Buying a $4 million ticket to nowhere is a luxury few of us can afford...except, it seems, Cal Cunningham’s backers in the NC-Sen Democratic primary to choose an opponent against Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
Tillis, with a scant 34% approval rating in North Carolina, is the Senate’s most imperiled Republican up for re-election, making his seat a must-win for Democrats eager to take control of the Senate.
But a new internal poll for End Citizens United, a major Cunningham supporter, shows the Democrat stubbornly stuck in no better than a dead heat against Tillis (44% to 42%), right where he was back in June when another Cunningham supporter, VoteVets, polled the matchup at 41% to 40%, and in July (42% to 41%), and September (45% to 43%), and October (a 33%/33% tie according to a Meredith College survey).
Ordinarily, results like these would be of modest concern so early in the race (after all, the Democratic nominee hasn’t even been chosen yet), but this is no ordinary race. Cunningham is the Democratic primary’s frontrunner, benefiting from the DSCC’s endorsement to snag supporters like VoteVets and End Citizens United. And with its support, VoteVets brought the big bucks — a massive $3.3 million ad spend since Christmas Eve, making Cunningham’s the only name in this race heard on the airwaves. Tillis isn’t advertising (not since his last serious primary challenger, Garland Tucker, dropped out in early December, anyway). Neither is Cunningham’s challenger, three term state senator and woman of color Erica Smith, whose fundraising efforts were severely undercut by DSCC’s endorsement of Cunningham, leaving television advertising beyond her reach.
Given that air superiority, plus Cunningham’s own six- to seven-figure spend so far on digital and direct mail advertising, conventional wisdom suggests he should already be climbing versus Thom Tillis. For as Democratic strategist Trey Nix told Politico Pro (paywalled):
“It helps him in the primary, but it also helps him in the general. It's a smart play on VoteVets' part because the perfect scenario in a primary is that you get to communicate a message that's also helpful in the general.”
And yet Cunningham remains mired in photo-finish polling versus Tillis, right where he was seven months ago. That uncontested $4+ million ad spend in the primary hasn’t helped him one bit against his prospective general candidate. It hasn’t even twitched the needle, much less moved it, despite Cunningham’s fabulist assertion that he’s now got the Big Mo:
So what’s Cal’s problem? It isn’t that he’s running against his primary opponent, Smith, rather than against Tillis. Cunningham hasn’t even spoken Smith’s name since he entered this race, instead focusing all of his criticism on Tillis, in an apparent bid to cement his appearance as the presumptive nominee.
It isn’t that he’s short on money. According to his campaign he raised $1.6 million in the fourth quarter alone, and ended 2019 with $1.7 million cash on hand.
Rather, his problem is, as one NC Democratic strategist suggested to me on background:
“I don’t think anybody actually likes Cal...he’s not the kind of candidate you’d take home to meet your mother. At best, they just like the money the party has thrown his way, so they’ve fallen in line. But that logic only works on political observers. Regular voters just see a corporate attorney who doesn’t seem authentic when he dresses down in a spotless barn jacket and brand-new Levis.”
Meanwhile, which Democratic candidate is Thom Tillis campaigning against?