Today I joined a panel at a John Locke Foundation luncheon to dissect and discuss the 2002 elections in North Carolina and the nation. My job was to comment on state and local races here. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I thought I’d just make today’s Daily Journal the remarks I prepared for the post-election panel. Bear with it, it’s a bit longer than the usual Daily Journal. Here goes:
At the state and local level, the 2002 election is sizing up to be the second-best showing for the Republican Party in a mid-term election in the past century. As the GOP began its rise in the late-1960s to become competitive with the Democrats in North Carolina politics, its progress was pretty much limited to presidential years. One might call it “punctuated progress.” In 1968, Republicans gained seats in both houses of the legislature. In 1970, they lost in both. In 1972, they made historic gains – only to be devastated in the post-Watergate 1974 midterms, when they were left with only 1 Republican state senator and 9 House members. The next big leaps were in 1980,1984, and 1998, with help from Presidents Reagan and Bush, but again the Republicans lost seats in the midterms.
During the past decade, however, the pattern changed. Republicans had a slight net gain in 1992, leaving the count at 42 House seats out of 120 and 11 Senate seats out of 50. In 1994, the Republican revolution yielded a jaw-dropping 26-seat gain in the House, giving the GOP a 68-52 majority, and a 13-seat gain in the Senate, leaving Democrats a narrow 26-24 edge. In 1996 Republicans gave up some of these gains, primarily in Democratic-leaning districts where the GOP candidates in 1994 had been basically accidental winners. In 1998, Republicans lost the N.C. House and lost more ground in the N.C. Senate due to better turnout by Democratic base voters. In 2000, the party gained four seats in the House but none in the Senate. Finally, in the 2002 elections last week, it looks like the GOP retook the House with a net gain of 3 and won 7 new seats in the Senate, leaving a 28-22 Democratic majority.
At the city and county level, the 1990s was also a time of Republican advances and retreats. GOP victories in officially nonpartisan races for mayor in Winston-Salem, Raleigh, and Durham created a period in the mid- to late-1990s where most of the big cities in the state (including more Republican-friendly Charlotte) had Republican mayors. Democrats regained the mayor’s job in all these cities in 2001, however. In the counties, the GOP matched its 1994 legislative gains with a net gain of 15 county commissions, leaving the count at 58 Democrat counties and 42 Republican ones. The numbers moved back slowly in the Democratic direction during the rest of the decade. But last week, Republicans surged again and won 11 Democrat counties, taking the party split in commissions to a never-before-seen 50-50.
Trends favoring the GOP
As you can see, the 1990s were a time when the Republican Party’s success in state and local races in North Carolina was decoupled from the presidential ticket. There were several factors in play. Huge migration from Northern and Midwestern states added Republicans to the state’s electorate in major urban counties such as Wake; in suburbanizing counties such as Johnston, Cabarrus, and Alamance; and in resort and retiree communities in the mountains and along the coast, particularly in Craven, Onslow, New Hanover, Pender, and Brunswick counties. All of these counties now have Republican majorities in their legislative delegations and on their county commissions.
In addition, conservative Democrats who used to vote for Jesse Helms, for Republican presidents, and then for Democrats down the ballot began in the 1990s to be operationally Republicans down the ballot. Redistricting played a significant role in both the 1992-1994 Republican gains and in this year’s gains, as rural districts with shrinking relative populations gave way to new suburban districts more likely to vote Republican. A related issue was the creation of minority-oriented districts in the legislature and in even local races, since the side effect was to make surrounding districts less competitive for Democrats who had previously counted on solid support from black voters.
Finally, the issue environment changed in favor of Republicans. In the early 1990s, Democrats in the General Assembly enacted two major tax increases that had a combined fiscal impact of $1.8 billion last year. Many cities and counties also raised taxes significantly. The tax issue plays an important and unifying role for Republicans in North Carolina who might otherwise disagree in areas such as education, social issues, growth management, or transportation. It is a symbolic issue, in that it lets voters know whether a candidate wants a smaller or a bigger government, and it is a way for Republican candidates to focus attention on wasteful spending projects that, they argue, helped pave the way for tax increases.
