- Latest John Locke Foundation polling shows potential for left-wing political bloodbath
North Carolina Democrats are facing a brutal election that could see their worst results in more than a decade, according to the latest and last Civitas-John Locke Foundation poll of the 2022 election.
The poll, released two weeks before Election Day, shows Republican Ted Budd pulling away with a four-point lead.
The Trafalgar Group, also showed a 4-point advantage, and ECU showed a 6-point Budd advantage. Including the Locke poll, the Real Clear Politics polling average is now about 4 points. They may not sound like it, but those are huge margins for recent North Carolina’s U.S. State elections. Sen. Thom Tillis was first elected to the upper chamber in 2014 with a winning margin of 1.5% and re-elected in 2020 with a winning margin of 1.75%
Of 17 public polls released since this spring, Beasley has led in only two and none after Labor Day. A four-point victory for Budd would be larger than Trump’s N.C. victories in 2016 (3.6%) and 2020 (1.34%)
President Biden’s job approval has fallen to 38.4% in N.C., his lowest in the Locke poll since this spring. Biden was never going to stay at his Locke 2022 polling low of 33.3% in May, because some angry Democrats were always going to come home.
However, his current 38.4% job approval against 55.3% disapproval, with a majority (50.5%) strongly disapproving, is horrific for Democrats. Beasley would have to run a full 10 points ahead of her party’s president to win, a feat only accomplished a few times in the last century. This is nearly an impossibility for a candidate who is not already a very popular Senate incumbent.
At this time in the election cycle, don’t listen to what they “say” about a race.
Watch what they do.
Independent spending intended to assist Beasley has slowed to a trickle. According to ad spending tracking services, Ted Budd and those supporting him are expected to outspend Beasley and her supporters by $1.7 million during this second-to-last full week before the election. The Beasley camp has been begging national Democrats and their allied groups to spend more in her race all year. Now you see why they declined. As we move towards the election, Beasley and her money are alone in spending on her race.
How bad is it for Biden in N.C.? Approximately 50% of women and 61% of men disapprove of Biden’s job performance. Plus, 56% of unaffiliated voters and 19% of Democrats disapprove of Biden. Among the respondents, 20% of Black voters and 66% of Hispanics disapprove of Biden.
A plurality of Democrats (42%) don’t want to see Biden run again and a whopping 66% of unaffiliated don’t either.
Biden is not just dragging Democrat candidates down, he is a ball and chain around their electoral prospects.
As every John Locke poll has shown this year, Republicans gain strength down the ballot.
Republicans are now showing massive 6-point leads in both the legislative and congressional generic numbers. There is no way to sugarcoat it. These are beat-down numbers that will lead to GOP supermajorities in the General Assembly and to winning every congressional seat that was not heavily gerrymandered for Democratic victory by the Democrat-controlled state Supreme Court.
The Democrat N.C. Supreme Court imposed a map that they intended to guarantee a minimum of 6 Democrats and 7 Republicans with one swing seat in NC-13, where Republican Bo Hines and Democrat Wiley Nickel are currently battling. Democrats hoped they could work to an even 7-7 split. With these numbers, Republicans will win NC-13 and now have a realistic chance to win NC-1 too, which is currently held by retiring G.K. Butterfield and has been held by a Democrat for more than 100 years. The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates the seat as just +2 Democrat.
It is important to note that Republicans also have an outside chance at pulling one other stunning congressional upset. The NC-6 seat, held by Democrat Kathy Manning of Greensboro, is only rated as +4. She faces a spirited challenge by Christian Castelli in a district that represents all of Guilford and Rockingham counties, most of Caswell County, and part of Forsyth County. Castelli’s consultant Taylor Hall tells CJ the environment is ripe for a GOP upset in this race.
While NC-14 is still rated as a “Safe Democrat” seat by Cook, they rank the seat as Democrats +6 in theory.
A 9-5 GOP split, a seeming impossibility just a month ago, is now a possibility with an outside chance at 10-4.
Republicans will have a 5-2 State Supreme Court majority, instead of the current 4-3 Democrat majority.
Court Democrats are being killed for their soft-on crime records and because some in their party embraced the violent riots and supported the “defund the police” movement. That, combined with extreme partisan overreach by Jimmy Ervin IV and other court Democrats, has them being routed. These numbers have Democrat Supreme Court candidates Jimmy Ervin IV and Lucy Inman getting beat like a redheaded stepchild (Can I still say that?).
Republican State Supreme Court candidates Trey Allen (+7.4%) and Rich Dietz (+6.4) are pulling away in these two critical races and will not only win, but they are also on track to win by much larger margins than in any recent two-person partisan court race. They will bring four GOP State Court of Appeals nominees with them.
Abortion ads targeting GOP Judicial candidates are not only failing, but they are also backfiring!
Republicans Dietz and Allen are only losing the female vote by 2-3% but are winning men by 18 points. The story is the same on the generic ballots.
Democrats thought abortion was going to be their savior, but the fact is Republicans are doing historically well with women this year. Democrats and their allies pushing for cross-dressing boys to play girls’ sports is also not popular with mothers of teenage daughters.
After the Democrats on the court threw out GOP election maps, ended the death penalty for some of the earth’s most vicious and dangerous criminals, blocked electronic monitoring of perverts and child rapists, tried to nullify the election of GOP justices, and completely re-wrote whole sections of the North Carolina Constitution with their crayons, no crushing political defeat could ever be more justified.
Lastly, there is literally nothing Democrats can do to try to try and save themselves at this point. It is shaping up to be brutal.