Analysts: No Congressional, Few Legislative Districts Seen As Competitive | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Dan Way, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Wake County likely to experience tightest contests in General Assembly

    RALEIGH - The races for only 7 percent of state legislative seats - and no congressional districts - are likely to be competitive this year, say two organizations tracking North Carolina voting trends.

    That should bode well for Republicans extending their control of both the House and Senate through 2016, and the congressional delegation moving from 9-4 to 10-3 in Republicans' favor.

    But several competitive legislative districts in Wake County could change hands, according to voting patterns analyzed by the North Carolina FreeEnterprise Foundation's Conventional Voter Behavior score and the Civitas Institute's Civitas Partisan Index.

    Diversification and density of the electorate result in "the districts ... becoming more and more competitive over a historical analysis standpoint," said Matt Bales, research director at the North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation.

    The FreeEnterprise Foundation this year classifies as competitive races for only nine of 120 House districts and three of 50 Senate seats.

    Competitive means a district gives a Republican or Democratic candidate a winning margin of 3 percent or less, so the seat could swing to either party.

    "This is a raw-data, historical analysis of how districts have performed in the past as relative to how the state overall has performed" since 2008, calculated by winning margins, Bales said. "They are not predictive models by any stretch" for upcoming elections.

    A variety of factors could alter conventional voting patterns, such as the strength of the incumbency, candidate appeal, amount of campaign money raised, how well a campaign is run, the national political and economic mood, and local issues that arise, Bales said. Those are not included in the organization's voting pattern filters.

    Those unconventional factors could move seats that "lean" toward one party or another into the competitive category, Bales said. A leaning district mostly gives one party a winning margin of more than 3 percent but less than 6 percent of the vote.

    The Civitas Partisan Index indicates the frequency that a district with a tradition of electing candidates from one party elects one from the other party. That happened in two of 120 House districts in 2012. Democratic Reps. Paul Tine (Dare County), and William Brisson (Bladen) were in Republican districts.

    Similarly, only two of 50 Senate seats reversed voting trends in 2012. Republican Sen. Wesley Meredith (Cumberland) was in a Democratic district, and Democrat Gene McLaurin (Richmond) was in a Republican district.

    In the House this year, four districts lean Democratic, and 13 lean Republican. In the Senate, nine districts lean Republican; none leans Democratic.

    Strong districts usually favor one party by 6 percent or more. There are 59 strong Republican and 35 strong Democratic districts in the House. In the Senate, there are 16 strong Democratic and 22 strong Republican districts.

    With so many legislative seats appearing to be settled, races down the ballot might have a larger effect on voter turnout and results this year.

    "That's something we're going to be paying very close attention to," Bales said.

    For example, the district attorney's seat in Wake County is open this year after Democrat Colon Willoughby announced in January he would not seek re-election to the position he first won in 1986. This could be the first year "in recent memory" the seat is contested in the general election, Bales said.

    "It will be very interesting to watch throughout the cycle to see if that DA's race has an impact up the ballot on legislative races that are in Wake County," Bales said.

    Only one of nine Wake County House and Senate seats held by Republicans is in the "strong" category - the 37th District held by Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam. Five lean Republican and three are competitive, and those eight will be watched to see if the county's increasingly urban population leads to more votes for candidates with progressive leanings.

    Reps. Jim Fulghum (49th District) and Tom Murry (41st), and Sen. Chad Barefoot (18th) are in competitive districts. Reps. Marilyn Avila (40th), Nelson Dollar (36th), and Chris Malone (35th), and Sens. Tamara Barringer (17th) and Neal Hunt (15th) are in districts leaning Republican.

    All seven Wake County districts now held by Democrats are considered strong Democrat. They are held by Reps. Darren Jackson (39th), Yvonne Lewis Holley (38th), Grier Martin (34th), Rosa Gill (33rd), and Duane Hall (11th), and Sens. Dan Blue (14th) and Josh Stein (16th).

    To a lesser degree than the urban shift, Bales said, in-state migration and newcomers from other states have affected some eastern districts such as the one covering Beaufort, Camden, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hyde, Pasquotank, and Perquimans counties. Once held by longtime Democratic Senate president pro tem Marc Basnight, now it is represented by GOP Sen. Bill Cook.

    With Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan in a rugged re-election fight, "I think the Senate race will attract tens of millions of dollars," Bales said. Will that suck most of the available cash from statewide races?

    "That's a very good question," Bales said. "Some political consultants say that money spent at the top will ultimately [help] down-ballot" because the messaging in upper-tier races can influence voter attitudes and candidate choices in other contests.

    For example, Republican Mitt Romney won North Carolina in the 2012 presidential race with a huge infusion of campaign money, but Republican Pat McCrory won by an even larger margin. Democrats won more Council of State races, but a majority of House and Senate seats went to Republicans.

    According to tabulations by the FreeEnterprise Foundation, strong Republicans districts include those held by incumbent Reps. Renee Ellmers (2nd), Virginia Foxx (5th), Robert Pittenger (9th), Patrick McHenry (10th), Mark Meadows (11th), and the seat being left open by the retiring Howard Coble (6th).

    Democratic Reps. G.K. Butterfield (1st), David Price (4th), and the open 12th District seat vacated by Mel Watt are labeled strong Democrat.

    Republican Reps. Walter Jones (3rd), Richard Hudson (8th), and George Holding (13th) are in districts that lean Republican. Democrat Mike McIntyre is retiring from his 7th District seat, which also leans Republican.

    The abundance of what would be considered safe legislative seats across the state is further evidence that lawmakers should not be drawing district lines, critics of the present system say.

    "Anything that takes the politics, or diminishes the politics, from what we currently have would be better," said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina.

    His organization, along with the John Locke Foundation and others, are part of the North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform.

    The coalition advocates a so-called Iowa model using professional legislative staff and clear, firm rules based on population and geography, minimizing political influence, to draw legislative district and congressional maps after every national census.

    The coalition advanced House Bill 606, which failed to reach the House floor for a vote last year despite having a bipartisan group of 61 cosponsors.

    "The nonpartisan group that we have believes a nonpartisan process would produce districts that are either truly competitive, or less locked in so far for one side or the other, which we feel would be much healthier overall for our democracy," Phillips said.

    "The way the lines are drawn, and the current process we have, in many places the primary race is everything, if there is competition," Phillips said.

    When districts are drawn heavily for one party or the other, "it's going to tend to probably not allow for a moderate candidate from either party to be successful. It tends to probably reward the extreme candidate of either party," Phillips said.

    "You have folks who come to Raleigh ... it's very hard for them to find any kind of common ground, and work together," he said.