This year in North Carolina we have an election for President, Governor, Senator and the Supreme Court Justice race that will make it the NC Supreme Court 4-3 Democratic.
All of these races are very winnable in this purple state getting bluer every day.
For president, Obama won in 2008 with a strong organization and barely lost North Carolina in 2012.
The progressive base here went through a big organizing process for the primary in 2008, the election in 2008, the re-election in 2012 and a tough senate race in 2014 where we came really close to winning despite an avalanche of money against us and a state party so disorganized that Hagan had to organize through the Wake county Democratic party.
Everybody is a campaign veteran, trained in GOTV and knows the electoral ropes.
The state party is really healthy now with money and good leaders.
If we win in North Carolina we win the Presidency and the SCOTUS.
In the race for governor, McCrory is weak, very unpopular, and is facing a top opponent in the long time Attorney General Roy Cooper. PPP has the race very close with Cooper up by 3. Cooper, despite having run state wide, has a lot of room to grow via name recognition. Cooper has a long history of NC service, NC Assembly, NC Senate and he has been the state Attorney General since 2004.
Pat McCrory has, with the help of the very unpopular GOP state General Assembly, managed one way or the other to just about piss off everybody in the state.
Their latest move was to change how we elect the one Republican NC Supreme Court Justice running this time. The Democrats have been very successful in judgeship races, we just won three during the disastrous 2014 election. McCrory and the GOP NCGA changed the election so that instead of being a contest between two potential justice the election became a recall election. And if the Republican judge was recalled, then the Republican Governor got to name the replacement. Neat huh?
Unfortunately for the NC GOP it appears that it is also unconstitutional so put another and separate election on the new primary for unconstitutional elections (redistricting was declared unconstitutional last week so house of representatives will face a different primary as well).
The Democrats have a primary for Senate but the likely winner is Deborah Ross.
Deborah is a former state legislator (served as deputy whip) and managed the ACLU for seven years. She is smart, a good campaigner and a top recruit for the Democrats. The DSCC has already endorsed her and she had an excellent first quarter fund raising ($586,000 by the end of 2015 and began 2015 with $452,000 on hand).
Deborah’s opponent is the underwater and poorly known Richard Burr. Still he is the incumbent with a large war chest. in the latest poll is Burr is up only 43/37 on Deborah Ross. 43 is not a good number for an incumbent in an anti-Washington year.
So all of these elections are happening at the same time and if we get out the vote we can win them all.
Are you a NC Democrat and want to help? Democratic precinct meetings in North Carolina will mostly be held this Saturday February 27th. Find out where yours is and go meet some fellow Democrats. If you live in Orange county message me and I will tell you when and where your precinct is meeting.