What the hell is wrong with North Carolina?

[Nightjock]

Thanks to some knowledgeable people on this board, I don't put TOO much stock in polls.
But watching Inside Politics they just showed a poll that shows Bush ahead by 15 points in John Edwards home state!
What the EFF!?

[Sandpiper]

1. I wish I knew

I lived there for a long time, and although dem candidates do well in state elections, it's solidly red when it comes to presidential elections.

[leyton]

2. What the eff indeed.

Well, I doubt the validity of that poll. Bush may be ahead, and it wouldn't surprise me, but he's not ahead by 15 points. The fact is, though, a lot of people resent the fact that John Edwards ran for President after being our Senator for just four years. If he wanted goodwill from his home state, he should have ran for re-election.

[Sandpiper]

12. They didn't seem to mind Libby Dole

Rediscovering her North Carolina roots after a 36 year absence.

[Lex]

15. Total BULL!

Something like 93% of the Democrats in the state of NC approved of his run for President.

There are no stats that show he doesn't have the support of this state in his run for President or Vice President, unless you look at just the hard-core GOP.

Edwards picks up nice numbers in the state among independents too.

[mmonk]

3. bogus poll

Before Edwards was on the ticket, the difference was only 5 pts. I don't believe anything anymore.

[comsymp]

4. You can read up on it here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1978304

Something stinks to high Heaven.

[RobinA]

11. Why Does It Stink?

In the actual primaries, Edwards didn't do all that well in the south. His showing certainly didn't give anybody any reason to think he'd "deliver the south for Kerry" in the general election. It would make more sense to me to question the poll that had Bush ahead of Kerry by 5%. In North Carolina? I seriously doubt it.

[Lex]

13. Because we are talking about NC. Not the South in general.

Edwards has a lot of support here in NC (his home state) and an energized Democratic base.

[comsymp]

14. Well, for starters

We (NC) haven't even had our Primaries yet, so I'd forget all about that point. We did, however, have our first ever Caucus back in May, which Edwards won. He also won SC, just for grins. Of course, he came in 2nd 'most everywhere else but they were nearly all in March....

It would make NO sense to me to question the poll that had Bush ahead of Kerry by 5%... because every poll conducted over the past couple months has been consistent with that- from Mason-Dixon to Rasmussen the Wrong. All of 'em.

Yes, in North Carolina. Your profile doesn't specify your location, yet you speak on NC with a tone of authority. We neighbors?

[Lex]

5. Don't believe everything you see.

That poll goes against EVERY SINGLE poll done in the last couple of years.

AND, Gallup has never, ever polled in NC before, and the polling was done on the weekend only.

An older, but more reliable poll by a pollster familiar with polling in NC:

----------------------

Mason-Dixon Poll: Bush Leads Kerry In N.C; Edwards On Ticket Makes It Even

POSTED: 3:24 pm EDT May 18, 2004

Republican incumbent George W. Bush leads Democratic challenger John Kerry in North Carolina, but according to a WRAL/Mason-Dixon Poll, if Kerry chooses Sen. John Edwards as his running-mate, the race in the state currently becomes a dead-heat.

http://www.wral.com/news/3319278/detail.html

[BR_Parkway]

6. They are quoting the USA Today poll that showed

BushCo 54%-Kerry/Edwards 39%. Two freepers on other chat rooms have already slung it out there. They forget to mention that: "The lead narrows to 49%-43% among registered voters." and that the margin of error was posted as =/-5% - meaning NC is more in play to go blue than it has been in all the years I've been paying attention.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-07-12-poll-election_x.htm

[Triana]

7. well...

...rural NC is overrun with rednecks, but as for the rest of the state which is supposed to be full of 'immigrants' from other states - who knows?

Also, I *would* question the validity of that poll since the majority of others state otherwise.

[still_one]

8. As bad or as general as this statement is

much of the South I feel would like to go back to the days of segregation...

[Hoping4Change]

9. Is it just coincidence that this supposed Bush lead is exactly the

same number as the "bounce" repukes forecasted for the dems after Edwards was chosen. Repukes dreamed up a 15 point bounce for dems and lo and behold there's a 15 point lead for Bush.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. It's not NC that has a problem...it's the poll itself.

[Warpy]

16. That poll was taken during a Kerry/Edwards rally

That's one reason. The other is that it was done on a weekend, notoriously a bad time to poll.

NC is a weird state, more like two separate states. The bigger towns have been hammered by Bush's stupid bungling in his economic policies, and people are angry. The rural, tidewater areas are solidly Repug, both to keep their tobacco price supports high and to piss off the Yankees.

This poll was fiddled to make Bush look good. The other polls are more reliable, and should be taken as a whole. This one is an aberration.

[carolinayellowdog]

27. Eastern NC is fairly solidly Dem

You wrote:

"The rural, tidewater areas are solidly Repug, both to keep their tobacco price supports high and to piss off the Yankees."

But this is absolutely false. Rural *western* NC is solidly Repug but that is not at all true of the eastern portion, either in presidential elections or congressional representation. Nor does anyone vote to spite Yankees, as far as I ever heard.

