Cooper by THIRTEEN. What is Buckhout DOING? (Trump is HERE.)

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Now is the time to start really looking at polls.  These pollsters all want to be hired for the next round of elections.  So, about this time each campaign season, all of their pencils tend to get much sharper. The polls tend to get much closer to picking the actual final margin.

Since mid-September, the polls in the Whatley-Cooper matchup have shown this race somewhere between a FIVE and FOURTEEN point lead for Roy Cooper.  Eight of the eleven most recent polls put Cooper at 50 percent or better.  The GOP money spigot has cut Whatley off.  It looks like Cooper’s to lose. 

Elon University has added their final contribution to Campaign 2026.  They have Roy Cooper up 52-39 over Mike Whatley.

This final poll before election day was conducted Sept. 29 – Oct. 8 and gathered input from 800 North Carolina adults, with an overall margin of error of +/-4.03%.

If Elon’s prediction holds up, Mike Whatley will replace Elizabeth Dole as the victim of the worst beatdown for a NCGOP candidate for US Senate in over 50 years.   (Sam Ervin (D) beat his GOP rival 60-40 in the 1968 US Senate race.)   Whatley will also be a whisker away from tying the 14.6 point defeat Mark Robinson was dealt in 2024. 

Buckhout.  For the second cycle in a row, DC is attempting to shove Laurie Buckhout down our collective throats.  Just the other night, I was in front of a TV for an extended period of time and got served up a smorgasbord of political ads.

A couple of ads openly questioned Buckhout’s mental state.  One actually featured police body-cam video of her participating in a roadside sobriety test. This is not a good place to be two weeks in front of an election.  (Thanks to some serious redistricting / gerrymandering,  the 1st district was supposed to be a serious cakewalk for whomever secured the GOP nomination.) 

I got my hands on some video of a profile eastern North Carolina’s WITN produced on the candidates in the 1st and 3rd congressional districts.  Unlike the slander-monkeys at WRAL, WITN appears to try and be reasonably fair in their political coverage.  In the 3rd district, incumbent Greg Murphy (R) and his (D) opponent participated.   Incumbent Don Davis (D) was there for the 1st district.  But there was no Laurie Buckhout.

The station explained that Buckhout had been refusing any and all interview requests since July.   WITN is a significant player in the news game for this district.  It’s got a pretty wide reach in the district.  They were pretty fair with Greg Murphy. Why think it would be different for Buckhout? 

It sounds like her DC-based campaign team is concerned about what she might do in front of a TV camera. Coupling things like this with the reports we’re getting about her campaign’s treatment of campaign workers and potential donors,  we can see why she hasn’t been able to put Don Davis away.

Trump.  President Trump was in Greenville last night trying to rally the bewildered GOP team here in the Tar Heel State.  The biggest story for me – out of all that – was how my friend’s son and the son’s roommate, both ECU freshmen, managed to get a personal photo with Trump himself.

Upon seeing the photo in question, I immediately suspected AI or perhaps a cardboard cut-out.  After all this was a privilege normally reserved for high-dollar donors – not two scruffy college kids. (Both are big Trump fans, BTW.)

I have to give The Don props for that.  Those two freshmen had a memorable experience they’ll never forget.  Not many people get up-close and personal with the sitting US president.

Meanwhile, the drive-by media is trying to paint Donald Trump as THE reason Democrats will have a good election.

It’s actually due to a number of things – some of which ARE Trump’s fault.  Voters were promised a lot of stuff in 2016, 2020, and 2024 that never saw the light of day nor got off the ground. (Lock Her Up.  DOGE. Getting to the bottom of government weaponization and January 6th). With complete control of DC, the GOP never managed to get spending cuts or government shrinkage off the ground.  They piddled around and did nothing as staggering inflation kicked in.

There were regularly 50 or so GOPers in the House and about five in the Senate who would vote the BIG GOVERNMENT way at every opportunity.  How do you maintain a credible party when you have a large number of its elected officials balking at cutting taxes, cutting spending, and shrinking government?  That’s the meat of the party platform, people.

Trump’s team has made some horrible decisions with their endorsements in North Carolina.  They endorsed Lynda Bennett who didn’t make it out of the primary for the 11th district.  They endorsed Chuck Edwards shortly before he imploded before the ethics committee.  They endorsed Phil Berger, who we hear is packing up and heading down to Florida and The Villages. They pushed Whatley down our throats, and look what has resulted.  They pushed Laurie Buckhout on us two straight election cycles.  The last one standing appears to be congressman Addison McDowell – lil’ bro of Don Jr. BFF and super-lobbyist Ches.  Lil’ Addison – a former lobbyist and political hack himself – appears to survive by staying below radar in his rock-ribbed red district. 

Let’s not forget the useless state party chairman – Jason Simmons – the Trump team saddled us with in Raleigh.

Thanks to all this meddling (and more), the NCGOP has moved from a party-on-the-rise in 2010 to a corruption-addled mess ready to erupt into a civil war.

The lesson for Team Trump in DC?  Stop the meddling.  You’ve done more harm than good.