November Recap

Since I’ve been gone for the past month, I thought it might be necessary to recap what’s been going on lately in NC politics, for anyone else who has not tuned in for over a month.

1. Howard Coble is retiring. A number of candidates have jumped into the race to succeed him. This is the 6th District, which is strongly, but not solidly, Republican. The Republican frontrunner is Phil Berger, Jr., whose father is the Senate pro-tem.

2. With the filibuster rules in the U.S. Senate being revised, Mel Watt’s nomination to federal office no longer looks as imperiled as it once did. If Watt is nominated, there will be a special election to succeed him. This is the 12th District, the notorious “snake district” and it is solidly Democrat, giving President Obama 79% of the vote in 2012. It is not clear who the frontrunner is. State Senator Malcolm Graham is from Mecklenburg and should have a strong geographic base. Marcus Brandon, Representative from Greensboro, has raised the most money. And Alma Adams, also a Representative from Greensboro, was ahead in the last poll conducted by PPP a couple months ago.

3. Jim Duncan is not going to be challenging Renee Ellmers. Frank Roche, formerly a candidate for state treasurer, will.

4. McCrory’s approval ratings have stabilized, though they are still not good. The national environment has shifted in favor of the Republicans because of discontent over Obamacare. This is making Democrats less competitive in North Carolina; their lead on the generic ballot test has been almost completely erased. This does not portend a Democrat takeover in either chamber of the General Assembly.

5. Hagan’s leads over her respective Republican challengers have similarly been erased. The Senate race is now a dead heat. The Republicans running against her have little name recognition, and Hagan cannot break 45% against any of her opponents. Hagan’s fortunes are largely outside of her control, if 2014 strongly favors Republicans then she will be hard-pressed to keep her seat.

6. Thom Tillis leads in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Mark Harris and Greg Brannon trail the House Speaker. With no ads having been run yet, the nomination is still very much up for grabs. The advantage will go to the candidate who will have the resources to broadcast his message to the Republican primary electorate. In the event that the leading candidate does not crack 40% of the vote, the runner-up has the right to request a runoff.

7. The Republican candidates for U.S. Senate: Thom Tillis, Mark Harris, Greg Brannon, Heather Grant, Bill Flynn. A larger Republican primary field makes a runoff more likely.

8. Challengers for next year’s legislative elections are starting to come out of the woodwork. A list of these candidates can be found on the NCFEF Candidate Tracker.

9. A Republican wave gives the GOP a 50/50 shot of maintaining veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Such a wave would also doom the reelection prospects of Rep. Mike McIntyre, who will be in a rematch against former State Senator David Rouzer next year.

10. In the past I’ve written that Senator Burr is a likely retirement prospect. Should Republicans gain control of the Senate, the chance that Burr will seek a third term goes up substantially.

11. The folks at PPP will be out with a new poll this week. It will be interesting to see whether the ad assault has taken a toll on Senator Hagan’s numbers.

Lenoir County

Lenoir County is located in eastern North Carolina. The county seat is Kinston. It was founded in 1791, formed from now-defunct Dobbs County, and named after William Lenoir (1751 – 1839), a Revolutionary War officer and later, State Senator. As of 2010, the county’s population was 59,495 individuals.

Besides the city of Kinston, the county is overwhelmingly rural and reliant on agriculture, but Lenoir County began to emerge as a manufacturing center in the mid-twentieth century. Efforts to revitalize the economy of eastern North Carolina brought about the establishment of the Global TransPark (GTP), which was designed to emulate the success of RTP in the central part of the state. So far, the effort has only met with limited success. The county remains poor and as a result it was one of the few counties to see a net loss in population in the 2010 U.S. census.

As of 2010, the racial statistics in Lenoir County were as follows: Whites were 53% of the population; African Americans were almost 41%; Hispanics almost 7%. The county’s voting patterns are racially polarized. African Americans vote nearly unanimously for Democratic candidates, up and down the ballot. In contrast, 85% of white voters opted for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Lenoir County is Democratic at the state and local level, but tends to vote Republican in federal elections. This is due to the overwhelming allegiance of White voters to the national Republican Party and conservatism in general. In fact, Lenoir County has not voted for a Democratic candidate for President since 1964, when it went for Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater. George Wallace carried the county in 1968, and Nixon won it easily in 1972. In 1976, even though Democrat Jimmy Carter was a Southerner, Lenoir County opted for his Republican opponent, Gerald Ford, indicating that even back then, whites were becoming solidly Republican at the presidential level, in numbers atypical for eastern North Carolina at the time.

Since then, Lenoir County has opted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election. However, the 2008 and 2012 elections saw Republicans carry the county only by a meager margin, this was due to much higher turnout among African Americans because of excitement over Barack Obama’s candidacy. In 2008, John McCain won Lenoir County by only 0.08%. In 2012, Mitt Romney did only slightly better, carrying it by 0.12%. On both occasions it was won with less than a majority.

Lenoir County is divided into three congressional districts: the first, the third, and the seventh. The first is represented by G.K. Butterfield, Democrat. The third is Republican Walter B. Jones’ district. The seventh is currently represented by Democrat Mike McIntyre.

PVI
1988: R+9 (Leans Republican)
1992: R+6 (Leans Republican)
1996: R+13 (Strong Republican)
2000: R+10 (Leans Republican)
2004: R+9 (Leans Republican)
2008: R+7 (Leans Republican)
2012: R+4 (Toss-Up)

Forecast: Lenoir County is a bellwether county in NC politics, even though it is demographically unrepresentative of the rest of the state. The county is also inelastic, due to the racial polarization in voting patterns. With Barack Obama off the ballot in 2016, African American turnout is likely to go down, which could make Lenoir County an easier win who Republicans that year. At the same time, the Democratic nominee is likely to have more appeal among White voters. This probably ensures that the county will be close again in 2016.

However, demographic trends are on the side of the Democrats here. It is not just the Hispanic population, which doubled from 2000 to 2010. In fact, voter registration among Hispanics in this county is severely low. If these voters were registered and turned out, then Lenoir County would almost certainly slip into the Democratic column, permanently. Even without Hispanics, Whites are leaving the county in absolute numbers, and are especially moving away from Kinston, the county seat. If Lenoir County is not a majority-minority county by 2020, it will be very close to being so.

Lenoir County is one of a number of counties in eastern North Carolina where the White population is declining at a much quicker pace than the rest of the state. Other counties in this category are Nash, Wilson, and Edgecombe. These demographic trends probably ensure that these counties will be permanently in the Democratic column by 2020 or so. Lack of population growth is a mitigating factor. Lenoir County is projected to once again lose population in the 2020 census.