quagmire. One that would avoid spoiler outcomes is ranked-choice voting. Voters in Maine will decide this June whether to use RCV for primaries and many statewide elections. Voters rank the candidates, and the lowest polling candidates are eliminated until one candidate emerges as the majority winner.

    I have concerns about the cost and technical challenges of the Maine proposal. But a simplified version could be implemented with little or no changes to existing election machinery. European parliamentary systems are not inherently more oriented to multiple parties. Multiple parties result from proportional representation elections used by most parliamentary systems (Great Britain and France are two exceptions).

    In the process, we could end gerrymandering and redistricting lawsuits once and for all.

  2. Kevin Farrell

    The solution is an all-comers primary similar to what they have in California (or like the French presidential system), Let each party have it’s own private nomination process or none at all (None at all is what Cal. Dems do, hich is why they end up complaining about the system so much). In the end there will be a binary choice. The general election would always produce a majority winner. Disparate groups will have to come together and form coalitions in advance of the general. Coalitions will likely change from cycle to cycle based on current issues and the challenges we face at that time. I think this will help bring back non-voters who are disgusted by “both sides”.

    We do not need institutionalized political parties of uncertain and sometimes unsustainable ideological makeups (we elect individuals, but parties are currently quasi-official and state sanctioned). Furthermore, as a taxpayer and unafiliated voter, I resent being forced to pay for winnowing process conducted by the established parties.

  3. Mark Ortiz

    NC was one of three states where Stein was qualified as a write-in. There were three more states where you couldn’t even vote for her that way, and in Tennessee she was on the ballot as unaffiliated. The Green Party is now on the ballot in slightly less than half the states, and will probably get on by petition in most by 2020.

    The new law merely brings NC in line with national norms for ballot access.

    Now what’s needed is to improve matters for unaffiliated candidates. It now takes about six times as many signatures to get one unaffiliated candidate on the ballot as to get a whole party on! That’s ridiculous — and unconstitutional. There was a court ruling in DeLaney v. Bartlett about 15 years ago overturning a similar requirement. Will it take another lawsuit, or will the legislature save us all the trouble and expense?

    • Mark Ortiz

      Slight correction: the new law brings the new party signature requirement in line with national norms. The 35 state rule is unusual.

  4. Norma Munn

    Parliamentary systems, such most European countries, can manage multiple parties far easier than in ours. Under a parliamentary system the Prime Minister is both leader of his/her party and the Chief Executive. In the US, the president is elected directly by the voters and can be of a different party than the Senate or House, or even both. Parliamentary systems tend to give great power to those representing a small number of voters in order to form a governing coalition. (Remind anyone of the current House of Representatives and the Freedom Caucus?)

    I watched the formation of a new party in NYC, The Working Families Party, and the demise of a long standing party (Conservative). I did not mourn the latter, nor celebrate the former. The WFP has survived and managed to maintain pressure on the Democrats to be more progressive on certain issues in NYC, but less so in the state overall. The political world did not go through chaos, and no statewide races seemed to be shifted by these changes. However, I don’t see that outcome as likely for NC.

    The independent voter in NC will gain power in a multi party system, but that does not ensure better candidates, nor less “deals” to get legislation passed (exactly the opposite is more likely). We probably can look forward to longer ballots, more costs to run a campaign, and in the current atmosphere, more voters with a one issue approach driving their decisions.

    Despite my registration as a Democrat, I am far from happy with the party. Nothing new in that. But I don’t see how additional political parties will solve the problems facing us as voters, nor assist us in strengthening our democratic processes. Further divisions do not seem like the medicine we need, but I guess we will see.

  5. Avram friedman

    It’s about time. Nowhere in either the US Constitution or in North Carolina’s State Constitution does it grant a monopoly to any political party or parties. This strengthens our democracy and will result in a more competitive field of candidates. The Democratic Party is going to have to compete for Green votes and that serves everyone well, except for maybe Duke Energy and a few other fossil fuel interests.
    People who previously saw nothing representing their interests at the ballot box will now come out to vote.
    Hooray! A ray of light has arrived in the dark mines of North Carolina’s political landscape.

    • TY Thompson

      Careful. The rule here is to never say anything that could be construed as praise for the General Assembly as currently constituted. All joking aside, Dems have little to worry about with respect to the Greenies…the Constitution Party will soon meet the threshold and re-balance the political equation, where the Reps are concerned.

      • Avram friedman

        Well, I would disagree that the Democrats don’t have anything to worry about by the Green Party being on the ballot. But, their problem really isn’t the Green Party. Their problem is that the Democratic Party has been completely co-opted by corporate interests that diverge from the interests of the people who have traditionally voted for Democratic candidates.

        Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton didn’t lose their respective elections because of Ralph Nader, David Cobb or Jill Stein. None of these elections should have been close enough for the Green Party vote to matter. They lost these elections because the Democratic Party no longer appealed to the economic interests of working people, people who were concerned about the environment, consumer protections, predatory lending practices, the rising cost of healthcare, backwards criminal justice laws and interventionist foreign policies that only benefited the fossil fuel industry, the war industry and the big banks.

        The Democratic Party abandoned its base and that’s why they lost. Blaming it on the Green Party or “the Russians” has always been a diversion from the core truth that the Democratic Party shifted dramatically to the right after the Reagan Administration and with the advent of the Clinton Administration’s Republican-like economic policies, derived from a new relationship with large corporate donors such as the banking and fossil fuel industries.

        Until the Clinton Administration, the Democratic Party had the largest plurality of registered voters nationwide. Now the largest voting block is independent voters, with Republicans second and the Democratic Party third. The problem is that money became the motivation of party leaders. The large donors to the Democratic Party would rather see conservative Republicans elected than Progressive Democrats, because they are primarily interested in their own economic interests. Therefore they pushed the false narrative and “Conventional Wisdom” that in order for Democrats to compete with Republicans, Democratic candidates would have to move to the right. Of course, this resulted in massive losses for the Democrats on the local, state and national level in elections, because conservative voters will choose the real Republican every time over a Democrat trying to look like a Republican, while progressive people will stay home or vote for a third party candidate for lack of choice between the two major parties.

        Now, the presence of the Green Party is a real threat to the Democratic Party because the mood of the public is for fundamental change within our political system. People want a real choice when they go to the ballot box and the Green Party offers that. If the Democratic Party wants to survive it will have to dump the corporate interests, move to the left and stand up on real progressive issues like universal healthcare, climate change, criminal justice reform, ending corporate personhood, campaign finance reform and changing the interventionist nature of America’s foreign policy for the sake of extracting more fossil fuels. Then, people who traditionally voted for the Democratic Party will have no reason to vote for Green Party candidates and they’ll start winning elections again.

        Bernie Sanders consistently wins statewide elections in Vermont (which is traditionally a very conservative state, by the way) with more than 70% of the vote. He wins more than 20% of the Republican Vote! If the Democrats spoke to the same issues as Bernie Sanders, they would win consistently almost everywhere in America. Only the corporate interests who now control both major parties will tell you differently.

        • Christopher Lizak

          Amen!!

        • Jay Ligon

          Gary Johnson and William Weld garnered 300% more votes than the Green Party in 2016, but the Independent Party only got 4.4% of the vote. The Independent voters lost big, but they were not statistically insignificant like the Green Party.

          Most of the policies you advocated in your reply are matters Democrats have offered for Congressional votes – Consumer Protection (Elizabeth Warren’s CFPB), environmental protection, bank regulation (Dodd-Frank), campaign finance reform (McCain-Feingold) and healthcare (Obamacare). If you think that these measures do not go far enough, I might agree with some of what you recommend, but it’s pretty lonely out there on the far left, and you need a majority to change laws in the legislature.

          Where is your evidence that the base of the Democratic Party is moving toward the Green Party? It doesn’t show up in the election data.

          You need votes at the ballot box to get votes in the legislature. You don’t have the votes in either place.

          • avram Friedman

            The problem for the Democratic Party is not how many votes the Green Party gets. The problem is the exodus of voters who are registering and voting for Democratic candidates.

            Lets first acknowledge the obvious. In the past decade or so, the Democratic Party has lost control of the majority of state legislatures, the majority of governorships, both house of the US Congress and in the last election lost to Donald Trump, a pussy-grabbing reality TV show personality who was the least popular and weakest candidate the Republicans have perhaps ever run for national office. Do you think the Democrats might be doing something wrong?

            Yes, Elizabeth Warren is one of the good Democrats who have not sold out to the big banks and other corporate interests and she’s trying to drag the Democrats in the right direction. And Bernie Sanders is trying to save the Democratic Party by addressing the issues important to the traditional base of Democratic voters. But, the corporate Democratic establishment is resisting with all their might and power. They would rather see a continuation of Republican control than allow the Democratic Party return to its modern FDR roots, standing up for working people and true progressive values..

            The Dodd-Frank Bill was a perfect example of the “new” Democratic Party. A reinstatement of Glass-Steagal was needed to prevent another bail-out of banks that were “too big to fail.” Instead the corporate Democrats went along with this window-dressing, watered-down meaningless legislation that has allowed the “too big to fail” banks to be even larger than they were in 2007. And, now, these same corporate Democrats have voted with Republicans to remove many of the meager protections that were in Dodd-Frank. Pitifrul.

          • Jay Ligon

            The evidence suggests that there is no “exodus” of voters from the Democratic Party. The voting population in North Carolina grew from about 5 million in 2004 to nearly 7 million in 2018, a population increase of about 40%. The Democratic Party grew during that time from 2.4 million to 2.6 million registered voters, an increase of 8%. There is a minor trend in Democratic losses in registered voters between 2012 and 2018 showing a decrease in registered voters of about 200,000.

