How The GOP Blocked The Vote In North Carolina

OpEdNews, 11-24-14

   

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Over the summer and into the fall, while polls showed other Senate Democrats in swing states like Colorado and Iowa falling behind their GOP challengers, incumbent North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan had consistently clung to a small lead.

In the end, Hagan lost by less than two points, defeated 48.8 percent - 47.3 percent by her Republican opponent Thom Tillis, Speaker of the GOP-led N.C. House.

Here are three reasons Democratic voter turnout missed the mark on election night:

(1) Black voters turned out at record levels, but their votes weren't enough.

After the GOP seized control of the North Carolina legislature in 2010, and won the Governor's mansion in 2012, they pushed through the nation's most restrictive new voting laws. Experts described them as the worst voter suppression measures passed by any state since the Voting Rights Act became law in 1965.

Besides mandating unreasonably strict Voter ID provisions (no student ID's, no public employee ID's) and cutting one week of early voting, they repealed several laws designed to make voting easier and more convenient for citizens that had been in place for years. Same-day voter registration during early voting and out-of-precinct voting on election day were both abolished. These efforts to block the vote may have provided Tillis with his margin of victory, and have been universally recognized as a blatant attempt to make it more difficult for core Democratic constituencies to cast ballots, including African-Americans, low income voters, and students.

In response, North Carolina's black community and progressive allies organized to fight back. One of the largest ever efforts to mobilize black voters in North Carolina in a non-presidential year was launched, spearheaded by Democrats, voting rights groups, and the state NAACP. And even with President Obama not on the ballot, African-American voters still turned out for Kay Hagan.

In Durham County, a bastion of black and white liberal voters in North Carolina, Hagan received 70,601 votes, or 76.6 percent of the votes cast. Mecklenburg County is home to Charlotte, the state's largest city, and another source of black voting strength. Democrats and independent voters outnumber Republicans there by 3-1. Hagan got 156,533 votes in Mecklenburg, or 59.2 percent to Tillis' 38.1 percent.

Durham and Mecklenburg counties alone delivered 50,000 more votes for Hagan than were cast there for Democratic nominee for Senate Elaine Marshall in 2010.

Exit polls showed black voters were 21 percent of the North Carolina electorate this year, which equaled their numbers in 2008, when Barack Obama narrowly won North Carolina, and only slightly down from 23 percent in 2012. Fully 96 percent of them chose Hagan.

But their numbers fell short, because:

(2) Partly due to a relentless attack ad barrage funded by right-wing outside groups, Hagan's support shrank among white voters.

Hagan got just 33 percent of the white vote, according to exit polls, a drop from the 39 percent she received in 2008 when she was first elected to the Senate. That year, Hagan won white voters age 18-29 by a margin of 60 percent - 36 percent, but in 2014, they voted for Republican Thom Tillis by 56 percent - 32 percent. White voters who didn't attend college made up 35 percent of the electorate, and they backed Tillis by a crushing 69 percent - 25 percent.

Through most of the summer, Hagan maintained a small lead in the polls by hitting Tillis hard for his role in cutting the state's education budget. In early October, Tillis threw everything he had at Hagan in a bid to improve his poll numbers among white voters. He began attacking her over foreign policy, exploiting voters' fears about the Islamic State's military gains in Iraq and Syria and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. He also tied her to a phony controversy over stimulus grants that went to a company co-owned by her husband.

Tillis started gaining traction with ads that called Hagan out for missing an Armed Services Committee hearing back in February where the Islamic State was discussed. Karl Rove's dark money group Crossroads GPS followed suit. One featured the mother of a Marine who told viewers, "It makes me so mad to see how the President's weakness has allowed the Islamic State to grow. And Senator Hagan? She just goes right along with him." The ad closed with a hard-hitting plea: "We can't let our kids die in vain. We have to change our Senator."

   

   

In a state with a strong military presence, polls showed the message had an impact. Support for Tillis ticked slightly upwards. Exit polls revealed the 16 percent of N.C. voters who were veterans chose Tillis over Hagan by 55 percent - 43 percent. The 11 percent of voters who thought foreign policy was the nation's top issue went with Tillis by a 68 percent - 31 percent margin.

The Tillis campaign tried to spin their win as due to their targeting of "GOP areas where their voters turned out in past elections but they felt more could vote." Tillis' chief campaign strategist Paul Shumaker "pointed to places such as Rowan, Cabarrus and Catawba counties."

Actually, in these three heavily white counties, Tillis received 1500 less votes than N.C.'s senior Republican Senator Richard Burr in 2010, and nearly 7500 more votes were cast for Hagan than for Burr's challenger Elaine Marshall.

The areas supposedly key to Tillis' victory instead illustrate how statewide, Tillis did worse than the last Republican to win a Senate race in a midterm election by about 35,000 votes, and Hagan got nearly a quarter million more votes than the last unsuccessful Democratic Senate candidate. Tillis didn't turn out more white voters than in 2010, but he benefited because too few white Democrats were fired up enough about Kay Hagan to vote this year.

(3) Not enough young voters turned out.

All 18-29 year-olds backed Hagan 53 percent - 39 percent, but they only made up 12 percent of voters, down from 16 percent in 2012. Voter support for Tillis roughly increased with age levels, and senior citizens age 65 and older favored him by a margin of 57 percent - 42 percent. Senior voters made up 23 percent of the electorate, with nearly twice as many casting ballots as 18-29 year-olds.

One reason for such low turnout by young voters was the state's new restrictive voting laws. As part of their strategy to suppress the Democratic vote, N.C. Republicans made special efforts to discourage students from voting. Under the new Voter ID statute, college student ID's are unacceptable. Students now need a North Carolina driver's license or special state-issued ID in order to vote, which created huge obstacles to participation by out-of-state students. Republican-controlled local election boards in counties with large universities moved early voting sites off campuses and pushed through other changes that made it harder for students to get to the polls.

The state's abolition of same-day registration during early voting left untold numbers of people unable to vote simply because they had moved within N.C. since the last time they voted. They were turned away from the polls when they went to update their addresses during early voting, a practice that had been allowed for years before this election.

This deliberate attempt to make it harder to vote disproportionately affected young people, students and non-students alike, because they move more often. But it also disenfranchised older citizens like disabled veteran Bryan McGowan, who served 22 years in the Marine Corps, including four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was prevented from voting on October 23 in Western North Carolina.

