North Carolina’s surly electorate

by | Oct 10, 2017 | Editor's Blog, Poll Analysis, Polling | 1 comment

A series of recent polls show a surly electorate in North Carolina. They don’t like Donald Trump and they think the country is heading in the wrong direction. That’s bad news for incumbents, the majority of whom are Republicans.

According to polls by Elon University, High Point University and Spectrum News (formerly Time-Warner), Donald Trump is highly unpopular in the Old North State. His approval rating is below 40% in each of the polls and in two of them, a majority of people disapprove of the job he’s doing. Nationally, Trump is more unpopular than any president in history at this point in his term.

In addition, the Spectrum and High Point polls find that more than 60% of the people believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. According to the High Point poll, only 13% of the people approve of Congress. These findings should have Republicans scrambling. In a non-presidential year, the national mood will be the single biggest factor in the election and voters are clearly not happy.

Among North Carolina politicians, only Roy Cooper fares well. He has solid approval ratings while both Senator Tillis and Senator Burr get mixed, mediocre results. Neither Senator has approval ratings outside of the low thirties and about the same number disapprove of them. If Cooper’s numbers hold, he gives Democrats some cover while Republicans may find themselves running from the president.

Historically, the first mid-term following a new president is bad for the party in the White House. If these trends hold, 2018 will be no exception. That said, the election is still more than a year away and plenty could change.

Republicans in Congress would be wise start working with Democrats to get a few things done. Their focus on repealing Obamacare has probably hurt them. The program is more popular than it’s ever been and throwing people’s health care into doubt won’t help them next year.

The GOP has created a problem for itself, though. They’ve promised their base a lot that the rest of country doesn’t want. Failing to repeal Obamacare could leave incumbents vulnerable in primaries, but repealing it would almost certainly make them more vulnerable in the general election. They have little to show for the amount of power they’ve accumulated. If they want to keep their power, they should probably move to the center, pass broadly popular legislation and let the chips fall where they may. Otherwise, they’re letting about a third of the electorate dictate their agenda and that’s a recipe for disaster.

1 Comment

  1. Jay Ligon

    Republicans don’t stand for anything. They are against things, but they don’t really stand for anything.

    They are against gay marriage, opposed to money spent on poor people, against non-Christians, opposed to Civil Rights…well, they don’t like anybody very much. They really like rich people. They like white people. They like guns. But they aren’t really policy people.

    Being against progress works ok when Republicans are in the minority and can oppose with all their might without having the responsibility for setting a workable agenda or governing. Being the wart on the butt of progress has a place on the back bench. But it is hard to be Napoleon if you feel uncomfortable on a horse. Republicans hate government and they aren’t good at governing. What they want to do is wipe out government, or as much of it as they can eliminate. They like to appoint people who are awful at running its parts to demonstrate their complete contempt for a functioning enterprise.

    So how do they get elected? They promise blue sky. The world will be moral when we run it. The world will be more family-oriented. Businesses will gush more jobs when we get our way. Goodness will dawn on the horizon. Women will bake more pies. Kids will learn more in spite of budget cuts, and they will spurn drugs and open up successful businesses on the newly painted Main Street. Marriages will flourish. Lawrence Welk music will experience a renaissance. There will be a cure for baldness. And birds will serenade us in the lull between hourly church bells.

    What do we get when get Republicans? Well, it’s not blue sky. We get a predator who steals from the taxpayer. We get Russians attacking our institutions. We get billionaires burning up taxes as they jet off to honeymoons and vacations.
    We get nukes. We get morons. We get robbed. We hear lies, damned lies and propaganda.

    The reason they didn’t replace Obamacare? They didn’t have a plan. They lied about that. The tax plan? It’s a fat check for the already-rich. The first piece of legislation passed by the Trump Administration was a law to put guns in the hands of crazy people. And how is that working for you?

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