Harris, Stein lead in NC and other stories
Harris, Stein lead in NC and other stories
Legislature subsidizes rich and the Supreme Court threatens to disenfranchise veterans.
There’s a lot happening in North Carolina this week and it’s only Tuesday. I imagine the debate will suck up all the oxygen in the room tomorrow so I wanted to get a few updates out this afternoon.
First up, the legislature voted yesterday to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to keep their pledge to subsidize the education of rich kids through their voucher scheme. At the same time, they refused to raise teacher pay for those educators working with North Carolina’s middle class and poor families. Vouchers are little more than Robin Hood in reverse, taking money from the neediest North Carolinians and giving it to the wealthiest.
The most ironic part of this whole scheme is that Republicans who represent some of the poorest counties in the state have supported this transfer of wealth from poor rural counties to wealthy urban/suburban ones. A poll out this week shows most voters oppose the more money going to vouchers. Democrats should be using the issue to drive a wedge between public school families and the GOP.
Next, the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in all of its ignorance, sided with RFK, Jr., directing the State Board of Elections to refrain from mailing ballots to overseas military personnel and others who have requested them. The ballots were already printed and scheduled to be mailed on September 6 as directed by laws passed by the General Assembly. The court sided with an out-of-state political charlatan over the people of North Carolina. Now, the ballots won’t go out for weeks and the process will cost counties money that should be going elsewhere, like schools that are getting shortchanged by vouchers.
The precedent they’ve set could throw every election moving forward into chaos. If ballots have to be scrapped now for RFK, Jr., then they would have to be scrapped for any candidate who decided to drop out of the race the day before they were scheduled to be mailed. These same justices sided with RFK, Jr., when he demanded to be put on the ballot after the State Board of Elections rejected him. If you didn’t know better, you would think the justices are taking marching orders from Donald Trump.
Politically, I don’t think having RFK, Jr., on the ballot or off the ballot will make a hill of beans. I do think the activist GOP justices denying veterans access to the ballot could be a political liability for Republicans. Democrats should be beating this drum relentlessly. Republicans are putting at risk the right to vote for veterans and other residents who need mail-in ballots.
Finally, after Democrats got nervous about a New York Times poll showing Trump leading Harris by a single point, a bunch of polls dropped showing the race close but also showing Harris leading in most swing states, including North Carolina. A WRAL poll has Harris ahead of Trump by three points and also shows North Carolinians becoming more optimistic about the economy.
A Quinnipiac poll also shows Harris up by three points in North Carolina. That poll shows a huge gender gap. Harris is leading with women by 23 points and Trump is leading with men by 18.
Both polls show Josh Stein with a commanding lead over Mark Robinson. The WRAL poll has him up thirteen and the Quinnipiac poll has him up ten. Robinson can’t seem to catch a break, largely because he can’t shut his mouth.
That’s a lot of North Carolina news. Don’t expect it to slow down much. North Carolina will be one of the most contested states this cycle and we have some of the most colorful and extreme candidates running. We’re seven weeks out and it’s going to be a wild ride.
I’m optimistic that the next few years will see the Dem Party well equipped to take the fight to Republicans in the state who’ve basically had their way with lower and middle class North Carolinians. The Harris campaign will leave behind a small army of young, trained political operatives. Shame on this columns readers and other activists across the state if the Party isn’t pushed to retake the state legislative majorities in the next cycle. At least put up a damn tough, organized and financed fight!
Thomas, you should send a copy of this article to Anderson Clayton immediately and also Gov Cooper and the Democratic legislative leaders. Delay in getting their ballots might anger some of our servicemen and women, especially those overseas. As for the opportunity scholarships there's a saying attributed to Punkett of Tammany Hall" "I seen my opportunities and I took 'em. " My friend outgoing NC Sen Mike Woodard of Durham told me GOP legislative leaders were getting negative feedback from some of their supporters over the opportunity scholarship impasse. As for the lack of funding for public schools, a comment attributed to Lyndon Johnson by the late Bill Moyers, his press secretary when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed comes to mind :"There goes the South." As the late Jessie Jeremiah Jubilation Day Helms might say if he were still alive "you ain't just whistling Dixie." (Yes, Thomas, I do remember Chubb Sewell from those WRAL commentaries).