What happened this year to Bryan and other N.C. voters like him is a mockery of democracy. But the GOP can't be sure of winning races any other way. And their attempts to fix the game further in their favor in North Carolina have now led to a truly unfortunate election result for America.

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Wave of Racist Terrorism Follows Obama Victory

NewsOne, 11-11-08

By CASEY GANE-MCCALLA

Most of the post-election reaction to Barack Obama's presidential win has been beautiful. People from all backgrounds, races, cultures and religions are elated to see such a good, decent, inspirational man become President. Many are proud of the historical significance of the United States electing a leader of African descent after the turbulent history of blacks in America.



There has also been a significant racist backlash in the wake of the election results. Which is not surprising. After seeing videos of the hate mobs attracted to McCain-Palin rallies, I politely declined an offer to cover election day in Pennsylvania or Ohio out of fear of being attacked by some angry bigot.

One of my greatest fears after the euphoria faded was that the irrational Republican crowds who were drilled into believing that Obama was a terrorist, communist, Muslim traitor would continue their anger toward the President-elect and his supporters. The campaign was heavy with racial undertones, from Rush Limbaugh's racist rants to Sarah Palin turning a blind eye to someone yelling the N-word at a rally.

Sure enough, a few pathetic racists and violent extremists have been lashing out. Since election night, there has been a string of disturbing firebombings, assaults, and incidents of vandalism directed at African-Americans.



A black church in Springfield, Massachusetts burned down on election night. While I would like to believe it was totally unrelated to racism or Obama’s triumph, I am fearful that it was. If this was a hate crime in liberal Massachusetts, it is a painful reminder of the destruction and terrorism that greeted the civil rights movement, in particular the bombing that killed four little girls in a church in Alabama.

A black family near Pittsburgh had their car torched right outside their house, while they were watching Obama give his victory speech on TV. Before the cowardly arsonists burned the car, they tossed the family's Obama yard sign through a window and spraypainted "Obama" across the trunk. The blaze almost caught the family's house on fire, leaving them afraid for their safety in a home where four generations of black Pennsylvanians have lived.


This can only be seen as an act of terrorism. Instead of a burning cross on the family’s lawn, there was a burning car, symbolizing the torching of our new African-American president. Carbombings are something you'd expect to happen in Iraq, not America.

There was another election night incident in Staten Island, New York where a 17 year-old Muslim, African-American male was beaten with baseball bats by a group of white men who repeatedly yelled, "Obama." This brings back memories of Yusef Hawkins who was chased and beaten by an angry mob in Bensonhurst during the summer of 1989, which resulted in his death.



Ali Kamara, beaten on election night

At North Carolina State University in Raleigh, four students admitted spraypainting an entire campus walkway with racist and violent threats including "Shoot Obama" and "Kill that nigger." As disgusting as that display of bigotry was, it was encouraging to see nearly 500 students and school officials including the chancellor rally against the hate. In Austin, Buck Burnette, a back up center for the University of Texas football team, wrote on his Facebook page, "All the hunters gather up, we have a Nigger in the White House." Burnette promptly apologized and was kicked off the team.



Like the examples set by NCSU and the University of Texas, we all must condemn any post-election outbursts of hatred or intimidation. While Obama's presidency is a great thing for the nation, it may trigger what remains of the lunatic racist fringe to resume their old tactics of bombings and assassinations. Already the FBI and ATF have broken up two plots to kill Obama, each originating with radical white supremacist groups.

Clearly, this election was a statement on how much progress black Americans have made in this country and how much tolerance, acceptance and even admiration whites have for an African-American candidate like Obama. The cynic in me would like to talk about how far we have to go to reach a truly colorblind society, but the optimist in me prefers to consider how far we've come.

I actually thought we'd see even more hate crimes both before and after Obama’s victory. Rather than being standard among whites, blatant racism in 2008 has been marginalized. This is not to say average white people don't have their own prejudices and stereotypes, but the dehumanizing bigotry that defined America during the Jim Crow era is now discredited. Just like Bloods and Crips don't represent most black people, and Al Qaeda doesn't typify the Arab world, bigots and white supremacists do not in any way showcase the general feelings of today’s Americans.

But terrorism perpetrated by radical racist extremists must be taken as seriously as attacks from radical Islamic extremists. We must condemn the culprits and support the victims just as we did during 9/11. Our country has matured considerably, enough to enter the age of Obama, but the fight against racism is not over. We cannot tolerate the acts of a lunatic fringe still caught up in the outdated philosophy of white supremacy.

To send a check to the rebuilding fund for the church that was burned down in Springfield, MA:

Macedonia Church of God in Christ, c/o Greater Springfield Council of Churches, 39 Oakland St., Springfield, MA 01108

Donate to the charitable fund set up to support the carbombing victims:

Whiteside Family Relief Fund, c/o First National Bank of PA, 4140 E. State St., Hermitage PA 16148

(Casey Gane-McCalla is a writer, rapper, producer and actor, and the assistant editor for NewsOne. The Latest Outrage editor Erik Ose contributed to this report.)

(UPDATE 11/25 - I (Erik) was on NPR’s News & Notes today along with Mark Potok, Director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, talking with Tony Cox about the post-election rise in hate crimes and violence first covered two weeks ago by TLO & NewsOne. You can listen to the audio of our segment HERE.

This is what I would add to the discussion we had:

Thinking about the hundreds of incidents that have occurred since the election, it's possible to lose sight of the hurt caused by any single act of racist terrorism. Here's one incident up close.

Phillip Whiteside, an African-American who lives in Greenville, PA, about an hour outside of Pittsburgh in Western Pennsylvania, was watching Obama's victory speech on election night at home with his family when his grandmother saw a fireball erupt outside. Phillip's grandfather, who has MS, rushed outside to find Phillip's car on fire, parked right next to their house.

This is a home where four generations of Whitesides have lived, in fact, their family came up from Tennessee and helped settle the town. The blaze threatened to spread to the house until Mr. Whiteside hosed down the outside walls with a garden hose.

After the fire burned out, the Whitesides discovered the arsonists had tossed the family's Obama yard sign into the flames and spraypainted "Obama" across the car trunk.



"We're striving for change," said Phillip. "People don't want to change. It's going back to the olden days. It doesn’t make sense that in these times we have problems like this."