The passage of some offsetting tax cuts in the mid-1990s, which happened only because of GOP gains in Raleigh and in local governments, helped to diffuse the issue somewhat. So did Republican participation in the passage of state and local budgets that dramatically increased government spending. By the 1998 and 2000 cycles, it was no longer clear to some swing voters and even Republican base voters that voting for a Democrat meant increasing taxes and the size of government. Indeed, Democrat Mike Easley raised questions in the 2000 gubernatorial race about whether former Charlotte mayor Richard Vinroot was trustworthy on the tax issue. This strategy blunted Vinroot’s appeal among traditionally fiscal conservative voters down East and even in metro areas such as the Triangle, the Triad, and Charlotte.
In 2001 and 2002, the Democrats put the tax issue back in play – big time, as the vice president might say – by enacting about $1 billion in tax increases. The net trend from 1990 to 2002, by the way, was also about $1 billion in new taxes, despite what you may have heard about those excessive tax cuts of the 1990s.
Democratic strategy succeeds
What kept the electoral fallout among Democratic legislators from being worse than it actually was last week was the complicating factor of local governments. Most of the 2002 tax increase, the one that was freshest in the voters’ minds, was actually enacted by county commissioners even though the state was the primary beneficiary. By withholding local tax revenues and then giving localities the “option” of raising sales taxes to make up the difference, Easley and legislative Democrats were able to complicate the issue for voters. Judging by what happened in county races, often just weeks after commissioners voted for the sales-tax hike, it appears that the state got most of the tax money – but it was county commissioners who got the boot. It was all part of the plan, and it worked brilliantly.
What also worked brilliantly was the political machine of Senate leader Marc Basnight. He raised about $1.2 million for the 2002 elections, and for the most part spent the money carefully to defend endangered Democrats and to pick off two open seats that many observers thought would be won by Republicans. Let me explain quickly. After redistricting there were essentially 22 seats in the Senate that were safely or moderately Democratic and 22 seats that were safely or moderately Republican. Six seats were swing seats. The Democrats won five of the six swings and picked off a moderately Republican seat in the mountains, District 47. The margins were close, however. If Republicans had won only 3,700 more votes, in four key districts, the party would have taken the Senate. As it was, Republicans actually won about 27,000 more votes in contested Senate races than the Democrats did. Like Al Gore, they just didn’t win them in the right places.
Three Senate victories for the Dems are worth particular attention. In District 6 down on the coast, Republican Tommy Pollard and Democrat Cecil Hargett waged the most personal and brutal campaign in the state. Each accused the other of personal foibles. Each was right. Pollard actually won Onslow County, where most of the voters in the district are, but Hargett won enough of a majority in tiny Jones County to take the seat. He also ran, it’s worth saying, as a fiscally conservative Democrat who was very critical of his own party’s management of the state budget.
In District 16 here in Wake, incumbent Eric Reeves held off former Mayor Paul Coble with a margin of less than 500 votes. Coble was vastly outspent in the race and may have been hindered a bit by an intra-party feud that weakened support in the Cary area. Finally, in District 47 along the Tennessee border, Republican Gregg Thompson was also hampered by disaffection within his own party, questions about where he actually lives, and the fact that he spent $20,000 on his campaign and his Democratic opponent, Joe Sam Queen, spent nearly $440,000. A slight disparity there. The outcomes in these three races explain why there wasn’t a tie in the Senate.
Why the House wasn’t more Republican
In the House, on the other hand, the Democratic strategy of House Speaker Jim Black simply failed. Many of his political lieutenants, such as Majority Leader Phil Baddour, Majority Whip Andy Dedmon, and Appropriations Chairman David Redwine, lost their reelection bids. Republicans also prevailed in key swing districts along the coast. Ironically, the Republicans failed to gain a more solid 64-56 majority in the House only because of Democratic wins in the mountains. Two Republican incumbents, Marge Carpenter and Mark Crawford, lost to better-financed challengers. And in a moderately Republican open seat in the Northwest counties of Surry and Alleghany, Democrat Jim Harrell upset former county commission Buck Golding. Here’s a fun fact about that race: Harrell comes from a well-known political family. His father is a Surry commission who was also reelected on Tuesday. His name is also Jim Harrell, and was so listed on the ballot. So maybe voters there voted for Jim Harrell once – and then, just to be safe, they voted for him twice.
My last point is to urge you not to buy the spin from the so-called political experts who claim that money determines the outcome of legislative elections. The statistics are hugely skewed by the fact that members of both parties in safe seats necessarily raise a lot more money than their challengers do. In the House, 14 Democrats who outspent their Republican counterparts, often by huge margins, were defeated on Tuesday. Money is an important factor, of course, but it is only one factor. And because of changes in the legislature, campaign funds will probably be more even in the 2004 cycle.