The frontrunner

by | Apr 28, 2021 | Editor's Blog | 4 comments

Well, it’s on now. Former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court Cheri Beasley announce her candidacy for U. S. Senate. The announcement wasn’t a surprise but her entry changes the dynamic of the race. She starts as a clear frontrunner. 

The primary is still more than a year away so the field could continue to take shape. Still, Beasley enters with a lot of advantages. She just came off a bruising statewide race that she lost by a mere 400 votes out of almost 5.5 million cast. She’s battle-tested. She’s also won other statewide contests and is known by the donors and activists in the state as well as donors from across the country. As the first African American woman to serve as chief justice, she also brings a bit of star power.

Her chief opponent is state Senator Jeff Jackson. Jackson made a splash with his first quarter fundraising numbers and set a bar that Beasley will need to match, if for no other reason than to alleviate any skepticism of the Washington establishment crowd. Jackson has a head start and is engaging voters on social media, but he faces challenges that will be difficult to overcome. 

The primary electorate will be 60% women and 42% African American. Beasley brings a resume that would make any candidate a formidable opponent and being an African American woman gives her a huge advantage. She only needs 30% of the vote to avoid a runoff and she should be able to solidify both African Americans and women behind her candidacy. At a time when people of color and women are ascendant in the Democratic Party, why would African American and women voters choose a white man with a thinner resume and less political experience over someone with Beasley’s profile?

Former state Senator Erica Smith and few other candidates are in the race. None of them are getting much attention from the donor class or the activists, the groups they need to engage at this point in the race. Smith has a profile similar to Jackson’s but lacks his innate communication skills and political instincts. Without either a more substantial profile or larger grassroots following, she will not likely keep up with Beasley or Jackson.

Beasley’s race is with herself. She needs to prove to the political establishment, the donor class, and the activists that she has what it takes to go the distance. She’ll need to raise real money by the end of the second quarter and she will need to build an online following and low-dollar fundraising base. If she does that, nobody that’s in the field right now can catch her. They are all just waiting in the wings in case she fails. There’s no reason that she should.   

4 Comments

  1. David Rose

    Rett Newton and Richard Watkins III should at least have been mentioned in a piece on the race. They may not be frontrunners but I believe it is a bit early to start culling candidates out. I think Rett Newton has some compelling attributes including that being the mayor of Beaufort he isn’t part of the American political clan.

  2. Nate

    I think both Beasley and Jackson are appealing candidates and would make excellent Senators.

    Makes me wish even more that Jackson had run last year to replace Tillis. He’s the person everyone thought they were getting with Cunningham.

  3. JWN

    Thomas you wrote an eloquent piece on this primary race a few months back, stating that Jeff Jackson had misread the room. I concur. Now is the time- the moment- for a Black Democratic Senatorial nominee from North Carolina. Liberal white voters and donors can wax on about their commitment to #BLM and racial justice, but when given the opportunity to nominate a tested, first-class candidate like Cheri (I have a very high regard for Erica Smith as well- she’s smart as hell and has never lost a race) well this race will be a real test of just how committed they are. The buck stops at the ballot box.

    I don’t know Jeff, but I do know that white privilege is stoking his campaign coffers to the tune of $1.3 million right now. If the Democratic Party and its voters in North Carolina back Jackson over Beasley or Smith, they will implicitly be snubbing the urgency of the moment in America- and falling out of step with the Black community, and the national party. And they will regret it for years and years to come.

    • NIck

      “(I have a very high regard for Erica Smith as well- she’s smart as hell and has never lost a race)”

      Erica Smith lost a race when she lost the 2020 primary. That was a primary in which she received the support of a super pac connected to Mitch McConnell.

      In the general election she supported a Republican for NC Senate when Democrats were trying to win back control of at least one house of the legislature to have a seat at the table for redistricting to prevent another decade of Republican gerrymandering. I’m sure it was only a wild coincidence that the Republican she endorsed was Jeff Jackson’s opponent and that she was in absolutely no way cynically trying to wound or even eliminate a top tier opponent of her’s in the 2022 primary.

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