In the aftermath of the fire, community members wrote letters to the local paper denouncing the hate crime, which ran an editorial reminding folks that Obama's victory does not spell the end of racism. A local bank has sent up a relief fund for the family.

But the carbombing has left the Whitesides afraid for their safety in their own home. "Not knowing what's coming," said Phillip, is how his family is feeling now.)

Yes We Can, Said Barack Obama, And We Did

The Huffington Post, 11-5-08



The day after the 2008 election of Barack Obama, our first African-American President, it is a truly historic time to be an American. Slavery was one of the United States' original sins, practiced and tolerated even as the country declared our independence from England in 1776, and part of the national fabric for nearly a century afterwards. The violent overthrow of Reconstruction in the South and imposition of Jim Crow laws relegated most black Americans to second-class citizenship for another eighty-odd years, until the civil rights movement smashed the legal underpinnings of segregation and the 1965 Voting Rights Act finally gave the power of the vote to all.

The wounds borne of such a long struggle against racism, hatred, and enforced economic servitude remain with us today. Less than a year ago, the concept of a black American president was still considered fantasy to many, or, as Bill Clinton swears he was misquoted in January, "the biggest fairy tale" imaginable. Some thought Obama’s presidential run was destined to fail for this reason alone.

Yet he won in Southern states like Virginia, capitol of the old Confederacy, and North Carolina, cradle of the sit-in movement in 1960, by mobilizing the same multi-racial coalition that first swept him over the top in South Carolina's primary early this year. And Obama carried Florida, with a big assist from his early vote strategy, the state where elections stolen from black voters shut down Reconstruction in 1876 and led to our current national nightmare under George W. Bush in 2000.


A wave of euphoria gripped the country starting on election night, with Americans dancing in the streets from coast to coast. Today, newspapers sold out their entire press runs and rushed to print more copies to meet demand for the celebratory headline, "Obama Wins." The eminent Duke University historian John Hope Franklin confirmed the national mood, calling it "one of the most momentous, if not the most historic moment in the history of this country."

Obama's victory does not spell the end of racial disparity in America, but it is a ringing sign of progress, a triumph on the road to greater equality and realizing the Dream that Martin Luther King, Jr. revealed to us.


Earlier this afternoon, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. delivered a stirring commentary on NPR’s All Things Considered (originally written for TheRoot.com) in which he compared today to the day after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and shared the reaction of Frederick Douglass:

"the greatest black orator in our history before Dr. King Jr., (who) said that the day was not a day for speeches and 'scarcely a day for prose.' Rather, he said, 'it is a day for poetry and song, a new song.' "

Bi-racial coalition carried Obama to South Carolina landslide

OpEdNews, 2-1-08

Voters rejected the politics of division in historic Democratic turnout

Facing a loss in South Carolina, the Clintons did their best to spring a trap on Barack Obama. Their plan was to lower expectations for Hillary, while making an Obama victory appear meaningless. As an unnamed top Clinton adviser admitted to the Associated Press, they would paint Obama as “the black candidate” in a state where African-American voters were 47% of the Democratic primary electorate in 2004.



Until the polls closed, it looked like things were going according to schedule. Hillary signaled South Carolina wasn’t a priority by campaigning elsewhere for most of the week leading up to the primary, leaving Bill to tour the state on her behalf.



Pre-election polls seemed to show Obama’s support among white Democrats in S.C. slipping to 10%. A Wall Street Journal headline from the day before the primary epitomized the effects of the Clintons’ spin by proclaiming “To Truly Win in Carolina, Obama Needs Large Margin.” The reporter speculated Obama “will have to win by a double-digit margin in order for voters nationwide to perceive South Carolina as a real victory.”

But despite Bill’s pledge to go door-to-door for Hillary in the black community if necessary, black voters in South Carolina were turned off by the Clinton campaign’s increasing reliance on racially coded appeals against Obama.

One high profile episode occurred when Clinton supporter Bob Johnson, the billionaire head of BET, raised the specter of Obama’s drug use as a young man at a rally in Columbia, S.C. Defending an earlier comment by Hillary that “Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," Johnson said, “that is the way the legislative process works in this nation and that takes political leadership. That’s all Hillary was saying.”

He then added, “Hillary and Bill Clinton…have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –­ and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in (his) book.”

When called on it, Johnson shamelessly denied he was talking about drugs, claiming “my comments today were referring to Barack Obama’s time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect.”



The month before, Billy Shaheen had been forced to step down as the co-chair of Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign when he first raised the drug use issue against Obama. But this time, the Clintons refused to disassociate themselves from Johnson’s remarks.

On the day of the primary, Bill tried to downplay the significance of an Obama victory by invoking the specter of Jesse Jackson. Asked by a reporter why it was taking “two Clintons to beat” Obama, he helpfully pointed out that "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."



Despite his groundbreaking career as an outspoken civil rights activist and the first black American to make a serious bid for the White House, (and to knee-jerk racists, because of these things), Jackson remains a controversial figure to some voters. As CNN commentator Roland Martin put it, Jackson “is beloved in black America but stirs hatred in many whites.”

Clearly, Bill was trying to tar Obama with a negative brush. Either by associating him with Jackson solely because both candidates are black, or trying to remind voters that Jesse ultimately came up short in his unsuccessful runs for the presidency.



Obama has already far exceeded Jackson’s performance in the early primary states. In nearly all-white (91%) Iowa, Obama won with 38% of the vote, versus Jackson’s 9% when he finished fourth in 1988. In New Hampshire, Obama was a close second to Clinton with 37%, compared with 8% twenty years ago for Jackson.

In 1984, Jackson won South Carolina with 25% of the vote, and in ’88 he won again with 54%. But in both years, South Carolina held caucuses, and turnout was less than a tenth of the number who voted in this year’s primary. And Jesse Jackson was born in South Carolina.



Jackson’s insurgent campaigns were chronically underfunded and ran on shoestring budgets. By contrast, Obama has assembled one of the biggest fundraising operations in the history of presidential politics, raising $103 million last year, and an astounding $32 million during January 2008. Significantly, his funds have come from both large donors and a diverse, nationwide network of small contributors.

One of the highest ranking white elected officials to back Jackson in 1988 was the Agriculture Commissioner of Texas, progressive Jim Hightower. This year, the Democratic party establishment is genuinely split between Obama and Hillary Clinton. Liberal icon Ted Kennedy is only the latest prominent white Democrat to endorse Obama, following John Kerry, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and a string of sitting Senators and Governors from red states including Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.



