Welcome to election year 2024

Here's a look at what might happen and why in North Carolina over the next eleven months

Happy New Year! I’m not one for resolutions and I’m skittish about making predictions, but I think I owe my readers at least an idea of what I think will happen in this crucial election year. Before I start, though, I want to reminisce a little about this blog.

I started writing in April 2013 after Republicans took control of the North Carolina legislature and Governor’s Mansion, shifting the state hard right in ways unimaginable to many Democrats and even members of the press. I think my greatest achievement was documenting those changes, day in and day out, from the perspective of someone who had been on the inside of both legislative and electoral campaign battles. After that spring and summer of Moral Monday protests and conservative legislation, PoliticsNC helped shape the national coverage of the Hagan-Tillis U.S. Senate race, from Hagan’s early momentum defining the race around public education to the ISIS-ebola crisis that shifted the political environment in September and October to favor Tillis.

Since the beginning, I’ve written more than 2,300 blog posts. I hope that in 2024 PoliticsNC can be a source of insight into North Carolina and national politics from a unique perspective. I won’t apologize for my center-left bias, but I will try to offer my unvarnished opinions about candidates, campaigns, and strategies. You probably won’t agree with all them, but I hope you’ll join me on this important journey.

Now, moving on to my 2024 forecast. Let’s start at the top. Despite the hopes of many progressives, Donald Trump is not going to be removed from the ballot. Whether he should be or not, I believe he needs to be defeated at the ballot box, not removed for a technicality, if we hope to change the trajectory of the country. The Republican Party has a cancer that has metastasized. Removing Trump is just cutting out the largest, most visible tumor. The cancer is still spreading and the surgery is as likely to cause it to become more aggressive as it to slow it down. The reactionary populism that’s taken over the Republican Party needs to be beaten at the ballot box so middle America can see that a majority of their fellow Americans reject the failed ideology.

I think Joe Biden is in a much stronger position than polls and pundits indicate. We’re still eleven months out from the election and the political environment is fluid. However, the fundamentals which drive elections the vast majority of the time solidly favor the incumbent. The economy is growing at a steady pace. Unemployment is down and the labor force is up. Wages are now outpacing inflation and inflation is back to normal. Despite dire predictions, spending over the holidays was up to pre-pandemic levels. People have told surveys that they feel financially secure even if they worry about the economy in general. And in a significant prediction, Gas Buddy predicts gas prices will continue to fall throughout 2024. The memory of inflation will be hard to shake, but another year of a growing economy and increasing wages will likely mitigate the impact. All-in-all, most Americans will be happy with where we are by next fall—unless we have an unexpected downturn caused by some unforeseen event like another war.

Biden also has significant accomplishments that the public will learn about over the coming months. His presidency has been as successful as any Democrat in decades. He kept his promise to build bipartisan support when he passed the infrastructure bill, gun control, and CHIP Act to spur manufacturing. He oversaw the end of the COVID pandemic and an economic recovery that defied expectations. While he was thwarted in the courts to implement a broader student loan forgiveness program, he still eliminated more than $5 billion in debt. Now, his team needs to figure how to get that story out.

As for Trump, he’s spent the year making increasingly unhinged remarks. While they may get cheers from his base, they will scare many average Americans when they hear them—and they haven’t yet because they don’t live their lives on political social media channels. He will also likely be convicted of something. Even if he doesn’t, everybody around him has already been found guilty, copped pleas, or been found financially liable. Again, it’s a story Biden’s team needs to make effectively to remind people why they rejected Trump four years ago.

In a head-to-head with Trump, Biden has the advantage, though the election will be as close as it has been the past two presidential elections. And it’s going to be nasty. Buckle up.

In North Carolina, I suspect the governor’s race comes down to Attorney General Josh Stein and Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. I think Stein will win the Democratic primary because his chief opponent, former Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan, will lack the resources and organization to mount credible primary challenge. Stein starts with a huge financial advantage and a battle-tested political team that’s already won two statewide races. He will also inherit much of Roy Cooper’s political infrastructure.

Robinson will be victorious on the Republican side because the GOP base is just as crazy as he is. State Treasurer Dale Folwell has failed to gain any traction since he announced his candidacy. Salisbury attorney Bill Graham has pledged to spend $5 million on the primary. I suspect he’ll learn an expensive lesson about the size of the moderate Republican primary electorate and the wisdom of trying to buy ideologues. Robinson will win the primary with a hefty margin.

