RALEIGH – It’s another Election Day, by the way. It would be understandable if you didn’t realize this. August 17th has arrived with only one statewide primary runoff – the Democratic contest between Marshall Stewart and June Atkinson for state superintendent of public instruction – and only two races attracting any significant attention around North Carolina.
No, one of them is not the Stewart-Atkinson race. No disrespect intended, but the office they seek doesn’t have the authority it used to have, and each has had trouble raising the money or public attention necessary to have a real statewide debate about the future of education policy. I’m also not talking about the handful of Democratic and Republican runoffs in state legislative races, or the couple of county-commission nominations still unsettled.
I am referring to the two Republican runoffs for Congress, the 5th District race between Virginia Foxx and Vernon Robinson and the 10th District race between David Huffman and Patrick McHenry. These are distinct races but there are also some common themes. In both, the candidates are trying to position themselves as the “real conservatives” in the field, stressing a broad range of economic, social, and foreign-policy issues. Both contests have featured accusations of campaign-finance irregularities – all four have been on the sending and receiving ends of these charges, and all four appear to have committed at least minor transgressions (try running a political campaign in the current legal environment and not forgetting to cross a T or two). It is fair to say that Huffman’s violations were a bit more serious.
Still, the differences between the races are also noteworthy. The 5th District runoff features two veteran politicians looking to take a step up the political ladder: Foxx, the longtime state senator, and Robinson, a two-term member of the Winston-Salem city council who has also sought legislative and statewide office. In the 10th District, Huffman is even more of a veteran, having spent more than two decades as a sheriff and county commissioner in Catawba County, while McHenry is in the middle of his first term in the NC House (he ran once before and lost).
The main issues in the race are different, too. The 10th District has probably experienced one of the most dramatic economic turnarounds in the United States – going from one of the lowest jobless rates in the country in the late 1990s to one of the highest in the region after the 2001 recession, with some counties in this Western North Carolina posting double-digit unemployment rates for a time. Economic competitiveness is the central concern in the campaign, with McHenry in particular putting a strong emphasis on North Carolina’s self-imposed wounds such as increases in taxation and regulation. Also, both McHenry and Huffman are talking a great deal about traditional values and emphasizing their appeal to the religious conservatives who play a key role in intra-party politics.
In the 5th District, Foxx originally sought to campaign on her legislative record and professional accomplishments, but Robinson’s speeches and campaign ads on issues such as tighter immigration enforcement and gay rights have served to change the subject to hot-button issues designed – and possibly likely – to attract voters’ attention in the middle of summer. Economic issues matter here, too, but just don’t seem to be playing the same role in the race. That’s actually a bit unfair to Robinson’s record and beliefs; he has been a strong fiscal conservative on the Winston-Salem council and advocates free-market views on tax, budget, and regulatory issues. But he’s been the agenda-setter in the race, no question, so that’s that.
I haven’t the foggiest idea how these two interesting and entertaining races are going to turn out. One thing I do know is that after the polls close, the volume of email hitting my inbox is going to plummet.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.