The minute S.C. polls closed, major news organizations immediately called the race for Obama, based on exit polls showing his huge win. He ended up with 55% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 27% and 18% for John Edwards.



As the shape of Obama’s landslide victory became clear, the Clintons (and reporters who fell for their race-baiting spin) were left with egg on their faces. Obama won more than twice as many votes as Clinton. He beat Clinton among independents by 40% to 23%. He carried black voters by a 4-1 margin.



But he also won a quarter of white voters, far more than the 10% forecast by pre-election polls. He won a majority of white voters under 30. He won nearly as many white men as Clinton. Obama probably would have done even better among white voters without S.C. native son John Edwards in the race, who took 40% of the overall white vote.

Carol Fisher, a middle-aged white voter from Greenville, South Carolina, explained her vote for Barack Obama when interviewed outside the polls. “I was just voting for, to me, the most attractive candidate overall. It had nothing to do with the fact that Hillary Clinton is a woman, so I would want to vote for her. I just think I’m voting for the best candidate.”



The competitive race sparked the second-highest voter turnout in history for a South Carolina primary - 530,000, just shy of the record 573,000 set in the 2000 Bush vs. McCain Republican primary smackdown. Even more amazing, voters who participated in the Democratic primary outnumbered the 446,000 who showed up for the Republican presidential contest a week earlier. It was the highest-ever Democratic turnout in the country’s most reliably Republican state.



One behind-the-scenes factor firing up the huge turnout was Obama’s impressive field S.C. organization, the best in the state among presidential contenders of either party. On primary day, Team Obama fielded an army of 9,000 volunteers, flushing out voters from 150 different staging sites across South Carolina. By comparison, Hillary Clinton’s emergency ground operation in New Hampshire that helped pull her to victory numbered only 4,000.



Unfortunately for the Clintons, their plan to put Obama in a black box backfired. Not only did Obama win by a bi-racial landslide, but Bill Clinton’s legacy as a uniter of black and white Americans is now at risk.



In his victory speech, Obama emphasized this election "is not about rich versus poor or young versus old, and it's not about black versus white. This election is about the past versus the future." A historic number of South Carolina voters seem to have agreed with him.

Baracking The Vote for Obama in South Carolina

DailyKos, TPMCafe & Triangle Share, 1-7-08

(Join volunteers from Triangle for Obama on Saturday, Jan. 26 in an election day caravan to South Carolina to get out the vote for Barack Obama. Take action to make change on this historic day! Volunteers will meet at Brier Creek Shopping Center, 8651 Brier Creek Pkwy, Raleigh. For more info, contact Carolyn Cameron @ (919) 321-2665 / carolyn-cameron@hotmail.com, or visit the Triangle for Obama Meetup Group. Obama's South Carolina webpage is http://www.sc.barackobama.com/.)

UPDATE 1/27/08: To help put Obama over the top, over 50 Triangle volunteers headed to South Carolina on Jan. 26 to get out the vote. (Triangle volunteers stump in S.C., News & Observer, 1/26/08). They were part of an Obama army of 9,000 primary day volunteers, flushing out voters from 150 different staging sites across South Carolina. The GOTV efforts paid off when Obama won in a landslide with 55% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 27% and 18% for John Edwards.

UPDATE 1/14/08: Approximately 35 Triangle volunteers joined together on Sat., Jan 12, meeting before dawn to caravan to South Carolina to canvass for the Obama campaign (Local Obama backers head to S.C., News & Observer, 1/11/08). That's fired up!

By M.L. Dexter and Erik Ose

Temo Figueroa, national outreach director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, had one question for the crowd of nearly 4,000 who turned out at a NCCU rally for Obama in early November. “How far is South Carolina?” he asked, while warming up the audience before the candidate took the stage. “Not far enough,” hollered back one supporter. But the gameplan was clear.



The Obama campaign was already thinking ahead, and touching down in Durham was as much about rounding up volunteers for South Carolina’s Jan. 26 primary as winning votes in North Carolina. Supporters who added themselves to the Obama campaign’s text message network at the rally were soon contacted and asked to make the journey south of the border. Which is how we ended up in Columbia, S.C. one weekend in December, canvassing and phonebanking likely Obama voters.



For us, driving from Chapel Hill, the answer to Teno’s question was about four hours. This was our second trip in two weeks, having also gone down to Columbia to witness Obama’s star rally with Oprah Winfrey.



We listened to Oprah testify to the audience that “Dr. King dreamed the dream, but we don't have to just dream the dream anymore. We get to vote that dream into reality.” And watched as Obama brought the cheering, multi-racial crowd of 29,000 to its feet in a South Carolina football stadium, the first state of the old Confederacy to secede from the Union, with his stirring reminder that “The fire hoses came out, the dogs came out, but they kept on standing up. Because a few stood up, a few thousand stood up, and then a few million stood up, standing up with courage and conviction. They changed the world.” It was a historic moment.



We’ve volunteered and worked for political campaigns in the past, but this is the first time in several years we’ve both felt “fired up” about a candidate.



There were a lot of other volunteers on hand from neighboring states. A busload had driven up from Atlanta, and spent the day canvassing neighborhoods. Folks from Birmingham had come, too. And we met long-term volunteers, including a law student from UCLA who was spending his two-week Christmas break in Columbia, and a recent grad from Florida who had arrived a month earlier and was sharing an apartment with several other volunteers.



That weekend, the office was humming as volunteers struggled to process all 29,000 information cards that audience members had filled out as a condition of entry to the Oprah rally a week before.



Rally goers who had signed up as future Obama volunteers were being called and invited to organizational meetings across the state that coming week. Volunteers and staff members checked and updated each new name using the campaign’s existing database of registered voters and Obama supporters.



With every election cycle campaign technology improves, but we both felt Obama’s South Carolina operation was more organized than past campaigns we’ve worked on. And much more able to effectively harness volunteer energy, which is key for any successful campaign.



The fact that Team Obama asked for contact information from the 66,500 audience members who turned out for Oprah’s three-state endorsement tour was a smart move. In 2004, Bruce Springsteen held a concert rally for the Kerry-Edwards ticket in Madison, Wisconsin right before the November election, drawing a crowd of approximately 80,000. But no one knows for sure how many, because no tickets or personal information were collected.



