Well here's some more evidence that the North Carolina GOP controlled General Assembly is causing Thom Tillis (R. NC) a lot of problems:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) and state Senate President Phil Berger (R) are members of the same party, but they don’t see eye to eye. Since McCrory took office in 2013, the two have been at each other’s throats constantly, on issues ranging from taxes to election reform to immigration. Now, disagreements between two of the most powerful men in Raleigh over teacher pay and whether to accept federal Medicaid money have kept the legislature in session weeks past their planned adjournment date, while McCrory and Berger take shots at each other in the media.
The budget impasse could resonate far beyond Raleigh: Stuck in the middle, between feuding leaders of his own party, is state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R).
Tillis faces Sen. Kay Hagan (D) in one of the most contentious, most closely-watched Senate contests of the year. Hagan is among four Democrats who represent states Mitt Romney carried in 2012, Democrats the GOP must beat if it is going to retake control of the U.S. Senate.
And while Congress is unpopular, so is North Carolina’s General Assembly. The Hagan campaign, and Democratic outside groups that have poured millions of dollars into attack ads, have made a concerted effort to associate Tillis with his unpopular colleagues in Raleigh.
At issue in the current budget fight: Whether to fund thousands of teaching assistants in public schools, how much to raise teacher salaries, and at what levels to fund Medicaid for low-income children and their parents. The state House, led by Tillis, wants to see a 6 percent pay raise for teachers; the Senate wants an 8 percent pay hike.
McCrory has said he will veto the Senate’s version of the budget, which he said would lead to teacher assistant layoffs and Medicaid benefit cuts. The Republican Senate has threatened to override an earlier McCrory veto.
Internal polls for both Democratic and Republican groups have showed Hagan pulling ahead of Tillis, sources on both sides of the race say, by the low single digits. The nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report recently gave the race a Tilt Democratic rating, motivated in part by struggles Tillis has had in Raleigh.
“His role in the legislature’s leadership is a factor in his problems,” Stu Rothenberg said in an e-mail.
This wasn’t how the legislative session was supposed to go down. Before reconvening in May, Tillis, McCrory and Republican leaders promised a short session — they hoped to adjourn by July 4 — in which teachers would get a pay raise. Now, the pay raise looks uncertain. If it doesn’t materialize, that hands Democrats the ability to hammer Tillis as an ineffectual leader who doesn’t keep his promises. - Washington Post, 7/22/14
Tillis knows this is a problem and is trying to get his party to not screw this up:
http://www.fayobserver.com/...
Tillis is firm on a 6 percent raise with no teaching assistant layoffs, he told The Insider, and with the House aiming to close its 2014 lawmaking session by the end of the week, it's possible that no deal will be struck.
No deal likely means no raises.
Democrats would pounce on Republican incumbents such as state Sen. Wesley Meredith of Fayetteville.
Meredith faces a tough challenger from Democrat Billy Richardson in November.
The issue could turn close races against Republicans, said Republican political consultant Carter Wrenn.
"Part of the reason we're having this argument over how big a raise to give teachers is because Republicans have been pounded on for the past year for not giving them a raise," he said. "So will voters pay attention? Yes. Do they want them to get a raise? Yes. That's part of why Republicans are giving them big raises. And will the teachers be upset if they don't get one? Sure they would be. That then spills over into the campaigns, and the voters will agree that they should have gotten raises."
"If the legislature did leave without passing the budget, Democrats would regard it as a gift from above," said Democratic political consultant Gary Pearce. "They may feel like Christmas has arrived in July. They would go to town immediately."
Wrenn thinks it unlikely that they will fail to make a deal.
"I gotta sort of feel like at some point, after all the wheels of democracy finish grinding, they're going to agree with something," he said.
A lack of a raise would influence whether Meredith wins the endorsement of the Cumberland County Association of Educators, said association president Joseph F. Sorce.
The association has supported the Tillis and McCrory plan, with the smaller raise, because it avoids teaching assistant layoffs, Sorce said.
"It's just a shame, they're struggling," Sorce said. "Teachers are hurting in the pockets. If there is no raise, it's going to make them consider moving out of the state, even to neighboring states, which are paying more. There's been a significant number of people who told me they would move on if they didn't get any kind of raise." - Fay Observer, 7/22/14
Of course Tillis has been busy raising money for his campaign:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/...
Adjourning without Tillis?
If the General Assembly hopes to adjourn this week, lawmakers might have to do so without the speaker of the House, or at least work around his schedule.
Speaker Thom Tillis has two fundraisers scheduled for his U.S. Senate campaign.
On Tuesday, he’ll be at Bobby Vans Grill in Washington at an event with U.S. Sen. Richard Burr. On Wednesday, he’ll be back in D.C. at the Capitol Hill Club for a fundraiser with the state’s GOP congressional delegation.
A group of Tillis critics, meanwhile, has begun a campaign to write in John Rhodes on the November ballot. Rhodes, who lost his House seat to Tillis in 2006, has been a critic of the speaker. - Charlotte Observer, 7/20/14
While the budget battle would be a gift for Democrats, they're not wasting their time hitting Tillis on this:
http://www.newsobserver.com/...
A new television ad attacking House Speaker Thom Tillis suggests the billionaire Koch brothers treat the North Carolina Republican “like he’s one of the family.”
