Polls! (Yay.)
A couple of recently released polls may be providing some insight into why certain NCGOPe types are trashing President Trump and, in general, losing it.
High Point University has released polling showing the generic ballot matchup, R v. D, for November’s NC House races virtually tied. Same for the NC Senate races.
Polling from Elon earlier this month indicates (1) strong support for the constitutional amendments on November’s ballots, and (2) the presence of the amendments on the ballots is not really providing much of a get-out-the-vote incentive.
Polling from Civitas also finds a virtual dead-heat in the generic ballot matchup between the parties in the November legislative races. Same for the congressional races.
Only 59% of respondents to the Civitas poll could ID Roy Cooper as the current governor of North Carolina. Only 76% correctly IDed him as a Democrat. 
In the Supreme Court race, “Republican” Chris Anglin was supported by 7% of respondents while incumbent Republican Barbara Jackson got 11% support. Democrat Anita Earls pulls 38% of the vote, while undecided pulls 44% of the vote. (Man, this is looking awfully familiar.)
Only 50% of respondents “strongly opposed” pulling down Confederate monuments. Even though 70% “strongly opposed” the mob action against Silent Sam.
According to the poll, most respondents were ill-informed on education spending. Nearly half believed the state spends less than $5000 per student. (The actual number? $9,172.)
The poll found strong support for ICE but a split decision on whether Democrats or Republicans could better handle immigration policy.
What this poll suggests in the Supreme Court race is that conservative voters faced with two candidates identified as Republican mostly cannot figure out which one to vote for, and many of those who do take a shot in the dark get it wrong.
This shows the unmitigated disaster that is the “jungle primary” Those in the legislature responsible for that travesty need to relegated to being backbenchers. They have completely betrayed the Republican Party and deserve no future leadership roles whatsoever.
Then there is the gross incompetence of the NCGOP in not running a Democrat ringer for Supreme Court, like we knew they were going to do to us. The elected leadership of the party and the principle party bureaucrats at headquarters all need to be replaced. We could have used the very same tactic to throw the very same confusion back on Democrat voters.
Republicans need “fruit basket turnovers” in both legislative leadership and party leadership. What they have done to Justice Barbara Jackson and to GOP representation on the court is unforgivable.
There is a reason that it is the Democrats who have always pushed non-partisan elections here in North Carolina, and jungle primaries in other states. Don’t we have anyone in Raleigh in the party or the GOP legislative caucus who comprehends that?
The Barbara Jackson mess is one made by Republicans in the legislature. The ill-conceived provision to do away with primaries in judicial races is at the root of this. It allowed a liberal Democrat to simply change parties and file as a Republican to drain away a percentage of the Republican vote for Jackson. What a shame. The legislature also was the cause of losing Justice Edmunds by refusing to make Supreme court races partisan. Republicans won EVERY Court of Appeals race but lost the Supreme Court seat when more than 500,000 FEWER voters voted in that race. I would also add that the House Republican Caucus had voted to make the Supreme Court races partisan, but leadership took that provision out of the bill. Losing control of the NC Supreme Court is a self-inflicted wound.
N.C. legislative leadership must be replaced. This is a non-negotiable issue. They’ve done way too much damage to be forgiven.
Thank you, John Blust, for that information on who was responsible for the idiotic non-partisan election that cost Bob Edmunds his Supreme Court seat and cost the GOP the majority on the court. While it was known that RINO consultant Paul Shumaker came up with the idea, who was responsible for pushing it in the legislature outside of committee chairman David Lewis was not known. It is comforting to know that the majority in the GOP caucus had the good sense to support a partisan election. But the leadership betraying the caucus and the party by going to Shumaker’s non-partisan election plan instead is appalling. That means Speaker Timmy Moore and probably some or all of his top lieutenants screwed Republicans. You are not running again, so you will not be there, by I sure hope that the rest of the caucus remembers this far reaching treachery when they vote for a new Speaker and make wholesale changes in the leadership.
Can you fill us in on the inside scoop on another goofball idea that threatens to take another Supreme Court seat away from us this year, the jungle primary, and how that came about? Did that come primarily from the Senate or the House and who was behind it?
Don’t just blame the leaders in the legislature for the current mess. The leadership of the NCGOPe deserves their share of the blame since they work hand in glove with legislative leadership.
If you doubt it, look at their joint attempt to sneak thru a Con-Con resolution (Senate Joint Resolution 36) earlier this year. The left was pushing that insane idea when I was in the legislature, and now the GOPe globalists are pretending it is a conservative idea. Do you want our current leaders to rewrite the Constitution?
John Steed recently commented on how the NCGOPe gave Cooper a free pass in 2012 when he was extremely vulnerable. The free pass for Cooper was not the only NCGOPe trick in 2012. That year NCGOP Vice-Chair Wayne King was working to be sure the only CPA in the Republican primary for Auditor was a newly minted Republican with so many red flags his ties to Cooper’s team were easy to find.
I filed to run for auditor the day before filing closed because otherwise a last minute mailing “Vote for the only qualified candidate – the only CPA in the race” could let the recent Democrat running in the Republican primary advance to the general election. That could put a ringer, not a Republican, in the Auditor’s office. Since I’m a CPA, simply by filing I messed up that plan.
A letter was sent December 6, 2012 (after the general election to avoid influencing it) to then-Executive Director Scott Laster with a CC to Robin Hayes accusing Mr. King of Party Disloyalty. (Mr. Laster had said what Mr. King did was Party Disloyalty before I figured out Wayne King was the snake in the grass who lied to my county chair to get him to call me very shortly after I filed to ask me to drop out of the auditor’s race.) The letter was shared with Dallas Woodhouse at the Wilmington convention. Dallas said he would talk to Robin and get back to me. I’m still waiting.
The letter included this request to Scott: “Please share this letter and the opinion you expressed concerning the impropriety of the call I received with the Executive Committee and the Central Committee members this Saturday AND ask them to appropriately discipline Mr. King.”
I don’t think the letter has ever been shared with the members of those committees, but Mr. King did not ascend to Chairman that Saturday.
Fran, this is probably news to
many on the current Central and Executive Committees of the NCGOP. Thanks for sharing.
Aw! Wayne King, my role model!
After our plot to depose Chairman Hasan Harnett succeeded, I needed someone to put into the chairman’s office who would be happy being a figurehead and giving the real powers to someone else – ME! Who better than Robin Hayes, who in his previous term as chairman had been happy as a figurehead and giving many of the functions of his office to his vice chairman, Wayne King? That was precisely the reason for selecting Robin Hayes for this position.
From what I am told, it was Wayne King as much as Robin who decided to give Roy Cooper that free pass in 2012.
One of the roles Wayne King took over was candidate recruitment, which is also a role I took over. Wayne’s emphasis was Council of State and mine was legislative, but both of us took that role which had not previously been a responsibility of the offices we held. We were both successful at empire building at the expense of the chairmanship. Wait till 2020 and see what I can do with the Council of State, ticket. You can bet I will have at least one sexual minority in the mix.