“We estimated a good portion of them were new to the campaign and were hearing John Kerry for the first time,” said Stephanie Cutter, Kerry communications director. “The difference is we didn't sign those 80,000 people up to work for us in the Wisconsin general election. An endorsement is more than an endorsement when you're creating a field plan around it.”



Judging from the calls we made to volunteers who had signed on at the rally, their enthusiasm levels had cranked way up, and they were ready to work. More than a few exclaimed, “Fired up!” when they learned we were calling from Obama’s campaign. “I’ll be at the meeting, and I’m bringing my grandkids,” one woman told Erik. She was 80 years old.



“I’m coming straight from my job, but I’ll do it, and I can’t wait,” said a recent college grad. No problem getting there, every single person knew exactly how to get to the churches and other community locations where the organizational meetings were to be held.



In the afternoon, the campaign sent us out to canvass in a mostly black, core Democratic neighborhood near downtown Columbia. We visited houses with steep, crumbling, concrete steps and doors falling off their hinges. Just on one side on a short street, two of the hand-picked addresses of voters who had consistently voted for Democrats were now abandoned – one because of arson, the other just falling down.



We each took one side of the street. At first, our knocks on doors were mostly unanswered. Before we moved on to the next house on our lists, those silent doors received small brochures about why to consider voting for Obama.

Sometimes, people responded to our knocking. Suspicious faces appeared behind torn screen doors. Their first glances at us, white people carrying clipboards, must have meant nothing good to them, because their faces registered mistrust and wariness. We quickly learned to say right away, “We’re volunteers with the Barack Obama campaign.” This simple sentence allowed a conversation to begin, and literally led to doors opening. And always, the suspicion was replaced with real interest.

Walking between houses, M.L. was met by a young man coming towards her. She asked if he was registered to vote. He said he couldn’t vote because he was a convicted felon, but could get his rights restored if he paid some money, and should be able to vote in the next election. He said he would vote for Obama. Then he asked, “Do you think he’ll do anything about this?” as he pointed to the decrepit and empty houses on his street. M.L. said, “I think he’ll try,” and handed him a brochure.



With the black vote estimated to make up at least half of the Democratic primary electorate in South Carolina, it’s crucial for Obama to win by a large margin among black voters. For most of last year, he and Hillary Clinton ran roughly even. Post-Oprah, polls showed Obama pulling away. He led one CBS poll in mid-December by 52% of black voters to Clinton’s 27%, with John Edwards at 2%.

Several times, the folks we talked with said they were considering Obama, but “wanted to see how things shook out.” They hadn’t made up their minds, were leaning his way, just still didn’t know if Barack could go the distance.



This dovetails with how interviews with black voters in South Carolina have repeatedly shown they were uncertain white voters would support Obama. S.C. state senator Robert Ford is one of Hillary’s prominent African-American backers in the state. He made headlines last February by claiming that with an Obama nomination, “every Democratic candidate running on that ticket would lose because he's black and he's at the top of the ticket.”



Yet Obama’s Iowa win, and the increased turnout for the state’s Democratic caucuses (239,000 showed up, versus 125,000 in 2004) seems to show his potential for expanding the Democratic vote in November. The energy is clearly with the Democrats in 2008, hungry for change after the two-term debacle of George W. Only 108,000 dispirited Republicans voted in Iowa, less than half the numbers that turned out on the Democratic side.



With the presidential primary schedule compressed like never before, there’s little time for rivals Clinton or Edwards to play catchup. Obama’s convincing victory in Iowa gives him momentum leading up to New Hampshire’s primary, where the polls previously showed him neck and neck with Clinton. And if he wins both, the two whitest early states (91% non-Hispanic whites in Iowa, 94% in New Hampshire), the last obstacle to a tidal wave of support for Obama among black voters in South Carolina will have been swept away.

Obama reminds crowds at every stop how his energy got a boost in our neighboring state, when a Greenwood, S.C. city councilwoman named Edith Childs introduced him to the chant he now uses to get audiences “fired up and ready to go!”



If the time proves right for an Obama presidency, a win in South Carolina on Jan. 26 will have done even more to pave the way.

1991-92 Redistricting: GOP Plans Gains by Segregating Non-White Voters

Major Players in Nationwide Redistricting Battles

The 1991-92 nationwide redistricting process is now underway. Here's a look at redistricting as it relates to change in the partisan composition of the U.S. House of Representatives, with a special focus on cynical GOP efforts to boost their numbers by packing minority voters into the smallest possible number of districts.

Redistricting measures are still pending in a total of twenty-seven states1, including fifteen of the twenty-one states where redistricting will be complicated by gains or losses of Congressional seats. In order to understand how the process has unfolded thus far, and how recent developments will impact redistricting battles in the states where plans are not yet finalized, we must turn to an overview of the players involved. The major players in the current decennial redistricting process can be categorized as follows:

The Democratic and Republican national parties, each battling for control of state legislatures around the country and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Incumbent members of Congress, particularly those whose states are losing districts and whose own immediate political futures are at risk.

State legislators, on whose shoulders rest the actual task of drawing up plans.

Minority legislators and interest groups, who most often are seeking the creation of more districts with minority populations in the majority.

Also crucial to the process thus far have been individual states' governors2, most of whom wield veto power over any redistricting plans proposed by state legislatures, the Bush Administration Justice Department3, which wields veto power over any plans drawn for areas covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act4, more broadly-based public interest groups5, whose primary interest is to ensure the overall fairness and openness of the process itself, and the federal courts6, the final battleground for parties dissatisfied with many state redistricting plans.


Republican Party

The Republicans are much better positioned this decade than at any other time in the past to use redistricting battles for potential partisan gains. During the 1980s, regional growth trends continued to favor the GOP, as populations shifted away from cities to suburban and exurban areas nationwide, and from the Frostbelt to more GOP-leaning Sunbelt states.

Strategists began laying the groundwork for the GOP's "1991 Plan"7 during the mid-1980s. Republicans focused first on making gains at state legislative levels, to increase the amount of influence they would have in redistricting for the 1990s.8

The Republican attention to redistricting is one element of a broader GOP strategy that sees 1992 as the party's best opportunity in the near future to possibly wrest control of the House from Democratic hands. Briefly, GOP plans for 1992 are as follows:

Field strong GOP candidates9 in races involving largest number of open Congressional seats in years due to redistricting shifts and the expected retirement of many senior House Democrats, some eager to pocket unused campaign funds before reform legislation10 takes effect in 1992, some forced into unfriendly districts by redistricting11.

