RALEIGH – North Carolina has 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. But North Carolina has one real race for the U.S. House of Representatives – or so political observers say.
That race is in the 8th Congressional District, stretching from the outskirts of Charlotte to the fringes of Fayetteville. The incumbent is Republican Robin Hayes, a former state legislator and gubernatorial candidate first elected to the seat in 1998. While having a majority Democratic registration, the district tends to vote Republican in federal races. Classify it as a tilt-R seat, but it still remains possible for a well-financed Democrat, in a good year, to upend Hayes.
The conventional wisdom so far this decade has been that the 8th was pretty much it for competitive congressional races in the state. The new 13th District, thrusting north and west of Raleigh to the Virginia line and then to Greensboro, initially offered a glimmer of hope for Republicans primarily because Bush had won it in 2000 (albeit narrowly). But Democrat Brad Miller, a former state legislator himself, has defeated two Republican challengers with comparative ease. Attempts to unseat Democrat Bob Etheridge in Eastern NC’s 2nd District and Republican Charlie Taylor in Western NC’s 11th District have also come to naught.
For the 2006 cycle, however, many Democrats and some nonpartisan analysts are saying that all bets may be off. While breathless comparisons to the Republican landslide of 1994 are inadviseable, it is undeniable that President George W. Bush is in a political slump, prominent Republicans are battling allegations of policy and ethical miscues, and the liberal Democrat/blogging/bloviating axis seems primed and ready to go. In such a situation, previously unthinkable political opportunities abound for Democrats, or so say enthusiastic Democrats.
One of those previously unthinkable opportunities is to recapture the 5th District of North Carolina, which includes Winston-Salem and other parts of the Piedmont Triad and northwestern mountain counties. It became a Republican seat a dozen years ago, with the election of now-Sen. Richard Burr. Last year, it hosted one of the most competitive primaries in the country, a GOP slugfest eventually won in a runoff by former state Sen. Virginia Foxx.
Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines, a Democrat with a moderate reputation and many contacts throughout the city’s business community, is reportedly planning to run. Former state Sen. Ted Kaplan may also make a go of it, creating a Democratic primary. It is conceivable that Foxx, a freshman who represents Winston-Salem but hails from the northwestern mountains, could draw a primary challenge from a Forsyth Republican, as well. It would hardly be the first time that party activists in the largest city of a congressional district, smarting from a defeat by an “outsider,” decide to reclaim “their” seat.
My sense is that this may all be much ado about nothing. The 5th District is solidly Republican. Rep. Foxx is an effective legislator who has worked hard to earn the respect of constituents in Forsyth and the Triad. She won in 2004 with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Joines is well-liked as mayor, but that doesn’t mean voters will prefer to swap him, likely to be a member of the minority party on Capitol Hill, for Foxx.
For self-interested reasons, I would welcome the opportunity to add another competitive race to the political chatter for 2006. It would be pure pretense at the moment, however.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.