            The Republican Party has not grown in 10 years.

            The vast majority of new voters are becoming Unaffiliated. Unaffiliated grew from 0.9 million to 2.1 million, more than doubling since 2004.

            There are now more Unaffiliated registered voters in North Carolina than Republicans, but the Democratic Party is still larger than the Unaffiliated or the Republican Party.

            2018
            2.6 million Democrats
            2.0 million Republicans
            2.1 million Unaffiliated

            2016
            2.7 million Democrats
            2.0 million Republicans
            2.0 million Unaffiliated

            2012
            2.8 million Democrats
            2.0 millions Republicans
            1.7 million Unaffiliated

            2008
            2.8 million Democrats
            2.0 million Republicans
            1.4 million unaffiliated

            2004
            2.4 million Democrats
            1.7 million Republicans
            .9 million Unaffiliated

            Republicans account for less than a third of the registered voters, but the Party has a super majority in the legislature, 10 of the 13 Congressional seats and both of the Senate seats. Republicans are greatly over-represented in North Carolina. A Party representing a third of the people should not control the rest of us.

            Gerrymandering could explain the over-representation of the Republican minority in local races, but gerrymandering does not explain Senate races. Your contention that the Democrats are too far right flies in the face of the statistics. The Unaffiliated voters break toward Republican candidates in some races, but not all. North Carolina’s top Democrats won important races in 2016. Bucking the Republican trend, North Carolina elected a Democratic governor. a Democratic Attorney General and a Democrat Justice for the high court. The Green Party is not even a blip on the screen and is essentially a non-issue here.

            The statistics do not support your belief that far-left Democrats would win races in North Carolina. North Carolina swings back and forth because of the large Unaffiliated block. The Unaffiliated voters are the key to races in this state. They went for Obama in 2008, Romney in 2012 and Trump in 2016. They voted for two Republican senators in the past four years, but the margins were very thin. You could infer that the Unaffiliated have the attitude: “A pox on both your houses.”

            Your passion for your beliefs is not shared by everyone.

          • avram Friedman

            Assuming your statistics are accurate, I stand corrected, to a degree. Technically, the number of Democrats in NC has increased over the past 10 years, although since 2016 that number has actually decreased. But, proportional to the growth in population the Democratic Party’s share of registered voters has dramatically decreased, as you have stated, with many new voters registering as unaffiliated. The net result is a vast loss of faith and participation in the Democratic Party in this state and nationwide.

            Roy Cooper did win in 2016, but just barely, against a clownish, ineffective incumbent who made a mockery of North Carolina with HB2 the “bathroom law”, climate denial, regressive voting laws and a string of court decisions ruling that laws he signed were unconstitutional. The fact that this election was so close should be a cause for alarm in the Democratic Party rather than a cause for celebration.

            It’s true that until now the Green Party has not been a significant factor in NC politics. But, until now the Green Party hasn’t been on the ballot. So, it seems meaningless to draw conclusions from past elections on this front.

            I live in the 11th Congressional District where Republican Mark Meadows has been the beneficiary of extreme gerrymandering. Most of Asheville, the population center and largest Democratic stronghold inf Western NC, was removed from the district, making it seemingly impossible for Meadows to lose. This year, however, there is widespread speculation that he may be vulnerable because of the impending “blue wave” anticipated throughout the nation. There are three Democratic candidates vying for the nomination to oppose Meadows: Phillip Price, Steve Woodsmall and Scott Donaldson. Interestingly, in this historically very conservative district (Meadows is widely regarded as the head of the Tea Party among Congressional Republicans, nationwide), each of these three Democratic candidates has adopted the same platform on which Bernie Sanders ran. At the top of their agenda is a single-payer Medicare-for-all healthcare program. They also agree on a minimum wage that is a living wage or $15/hr. They agree on and have made a campaign issue of climate change and a 100% transformation to renewable energy as we phase out fossil fuels. They all agree that marijuana should be de-criminalized. The list goes on.

            No, not everyone shares the passion of my beliefs. Only those who see the same writing on the walls that I see and want to rescue our government from corporate control- which may well be the majority of rank and file Democrats. The Green Party will almost certainly not run a candidate in the 11th Congressional District in 2018. Why should they? The Democratic candidates there have gotten the message and are running on winning issues. But, it will be interesting to see what happens when the Green Party runs candidates in districts where the only other choices are a Republican and a Republican-light Democrat.

            The truth is that Bernie Sanders’ platform is not “far left” in American politics. It is center-mainstream. But, the political system has been captured by the far right-center right corporate interests that don’t represent public sentiment. They represent their own business interests.