Use redistricting to engineer new, Republican-leaning districts that GOP candidates will run well in throughout the next decade.

Count on a bigger, more conservative turnout of casual voters in 1992 general election to help elect these GOP Congressional candidates.

In perhaps the strangest and most potentially threatening development of the current round of redistricting, Republicans have made common cause with some minority advocacy groups12, in order to ensure an increased number of GOP-leaning districts. Paradoxically, both state and national Republican officials have made it clear13 that they intend to achieve this by helping to create more districts where minorities are likely to be elected.

Such districts would almost certainly be won by minority Democrats, but would deprive white incumbent Democrats in surrounding districts of reliable minority votes. Not surprisingly, Republicans hope that they will be more competitive in the whiter, more suburban districts which will hopefully be created as a byproduct of ensuring minority representation.


Democratic Party

The Democratic strategy for maintaining a competitive edge in the current round of redistricting is defensive to the Republicans' offensive, geared towards protecting the current 267-165 Democratic House majority. To these ends, a two-fold strategy has emerged: efforts to ensure continued Democratic control of the mechanics of redistricting, i.e., Democratic control of key governorships and state legislatures (see Table One, appendix) and efforts to counter Republican-led attempts to draw minority Congressional districts at the expense of incumbent white Democrats.

Project 500. Chaired by former Congressman Tony Coelho (D-CA), this effort raised roughly $4 million between 1986-1991 to spend on state gubnatorial and legislature races in eighteen states where the margins of party control in one or the other legislative chambers were slight.14

IMPAC 2000. Headed by Rep. Martin Frost (D-TX), IMPAC 2000 is the House Democratic Caucus' redistricting committee. Frost inherited the group's chairmanship from Rep. Vic Fazio (D-CA), who led fundraising efforts for the $2.8 million the group spent on 1990 legislative and gubnatorial races in twenty-two states, $2 million of which went to defeat two Republican-sponsoring redistricting ballot initiatives in California.15

The Democratic response to the Republican-engineered coalition with some minority groups has been to recognize that the creation of minority districts in this round of redistricting is inevitable. Thus, Democrats are trying wherever possible to take an active, well-publicized role in determining just how new minority districts will look. This is in order to deny Republicans credit for their creation, but more importantly, to ensure that the new minority districts are one that minimize damage to Democratic white incumbents. Democratic legislatures are drawing plans which create districts with only bare majorities of minority populations (North Carolina)16, or with districts that show minorities in the majority only if two distinct minority populations' numbers are added together (Texas)17.


Incumbent Members of Congress

Regardless of party or ideology, incumbent members of Congress all share one common political objective: ensuring their re-elections.

Representatives from states that will be losing or gaining Congressional seats want to have as much say as possible determining what the newly-drawn districts will look like, since it is a question that directly and immediately affects their own political futures. This is especially true of Representatives from states that will be losing seats in 1991-92. Most have actively tried to cultivate ties with the legislators in their home states who will actually be re-drawing the district lines.

To these ends, House members from states that will be losing seats due to reapportionment contributed over $1 million in contributions and loans to state legislative candidates in 1989-90.18 This was in addition to over $600,000 that all Democratic House members contributed to the political efforts of IMPAC 2000. Yet ties forged between Representatives and state legislators are not a surefire way to cement one's political fortunes, as shown by the recent experience of U.S. Rep. Harley O. Staggers, Jr. (D-WV), whose West Virginia district was decimated by vengeful legislators after he was accused of trying to cut a deal with the West Virginia House leadership that would have paired two other incumbents together in the same district.19


State Legislators

State legislative leaderships wield the most power over how the nuts and bolts of state redistricting plans are to be determined.20 They differ somewhat from rank and file members of legislatures in that they are more prone to being politically committed to protecting allies in their states' Congressional delegations from damaging district changes. However, legislators in powerful state leadership positions do share similar redistricting objectives with rank and file legislators, who vote on final passage of plans, to the extent that as incumbent legislators they are all interested in ensuring their own re-elections.

Thus, for the most part legislators have welcomed their contacts with House members concerning redistricting. It has afforded them financial contributions to their own campaigns, and also access to House members' invaluable demographic and other information about Congressional districts within their states. Some legislators seeking to climb the power ladder have attempted to put this information to use by designing new Congressional districts that they might themselves run well in someday.


Minority Advocacy Groups

Most share a smiliar objective: ensuring the creation of more districts where minority candidates have greater chances of winning election. The gains that minorities made at state legislative levels during the 1980s have positioned minority state legislative caucuses and other advocacy groups to exert far greater influence over the redistricting process than ever before, and much easier to press for districts to be drawn so as to ensure increased minority Congressional representation.

There is widespread agreement that it will not do for minority communities to simply "wield influence" over several districts likely to be won by white Democrats. Direct political representation must be ensured where possible. Optimistic Republican claims meant to encourage minority groups to press for as many minority districts as possible have estimated that minority representation in Congress could as much as double if "fair" redistricting plans were passed nationwide.21

However, there is no unified minority strategy. Some minority groups and elected black officials realize that creating minority districts at the expense of white Democratic incumbents will only dilute the votes of minorities likely to be elected to such new seats. To prevent this, several have signed on to plans creating districts with much smaller "minority majorities" than would be preferred by Republicans eager to see minority voters packed into districts that have 65% or greater minority populations.


Endnotes

1 While all fifty states will be re-drawing state legislature district lines this decade, only forty-three will reconfigure their Congressional boundaries. Congressional and state district plans have thus far passed and are likely to stand in a total of eleven states: Oklahoma, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada, Missouri, Hawaii, New Mexico, Maryland, Utah, and Illinois. Five additional states have passed plans which are now facing legal scrutiny: Texas, North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, and West Virginia. (As of November 9, 1991. "Redistricting in the States," table, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, November 9, 1991, p 3324.)

2 In all but four states (Connecticut, Hawaii, North Carolina, Washington), governors have veto power over redistricting plans proposed by legislative redistricting committees or state commissions. (Redistricting Provisions - 50 State Profiles. National Conference of State Legislatures Reapportionment Task Force, October 1989, p 105.)