Race, as always, is playing a role in the gubernatorial election. In the Democratic primary, Morgan believes that Democrats need an African American at the top of the ticket to draw Black voters to the polls. Republicans are salivating over have a Black gubernatorial nominee because they believe he will attract crucial votes. I believe both positions are overstated.

As for drawing general election voters to the polls, that premise didn’t work out too well when Cheri Beasley ran at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2022. Despite having African American nominee, Black turnout dropped to pre-Obama levels. I don’t think Morgan is a particularly strong draw, either.

As for Robinson cutting into the Democratic base, I’m very skeptical. I think too many political observers insult Black voters by believing they are making choices based primarily on skin color. African American voters are going to vote their self-interest, just like every other voter. They are Democrats because Democrats most closely share their values and positions shaped by years of struggle. They believe strongly in voting rights, public education, and a social safety net, because, in a post-Civil Rights era, those positions gave them political power, tools for economic opportunity, and support to build a thriving Black middle class in the South. Mark Robinson opposes those values and I think they’ll reject him because of it.

In the lieutenant governor’s race, some Republican is going to face state Senator Rachel Hunt. Hunt has a primary with former state Senator Ben Clark, but he’s not put together much of a campaign and Hunt will have the force of her father’s influence. While Jim Hunt may have last served as governor more than two decades ago, he campaigned for Democrats and Democratic causes up until very recently. Democrats will return the favor by backing his daughter.

On the GOP side, eleven candidates are on the ballot. The most powerful of those Republicans hail from the northwest foothills and mountains. Former Senator Deanna Ballard of Watauga County has to be considered a frontrunner, as does current state Representative Jeffery Elmore of Wilkes County. Popular Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page is also on the ballot. He could be competitive if he can leverage his contacts with fellow law enforcement across the state. I’m not sure about the rest of the candidates, but those seem to be the most viable from the face of it.

In the attorney general’s race, Democrats have a primary that could be heated and close. U.S. Representative Jeff Jackson got gerrymandered out of his seat and is running to be the state’s top prosecutor. Jackson may be the most well known Democrat in the state besides Governor Roy Cooper. He’s a very effective political communicator, at least on line. He’s got a national following that should turn into big bucks for his race. He’s positioned himself as moderate and won the support of most of the Democratic establishment.

He faces Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry. Deberry has an impressive resume and has won elections in the state’s sixth largest county. She’s got solid progressive credentials, limiting cash bail and looking for alternatives to incarceration. She’ll run to the left of Jackson in a primary where voters are more progressive than the general election electorate. Her challenge will be raising the money to compete with Jackson in a statewide race. She’ll also have to put together a statewide organization in short order to compete with the one that Jackson already has.

Attorney and veteran Tim Dunn of Fayetteville is also in the race. Dunn will need to show a substantial amount of money to become a viable candidate facing two candidates with built-in constituencies.

In a general election in a center-right state, Jackson is the more electable candidate. I suspect he’ll win the primary based on his name recognition and ability to communicate. He will make a strong general election candidate against GOP nominee U.S. Representative Dan Bishop.

Bishop is a very polarizing figure. He’s staked himself out as an extremist in Congress allying himself with the likes of Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz. He’s got a long history of divisive politics, attacking LGBT+ citizens and supporting White Supremacists. If Jackson’s the nominee, the race will be about Bishop and his extremism, helping brand the GOP as out of touch with mainstream North Carolinians.

At the end of the day, Trump may carry North Carolina, but he won’t have any coattails, either. I think the moderate middle will support Democrats up and down the ballot. They did in 2022, 2020, 2018, and 2016. That’s how the state ended up with a Democratic governor and attorney general when Trump carried the state in the last two presidential years. It’s how Democrats broke the legislative supermajority in 2018. And it’s how Beasley kept the race from being a blowout despite being heavily outspent.

Trump wins if he can continue driving up the turnout among rural White voters and younger voters take a pass on the election. However, if Democrats can get those younger voters out, Biden could squeak past Trump, giving Democrats their first presidential win since Obama in 2008. Voters under 40 showing up in substantial numbers is the key Democrat success in the state.

Happy New Year and look forward to the unexpected.