The 30-second ad – backed by $1.1 million from Patriot Majority USA – focuses on how David and Charles Koch are spending millions to help boost Tillis’ campaign and tries to make the connection to the 2013 tax cuts approved by state lawmakers that lowered taxes on corporations. (See the ad below.)
The kicker: “He may not be a Koch brother but he certainly treats them like family.”
It contrasts the tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations with the claims that Tillis froze teacher pay and forced higher costs for seniors’ prescription drugs – both of which lack necessary context and support.
The ad’s emphasis on how the wealthy will see a bigger tax break under the plan (citing a disputed report from a Raleigh organization that opposes the plan) also doesn’t mention that most North Carolinians will see a tax cut under the new law because the personal income tax fell to a flat 5.8 percent rate for all taxpayers. - News Observer, 7/22/14
And it's clear that the General Assembly is hurting Tillis' chances:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/...
PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds Kay Hagan continuing to grow her lead over Thom Tillis as the legislative session drags on. Hagan now has 41% to 34% for Tillis and 8% for Libertarian Sean Haugh. Her lead is up from 2 points in May and 5 points in June.
The protracted legislative session with Tillis at the helm of it can't be doing him any favors. Only 19% of voters approve of the job the General Assembly is doing to 57% who disapprove, and legislative Republicans specifically have a 31/52 favorability rating. Those things are working together to help make Tillis very personally unpopular- only 24% of voters see him favorably to 47% with a negative opinion. Tillis' continued efforts to fundraise while the state budget is in limbo is creating bad optics as well- only 24% of voters think it's appropriate for him to be out there raising money right now to 50% who consider it to be inappropriate.
The news is not all rosy for Hagan. She continues to have negative approval numbers, with only 40% of voters approving of her to 50% who disapprove. And she is very much being propped up right now by the 8% Haugh is receiving, which does not seem likely to hold through until November. When Haugh voters are reallocated to who they would support if they had to pick between Hagan and Tillis, her lead drops to 42-39.
Nevertheless a lack of enthusiasm for Tillis from the Republican base is a big part of the reason so many GOP leaning voters are opting for Haugh at this point. Even among GOP voters only 39% view Tillis favorably to 29% who have a negative opinion, and that's helping to draw 11% of Republicans to the Libertarian at this point. The publicity from the recent Hobby Lobby decision isn't doing Tillis any favors either- 54% of voters say they're less likely to vote for a candidate who supports restricting access to affordable birth control, compared to just 19% who consider that a positive. That issue is a part of why Tillis currently trails Hagan 44/27 with women. - PPP, 7/22/14
Tillis and the GOP recently pushed to defund North Carolina Democrats but that's not going to stop Hagan from beating Tillis:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Having lost its grip on political power in North Carolina, the state’s Democratic Party has the chance to prove its mettle by helping Kay Hagan retain the Senate seat she won in 2008. But internal party disputes have prompted Ms. Hagan to set up an alternative party structure in Wake County to organize and turn out voters.
In March, party allies of Ms. Hagan’s helped create a joint fund-raising effort with the Democratic Party of Wake County, the location of the state’s capital, Raleigh, and of North Carolina State University. The county party has brought in more than $1 million, mostly from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Ms. Hagan’s fund-raising. In contrast, the state party has raised $547,192 for its federal committee during the first six months of this year.
Creating an entirely new committee to work on one of the most competitive Senate races in 2014 demonstrates the lack of confidence national Democrats have in the state party.
National parties prefer to work with their state counterparts, which can have stronger brands and loyalty within a state, and Senate candidates typically form such fund-raising alliances with state parties. When they instead form alliances with county ones, it is usually because the state party organization is in disarray or is not trusted by national party leaders in Washington to properly organize a statewide turnout operation.
In Nevada in 2012, national Republicans bypassed that state’s party organization, which was led by supporters of the former presidential candidate Ron Paul. Instead, it funneled money to Washoe County Republicans to spend on the Senate race in which Dean Heller, a Republican appointed to the seat, defeated Shelley Berkley, a Democratic congresswoman. That prompted an attempt by party officials loyal to Mr. Paul to remove the Washoe County party chairman, and the state party remains divided.
Although there has been sniping by some North Carolina Democrats about the state party’s leadership, there have not been open hostilities that could spill over into the Senate race. An added risk is if the turmoil continues beyond November. North Carolina is likely to again be an important state in the 2016 presidential elections, and a weakened state party would make repeating Barack Obama’s slim victory in 2008 harder for Democrats.
If there’s a North Carolina county that matters most to Democrats, a strong case can be made for Wake, which has the second-highest number of registered party members and accounts for 10 percent of statewide voters. The county is also the home of Dan Blue, the leader of the state’s Senate Democrats. Until November, it is also the base of the state Democratic Party’s operations.
“Hagan’s campaign realized early on that they need a strong ground game to mirror the grass-roots mobilization that Obama’s campaign had in the state during presidential years,” said J. Michael Bitzer, provost and professor of politics at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. He said sidestepping the state organization helped develop “a ground game needed for this competitive election that Hagan is facing.” - New York Times, 7/22/14
Click here to donate and get involved with Hagan's campaign so she can defeat Tillis in November:
http://www.kayhagan.com/