Governors do not have powers similar to those of state legislative leaderships (see above section on state legislators) in making appointments to state redistricting commissions. So far, the actions of individual states' governors in the 1991-92 redistricting process have unfolded along predictably partisan lines; plans designed by Democratically-controlled legislatures have been approved in those states with Democratic governors (Texas) and vetoed in states with Republican governors (California).

3 The Department of Justice under the Reagan and Bush Administrations has been consistently vigilant in enforcing voting rights provisions that maximize minority voting strength. In the five years from 1980-85, the Department vetoed 110 redistricting plans in areas under the jurisdiction of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act that would have diluted minority voting rights, versus 26 during the Carter Administration. Taking the high number of submissions following the 1980 census into account, the rate of enforcement was roughly comparable to that achieved under Carter. ("Beware of Republicans Bearing Voting Rights Suits," Matthew Cooper. Washington Monthly, Feb. 1987, p 14.)

Throughout the 1980s, the department continued to use its rights under Section 5 to push for the creation of districts with minorities in the majority whenever possible, pursuing a shrewd GOP strategy of weakening white Democratic incumbents by separating them from loyal minority constituencies (see above section on national Republican Party).

This trend has continued under the Bush Administration, and thus any plans submitted to the Justice Department for areas covered under Section 5 that trade off minority strength for Democratic partisan advantage are likely to be veteod. It is widely believed that this will happen to the plan submitted by North Carolina's Democratically-controlled General Assembly and currently under Justice Department review, with the final decision to come in early January of 1992.

4 Currently, sixteen states are covered in whole or part by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act - Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. ("Voting Rights, Voting Wrongs," Bernard Grofman. Twentieth Century Fund Paper, Priority Publications Press, 1990, p 10.)

5 A decade ago, redistricting was the exclusive domain of the major political parties and state redistricting commissions. Starting costs for an effective computerized redistricting system were over $1 million, including computers, programming, and software. Now, the price of entry is under $100,000. This alone has ensured that scores of special interest and public interest groups nationwide have been able to influence the current round of redistricting to an extent never possible before.

Such groups include the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the public employees' union that is running its own plans in New York and Ohio, or the Indiana State Teachers' Association, which calculated several years ago that the way to influence state politics was to influence redistricting. For an investment of $65,000, the union has been able to serve as a source of independent and sometimes competing analysis for Indiana legislators involved with the redistricting process. The same is true of many statewide affiliates of organizations such as Common Cause, whose interests lie in a more fair, open redistricting process itself. ("With Cheaper, Better Data, Advocacy Groups Emerge as Growing Force in Redistricting Fights," David Shribman. Wall Street Journal, May 29, 1991, p A14.)

6 The federal courts are likely to decide more federal suits dealing with redistricting this decade than ever before. In some states, simply the appearance of impasse over redistricting has been enough for partisan suits to be filed seeking judicial intervention (South Carolina, Alabama, Michigan, California). In others, state redistricting deadlines have passed without final agreement being reached on plans, sending the task of redistricting on to federal courts (Oregon, Illinois). Likely to be far more common once more states finalize their plans are suits filed by various state political parties, minority and public interest groups, and private citizens objecting to plans that will be approved by state legislatures. Already, this has happened to plans approved by Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, and West Virginia.

The increase in the likelihood of redistricting battles being taken to federal courts is easily explained. A series of Supreme Court rulings on redistricting during the 1980s, including Davis v Bandemer (1986), have greatly increased the chances that plans found to have overly partisan gerrymandering consequences will be struck down. This has emboldened state Republican parties across the nation, in control of a minority of state legislatures that will be drawing up redistricting plans, but poised to take advantage of a federal judiciary now heavily weighted with Reagan and Bush appointments. ("Lawyers, Judges at Forefront in Numerous Map Disputes," Beth Donovan. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, October 12, 1991, p 2976.)

7 "The 1991 Plan," Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. Campaigns and Elections, Sept/Oct 1986, p 50.

8 Although Democrats still control three-fifths of state legislatures nationwide, Republicans today hold either governorships or at least one legislative chamber in thirty of the forty-three states which will redraw Congressional boundaries. Republicans will clearly have substantially greater input concerning how plans are shaped than they did in 1980. ("GOP, Outgunned in Recent Redistricting Wars, Is Doing Surprisingly Well This Time Around," David Shribman. Wall Street Journal, September 16, 1991, p A20.)

9 A concerted effort was made by the national Republican Party to recruit GOP congressional candidates for races in 1990 against entrenched Democratic incumbents who were seen as possible 1992 retirees. The strategy was to position such candidates for success in open districts if hoped-for retirements materialized.

Some of the more high-profile Democratic incumbents who were thus challenged by GOP newcomers in 1990 included Doug Barnard (D-GA), William Lipinski and Frank Annunzio (both D-IL), and Jack Brooks (D-TX). Of these four, both Barnard and Annunzio have indeed announced their impending retirements. ("Non-Realignment," Fred Barnes. New Republic, April 2, 1990, p 11-12.)

10 Congress voted in 1989 to repeal a provision of the campaign finance law that allowed retiring House members elected before 1980 to convert unspent campaign surpluses to their personal funds. The legislation will take effect for 1992-94 Congressional terms. ("Incumbents Angling for Edge in 1990's Line Drawing," Peter Bragdon. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, October 14, 1989, p 2735.)

11 As of November 9, 1991, a total of twenty incumbent U.S. House members had announced they would not be seeking re-election, or had announced for or were considered likely to seek higher office in 1992.

Retiring members are Doug Barnard (D-GA), Dennis Eckart (D-OH), Walter Jones (D-NC), Don Pease (D-OH), Morris Udall (D-AZ), and Frank Annunzio (D-IL). All of these members' districts are either likely to or have already undergone serious revision due to redistricting. Some also will be able to convert substantial sums of unspent campaign monies into personal funds (Barnard, Jones, Annunzio). ("Congressional Departures," table, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, November 9, 1991, p 3322.)

12 To these ends, a tax-exempt offshoot of the Republican National Committee called Lawyers for the Republic is offering a sophisticated redistricting software package developed by the RNC to minority groups around the country eager to design minority districts in states where it is feasible to do so. The software package is the same as that being used by state GOP parties and Republican legislative caucuses, and was developed at a cost of more than $500,000. Minority groups receiving the software are charged only a nominal fee.

