RALEIGH – It’s taken several days, but I’ve been able to look over most of the competitive races for the North Carolina House and Senate with the filing period ending lasting Friday. There weren’t many surprises, other than the Republican Party’s success in shedding its traditional candidate-recruitment problems and fielding perhaps its strongest slate of legislative candidates in decades.
Tomorrow I’ll take a look at the competitive House races, in which I will include not only the truly swing districts (21 by my count out of 120 seats) but also a few other districts where the numbers say one party but the candidate match-up suggests a real race. Today, the topic is the Senate. Down East, Democratic Sen. Scott Thomas of New Bern will defend his very competitive 2nd District seat against either Craven County Commission Chairman Chuck Tyson or Carteret County GOP Chairman Jule Wheatly. Thomas has reason to worry about this.
In Senate District 5, four Democrats and two Republicans will fight for the nomination in a moderately Democratic seat. I don’t have good intelligence on these candidates, other than a personal acquaintance with Republican Tom Coulson, so it would be hard to handicap it. In a normal year, this Pitt-Wilson district would probably lie just out of the GOP’s reach, with a 57 percent Democratic registration, but it is open and the issue environment makes it more in play.
In very competitive District 6, including populous Onslow County and sparsely settled Jones, just-appointed incumbent Kever Clark, an educator, will have to get past fellow Democrat Cecil Hargett to take on either Tom Mattison or former Sen. Tommy Pollard. The latter candidate was convicted back in the 1970s for assault with a deadly weapon during a drunken brawl. He’s been elected since then, so maybe it doesn’t matter much to voters, but I tend to think area Republicans might be wincing a little bit. This could be a must-win district in the GOP’s search for a Senate majority.
In District 9, around Wilmington, incumbent Republican and Minority Leader Patrick Ballantine will likely dispatch a primary challenge from Dallas Brown but will have to defeat Wilmington City Council member Laura Padgett, a serious opponent. The district is moderately Republican.
Two incumbent Democrats, Charlie Albertson and A.B. Swindell, will defend moderately Democratic seats in the 10th and 11th districts respectively. I am betting that the Republicans might have their best shot against Swindell, with former Youngsville City Council member Willie Cook. But the numbers still give Swindell an edge.
In District 12, Democratic incumbent Allen Wellons of Smithfield will likely face Republican Fred Smith, a Johnston County Commissioner. This will be a key race for the GOP. It’s now a moderately Republican seat, and Smith is popular and well financed. If he isn’t a shoo-in, the GOP effort in the Senate is doomed.
In Wake County, the new 17th District is moderately Republican, and the party’s nominee will probably be former Wake County Manager Richard Stevens. Again, if it doesn’t look like Stevens will swamp Democrat Thomas Hunt, the game is over.
In the Sandhills, a new moderately Republican 22nd District features crowded primaries. Former legislators Wanda Hunt of Moore and Jimmy Love of Lee are trying to get the Democratic nod, while Harris Blake and former Sen. Teena Little of Moore are running against Harnett County Commissioner Tim McNeil and former Rep. Bobby Ray Hall of Lee. It is impossible to sort out the likely November result until we get through the primary. I would note that Blake and Little might split the Moore vote (they represent different factions of the county GOP) letting one of the other Republicans slide through given the absence of a runoff.
Over in Greensboro, Democrat Kay Hagan will defend a competitive 27th District against former Republican Sen. Mark McDaniel. He used to live in Winston-Salem, and as a Republican leader in the Senate was upended by his unwise support of a tax increase to build a Major League Baseball stadium for the Triad. He seems to have recovered his fiscally conservative equilibrium, so we’ll see. Hagan will benefit from hers and her family’s name recognition and resources, as well as 21 percent minority registration, the vast majority of whom (at this point) are reliable Democratic voters.
In Gaston County’s moderately Republican District 43, incumbent Democrat David Hoyle will face a tough challenge from Republican Rep. Michael Harrington. This is an odd situation. Gaston has been trending strongly Republican in recent years, and Hoyle lost some loyal Democratic voters in other counties due to redistricting. On the other hand, he is a “pro-business Democrat,” as they say, though that hasn’t stopped him from favoring tax increases in recent sessions. Hoyle will be well-financed and will get pretty-good coverage from the local libertarian-conservative newspaper, the Gazette, given his strong stands on free-press issues. Still, Harrington is swimming with the current, Hoyle against it.
In moderately Democratic District 46, encompassing Cleveland and Rutherford counties, we see another “pro-business Democrat” incumbent, Walter Dalton, facing another Republican representative, John Weatherly. My sense is that Dalton is safer than Hoyle, however. The voter-registration numbers are much better for him, and the challenger isn’t perceived as quite as strong.
In the far western mountains, we have two more races to watch. Democrat Steve Metcalf of Asheville now holds a very competitive 49th District seat. He’s saddled with a minor controversy about his getting a job with a state university while simultaneously serving in the legislature. He’s also drawn an experienced challenger, former Sen. R.L. Clark. I think this is a toss-up.
Finally, in the 50th District, two incumbents – Republican Bob Carpenter and Democrat Dan Robinson – were thrown together by redistricting. Carpenter will likely win this moderately Republican seat, but like I said regarding some eastern districts, if it looks like this might actually be a horserace, Republicans statewide will get nervous about their prospects of a takeover.
Overall, I’d say that if Republicans can get prospective donors to look closely at the numbers and the candidates, they should be able to raise significant funds and have a better than 50-50 shot of winning the 26 seats they need. While the GOP has only 15 seats today, it has essentially picked up two right off the bat due to redistricting. So it needs to win nine of the 14 races I’ve discussed. It can be done.