            There will be those who continue to deny the new political realities that are upon us. The old guard doesn’t die easily and they are backed by a lot of money from the big banks, the fossil fuel industry (Duke Energy in NC), the pharmaceutical industry, the war industry, the private prison industry, the gun lobby. But, this revolution is real and it’s strongest among the young, those under 45, who overwhelmingly understand the existential circumstances under which we live. They are with the Sanders platform and they are growing stronger every day in numbers, just as the old are dying off along with their obsolete loyalties to political parties. If the Democratic Party wants to survive it needs to listen to the young people who are in the process of taking over this country.

  6. JAY LIGON

    Democracy-respecting Americans should respect the political convictions of those who do not agree with the Republican or Democratic parties and do not feel that the platforms of the major parties represent their points of view. Still, third or fourth or fifth parties do not have a record of much success in this country.

    France, for example, is considered a multi-party country which has several smaller parties forming alliances in order to reach a majority. In the United States, third parties have tended to act as spoilers. Without much chance to win elections, third parties here draw voters away from major parties or they may energize some disaffected voters who would not otherwise vote.

    After Reconstruction, North Carolina was governed by a coalition of the Fusion Party and the Republican Party, both agreed on an anti-slavery platform and supported full black participation in North Carolina elections. The Fusion Party vanished at the turn of the 20th Century after a coup by Democrats and an army of racists overturned elections in Wilmington. White supremacists throughout the South were emboldened to use violence against blacks who tried to register or vote.

    In 1992, Ross Perot’s third-party run against Bill Clinton and George W. H. Bush showed initial promise until Perot dropped out, then dropped back in, citing a number of nutty conspiracies.

    The Green Party has been able to spoil the chances of Democrats in two of the past five national elections. In the 2000 presidential election in Florida, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes. Green Candidate Ralph Nader received 97,421 votes in Florida, more than enough to provide an indisputable margin of victory for Gore. Florida Green Party voters, at some point, must have wondered whether they might have gotten more of what they wanted if Al Gore, who won an Oscar and the Nobel Prize for his efforts on behalf of the environment, had won.

    Hillary Clinton needed the votes that went to Green Party Candidate Jill Stein in 2016. Even though Stein won only minimal support throughout the United States (less than 1%,) she drew enough votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania to turn a razor-thin margin of victory away from Clinton and in favor of Trump. A vote for Jill Stein was essentially a vote for Trump.

    Stein has become the focus of an inquiry into her cozy relations with Vladimir Putin. She was photographed with Putin and Michael Flynn in Moscow at the dinner during the campaign. From Putin’s perspective, her candidacy would weaken Clinton and increase the chances that Putin’s choice, Donald Trump, would win in 2016.

    The far left wing of the Democratic Party does not see the advantage of winning races. Politics is a systemic compromise -trying to get some of what we want, but not all. In a Bernie or Bust world, the far left does not care that they bring us the environmental wrecking crew of George Bush or Donald Trump. Or cavernous deficits caused by the Republican Party’s commitment to paying the rich for their support. Or the inexplicable wars that never end.

    Green Party voters must know that they cannot win. They don’t vote to win; they vote to protest the status quo, which is their right. It is the price of democracy that everyone gets a vote, even if Russia’s candidate gets the office.

    • Lucia Messina

      The GOP was an off-shoot from the Whig Party. So we have had the Contract with America, the Tea Party, the Freedom Party, I want my country back Party and now the TRUMP Party. I might want to go back to the Whig Party, too.
      Just maybe, and hoping for that …the Trump circus show will leave soon. Maybe some gutless wonders in the GOP will speak up against him, to save their souls or seats. Or just leave as 33 cowards have done.
      Bring on the midterms.

  7. Randolph Voller

    A number of us predicted years ago that the GOP-led General Assembly would make it easier for third parties-especially the Green Party–to appear on the ballot in hopes that it will sow dissension and make it more difficult for Democrats to win statewide elections and legislative races. Of course this could backfire, too, as a number of nascent parties are attempting to collect signatures as the law requires and get ballot access as well, which could mean the emergence of a right leaning populist party.

    The Green Party could make a difference by activating more citizens to get involved who normally do not vote and/or do not register to vote and they could focus on local and non-partisan municipal and school board races in all 100 counties where typically UNA candidates have won in NC. (I was elected in 2005 to become the Mayor of Pittsboro as an UNA candidate. I likely could have won as a Green Party candidate.)

    And of course if the NCGA ever reinstates tax check off funding for political parties the Green Party and other official will become eligible to receive funding. (I always found it a bit amusing that the Libertarian Party opposes public funding in a number of areas of our society yet they always cashed their distribution check from tax check off funds.)

    In closing, I will watch this development with keen interest and hope that it will encourage a more robust Democracy and political discourse as opposed to creating a pathway for a small and extreme group of the GOP to maintain control of the NCGA.

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