RALEIGH – Pardon me for following up a bit more on Tuesday’s primary elections, but one thing I noticed was a lack of any widespread anti-incumbent feeling in NC House and Senate races. The only currently serving, elected lawmaker to go down in defeat Tuesday was Rep. Buck Buchanan, a Mitchell County Republican who had been targeted by leaders of his own party because of his tendency to subvert the GOP caucus in the House.
Other incumbents did lose. Rep. Shelly Willingham in the 24th district and Sen. Kever Clark in the 6th district, both in the East, got beat in Democratic primaries. But both had been appointed to their seats due to vacancies. And, of course, several incumbents got beaten in primaries by other incumbents – Democratic Sen. Howard Lee in Orange and Republican Sen. Bob Shaw in Guilford, for example – but this was unavoidable due to redistricting. Finally, several former legislators looking to return to Raleigh failed in the attempt, including former Sens. Don East and Jesse Ledbetter and former Rep. Robert Brawley. Again, they were often running against incumbents or local officeholders, muddying the message.
I don’t think it is legitimate to conclude, however, that the primary voters of North Carolina were content. I just think that given the choices available, they tended to opt for the familiar and the proven. The same was not true in a number of local races, which were often more spirited than the state and national contests.
The chairman of the Yadkin County Commission, for instance, was ousted, embarrassingly, after supporting a property tax increase and drawing strong opposition from a local taxpayer group (see here: http://www.elkintribune.com/Pages/Jumps/news/outspoken.html). In Iredell, a finance scandal in the local school system cost the chairman of the school board his job (see here: http://www.statesville.com/news/MGB3JRSOY5D.html). Over on the coast in Jacksonville, the five-term mayor was turned out on his ear (see here: http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/Details.cfm?StoryID=7060) as part of a surge of interest in city elections. Polk County voters turned down aschool bond and voted out two of three incumbent county commissioners (see here: http://www.tryondailybulletin.com/news/news.asp?ArticleID=8429). And longtime sheriffs were defeated in a number of counties, including big ones like Forsyth and small ones like Hoke.
I don’t want to oversell this as a meaningful trend. Lots of county commissioners and sheriffs got reelected. But I would argue that there is enough evidence of voter unrest that incumbents at any level who get real comfortable about their chances in November might be unpleasantly surprised.