CYD

[Literate Tar Heel]

29. that's not completely right

Gore lost N.C. in the Piedmont area ... he didn't do that badly in the coastal counties and won most of the counties in the rural northeastern counties (unfortunately they're so rural that it didn't help him much to win by 40 points if only 15,000 people there voted) ... he also won big in the heavily Native American areas of the southeast like Bladen, Robeson, and Columbus counties, and of course in Orange and Durham counties in the Triangle area, which he won by 26 and 27 points respectively

the disappointment to me was losing Mecklenburg, the biggest urban center (Charlotte) by 3 points and Wake, home to the state capital of Raleigh by 7 points ... it was the Piedmont area, which isn't as rural as the eastern part of the state, where Bush was winning by 20-30 points in about every county and that just added up to way too many votes for Gore to make up anywhere else

a couple bright spots I see are that the Piedmont area has seen a very large influx of Hispanics who hopefully will be at the polls and vote about 65-35 or better for Kerry, and I don't think there's any way Bush can win Mecklenburg this time (I could be wrong, but I would expect a larger African-American turnout there this time, a much larger turnout of young voters, and the area in general doesn't seem nearly as energized for Bush as it did in 2000)

[qwlauren35]

17. By and large, it's a republican state.

You've already forgotten that this was the home of Jesse Helms. And it was Jesse Helms who ushered in Libby Dole.

I asked someone when I first moved here, what Helm's appeal was. And I got an answer I didn't like. He fought for jobs and resources in North Carolina. FEMA aid for East Carolina after hurricanes, funding for the Research Triangle, banking industry in Charlotte, military bases in Fayetteville.

Most North Carolinians are shaking their heads at Edwards, saying he hasn't done enough for North Carolina to win their loyalty.

If (like Hilary) he had served a second term before pushing for the White House, I think he would have gotten a stronger hold on his constituency.

[YNGW]

18. Agreed

>Most North Carolinians are shaking their heads at Edwards, saying he hasn't done enough for North Carolina to win their loyalty.

I'll second that. I was talking to my spouse the other day and asked them if they could tell me one thing Edwards has done on behalf of NC and they couldn't tell me any. I can't think of any. If he were running for Senate, I couldn't honestly say he would win. I'd vote for Erskine Bowles before I'd vote for Edwards.

[formernaderite]

22. My wifes family lives there...they're all republicans registered as dems..

...some of them own businesses and because local politics has always been democratic, they just register as dems. Even the Sheriff is a republican who runs as a dem. I'd sooner kiss off the South and spend time and money elsewhere.

[supernova]

23. Thanks for your nonsupport

[formernaderite]

28. Get a grip....this election is about winning otherwise I'd be voting for..

...the Greens. Yes, I'm all for writing off the South. The time to make inroads is not during a national campaign. Focus on other strategies. If Kerry is elected, we can do the work necessary to win support in 2008 between now and then.

[supernova]

30. Why is when people say "Get a grip"

they have nothing else to say?

I wish the Greens were a viable party here. Maybe someday they will be.

It will be to any liberal movement's detriment to write off the South. We are half the country after all.

[Lex]

26. Hahahaha! You just nailed why the poll that Gallup did is pure BS.

In NC, if Gallup tried to call a certain number of Democrats and Republicans to come up with their numbers on their poll, and they don't understand the make-up of the state as far as party affiliation goes, then they have a very f'ed poll on their hands.

Better leave the polling in NC to firms who know the state's demographics much better.

Gallup had not ever done polling here in NC before. It shows.

[comsymp]

19. Yeah, a Republican state which

elected two Republican Governors in the 20th Century

historically keeps a Dem State House & Senate (tied currently- power sharing arrangement)

historically elects Dems to nearly all Statewide posts

has a split US Congressional delegation


Nothing is as black and white as it's often presented.

(the points about Helms are accurate, though- he did take care of his constituents)

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. It also hasn't been won by a Democratic Presidential candidate

since 1976. The Democrats who do get elected to state-wide office tend to be rather conservative. Keep in mind that Edwards' voting record was more conservative that Joe Lieberman's a few years ago. Edwards moved to left, and very well may have had a rough reelection campaign if he had run.

[Lex]

24. It hasn't had its own home Senator run for Vice President either.

So that has to be factored into your formula.

[Freddie Stubbs]

32. Having a candidate on the ticket doesn't guarentee winning a state

Just ask Al Gore about Tenneessee in 2000.

[comsymp]

25. Sure- Carter was the last

But it's intellectually lazy (and painfully inaccurate) to use that one criterion to make a sweeping generalization.

/just sayin'


And you can get a different rating on Edwards' record at every .org you visit. Some say he was the 4th most Conservative, some the 4th most Liberal, and everything in between. Fact is, he ran (and won on) a pretty progressive campaign and has subsequently racked up a fairly moderate record.

Also, there's no doubt that NC is a traditionalist, somewhat conservative state- but many/most of the Democrats we send to DC don't tend to be all that conservative- thinking Sanford, Clayton (I miss her) and Price, for starters.

[Freddie Stubbs]

33. Sanford, Clayton, and Price were never elected to state-wide office in NC

There are certainly pockets of the state that will elect moderates and perhaps liberals, but the state as a whole has a pretty conservative bent.

[comsymp]

36. Ummm, wrong

Sanford was elected Governor and US Senator- both statewide elections.

ON EDIT: One example doesn't make a trend, of course- so here's just one more from recent memory. Hunt had a pretty good populist/moderate-progressive record, especially on education and race, and he was elected (statewide) 4x.

[Freddie Stubbs]

37. Thank you for correcting me

But keep in mind that Sanford lost his last reelection bid.

[Ripley]

31. You don't even know her name...

It's Liddy, not Libby. Get a clue.

[supernova]

21. We're keeping everybody guessing

I love it. :D

[porphyrian]

34. They just deliver the data that was paid for. -n/t

[lectrobyte]

35. I think they are making the polls reflect the outcome of

black box voting. But I didn't drink the Kool-Aid, I'm wearing the tinfoil this morning.

[ibegurpard]

38. I think this is a flawed poll

I just saw a poll that had Bush with a SIX point lead in SOUTH CAROLINA. No way is North Carolina that much of a blowout.