Colin “Gay Stuff” on the June primary: Voters hate Donald Trump, GOP legislators

McClatchy-Raleigh was in need of some spin on the June primary.  And WHO better to provide said spin than their official GAY STUFF !!!™ correspondent, Colin Campbell?

In today’s N&O — birdcage lining or fishwrap in most people’s homes — we were *blessed* with ‘seven things we learned’ from the June 7 vote:

 […] Voters aren’t promoting state lawmakers right now: Six current state legislators and a former state senator sought seats in Congress on Tuesday.

All of them lost.

[…] Past election cycles have been kinder to state lawmakers trying to move up. Adams and several other congressional incumbents who won their primaries Tuesday have served in the N.C. General Assembly, including Reps. Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry.Opinion polls have shown low approval ratings for the General Assembly. But there’s good news for the defeated legislators: The law that set the June primary allowed them to run for Congress without dropping out of their legislative re-election bids. And with gerrymandered legislative districts, many of them will likely be victorious in November.[…]

And why are they unpopular?  Say it, little man.  Say it! (You know you want to. *Give me an H … give me a B … give me a 2 *…)

Most of those legislative losses occurred in the crazy crowded 13th district GOP primary. Ted Budd benefited from a boatload of DC PAC money, as well as assistance from NCGOP chairman Robin Hayes and the NC House GOP caucus leadership.

But, wait – -there’s MORE:

[…] Donald Trump can’t save you: The Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president endorsed U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers in the 2nd District, lending his voice to a recorded phone call on the weekend before the election.

The Ellmers campaign clearly hoped to motivate Trump voters who might have otherwise sat out the low-turnout primary.

It didn’t work: Ellmers lost by nearly 30 percentage points. The last-minute call from Trump didn’t improve her results from the early voting period, which took place before the endorsement. […] 

Trump didn’t kill Nee-Nee. She lost because she was not very nice, not very competent, and not very honest.  She had been lucky in the past because (1) Bob Etheridge got stupid on camera, and (2) favorable redistricting put her in a jurisdiction with few quality candidates who could match or beat her incumbent-caliber war chest.  That luck ran out this year when Mr. Holding came calling. 

The Nee-Nee endorsement was a bone-headed move by Team Trump. She was damaged goods long before Trump came on the scene in the presidential race.  Ellmers latched onto Trump as one more act of opportunism, but the voters saw through it.

  It was a no-win for Trump.  If she lost, it would be egg on his face. If she won, he would be forever tarred with her obnoxious, arrogant, buffoonish persona. 

Lie to your voters, talk to them and treat them like they’re dirt, and you’ll end up the same way as Nee-Nee. 

Gay Stuff !!!™ also proudly informs us that anti-establishment fervor did not impact congressional Republicans this time around.  He’s partly right there.  The whole way this election was handled — voting in May, shaking up the districts, then voting again in June — created voter confusion and likely contributed to the low turnout.  Many voters were being asked to evaluate — in less than two months — candidates and incumbents they had never seen or heard of before. Of course, the timing – -right as school ended and summer vacations started — didn’t help in terms of voter interest and participation.  It was all a strategy that played nicely into the hands of folks who already had the name ID and the big dollars.  (Club for Growth and NAGR, among others, did a bang up job of ponying up big dollars to raise Ted Budd’s name ID.)