Lawyers for the Republic is also assisting such groups prepare court suits in anticipation that Democratically-controlled state legislatures in some states will not design redistricting plans that fully maximize minority voting strength. ("GOP counts on redistricting tool," Computerworld, April 23, 1990, p 17.)

13 The Republican Party's main strategists on redistricting and architects of GOP efforts to ensure the creation of more districts with minorities in the majority are Benjamin L. Ginsberg, GOP chief counsel, and Edward J. Rollins, until recently the co-chairman of the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee). ("Strategy Divides Top Republicans," Richard Berke, New York Times, May 9, 1991, p A17.)

14 "Project 500," Will Robinson. Campaigns and Elections, Sept/Oct 1986, p 50. Also, "Money On the Line," Viveca Novak. Common Cause, Jan/Feb 1991, p 12-13.

15 In California, an infamous redistricting plan designed by the late Rep. Phillip Burton and passed in 1983 boosted Democratic control of California's House delegation from 22-21 to 28-17, in spite of massive growth in GOP-leaning California suburbs and gains made in voter registration totals by the state GOP throughout the 70s and 80s.

With California poised to gain another seven seats this decade, Democrats launched an all-out campaign to defeat two 1990 ballot initiatives in California that would have taken redistricting control away from the Democratically-controlled legislature. This campaign's major funding source was the approximately $2 million provided by IMPAC 2000. ("Democrats Steer Funds Westward," Chuck Alston. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, May 25, 1991, p 1346.)

16 The North Carolina plan created only one black-majority district, located in the northeastern part of the state. It has only a bare majority (51%) of black voters, although the numbers could have been higher had lines not been drawn to allow incumbent white Democrat Martin Lancaster to retain a 22% black constituency in his district. The plan also failed to create a second potential black-majority district in the Charlotte area, leaving the district encompassing most of the city's urban and surrounding areas only 21% black. Elected black officials such as N.C. House Speaker Dan Blue supported the plan in part because neither of the two districts in question supposedly discriminate against black candidates; as newly drawn, they gave black Democrat Harvey Gantt 62% and 57% of the vote in his 1990 race against U.S. Senator Jesse Helms. ("North Carolina Computer Draws Some Labyrinthine Lines," Beth Donovan. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, July 13, 1991, p 1916.)

17 Texas' new map, which is currently under Department of Justice review, provides for the creation of three new minority districts - two Hispanic and one black-majority, in the Dallas area. Initially, it was suggested that the black-majority district be divided between white (39%), black (39%) and Hispanic (22%) voters, and thus have minorities in the majority only when the populations of two distinct minority communities were combined. This was in part to ensure that Dallas County white incumbent Democrats John Bryant and Martin Frost (who heads the U.S. House Democratic Caucus redistricting committtee) would retain minority voters within their own districts. However, the efforts of state Sen. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the Texas Reapportionment Commission chairwoman and a potential candidate for the new black-majority Congress seat, ensured that the district as approved was slightly over 50% black, and 17% Hispanic, for a total of 67% minority.

In addition to Justice Dept. scrutiny, the Texas plan also has federal lawsuits pending against it, filed by state Republican officials. ("Three Minority Districts Added as Texas Draws Its New Map," Charles Mahtesian. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, August 31, 1991, p 2374.)

18 "Incumbents Share the Wealth, with Redistricting in Mind," Chuck Alston. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, May 25, 1991, p 1343.

19 West Virginia is losing one Congressional seat in the current round of redistricting, dropping to three seats from four. Democratic Rep. Staggers' district was dismembered by the West Virginia state legislature's redistricting plan and divided amongst the districts represented by all remaining three Democratic incumbents. In an earlier plan considered by the state Senate in March, 1991, Staggers was to be paired with fellow incumbent Nick Rahall. However, that plan was scrapped by the state House and replaced with a plan giving Staggers his own district while pairing off two other incumbents, Bob Wise and Alan Mollohan.

Staggers was accused by the state Senate President, Keith Burdette, of cutting a private deal with the House leadership in an attempt to save his own hide. Burdette's chief objective was to ensure the re-election of Mollohan, a political ally, and thus he assembled a legislative coalition to reject the second plan and instead push through a third district map that in effect, redistricted Staggers out of a seat.

Supporters of Staggers have filed suit against the plan in federal court, which remains pending. ("Cut By Lines, Staggers Mulls Choice," Bob Benenson. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, Nov. 9, 1991, p 3328.)

20 Depending on the state, House and Senate leaderships may have the power to decide what technical means (i.e., computer hardware and software systems) will be used in the process, or to hire the consulting firms that will provide states with extensive technical assistance regarding their plans. Most state leaderships control the appointment of individual state legislators and/or public members to sit on state redistricting commissions that are charged with the actual development of plans. ("Redistricting," Kimball Brace. Campaigns and Elections, March, 1991, p 33)

21 "Minority Mapmaking," James Barnes. National Journal, April 7, 1990, p 837.

Harvey Gantt nominated for U.S. Senate: His chances for November

(Note from 2014: For more about this campaign, see the new eBook available on Amazon - When Harvey Met Jesse: Attack Ads of the 1990 Gantt-Helms U.S. Senate Race in North Carolina)

Harvey Gantt won the runoff primary, beating Mike Easley for the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Jesse Helms. His final vote tally was 57 percent to Easley's 43 percent. In the initial May 8 primary, just over a third (33.7%) of registered N.C. Democrats voted, and last Tuesday, about 25% returned to the polls to cast votes.

That was good news. Analysts were predicting a runoff turnout of no more than 15%, which wouldn't have boded very well for Harvey's chances in the fall. But still, here's how the votes fell:

206,950 Easley
272,824 Gantt

479,774 total runoff vote

In my opinion, these figures aren't that low. In 1986, Democratic Senate candidate Terry Sanford won the Democratic nomination with 409,000 votes. He was a former N.C. governor, and because of that, very well known across the state. In the '86 general election, which Sanford won, 1,590,000 votes were cast...that means he attracted upwards of at least 800,000 votes.

Now, when Helms last ran for re-election, in '84, against outgoing Democratic governor Jim Hunt, the general election drew a total of 2,239,051 votes. They stacked up like this: 1,162,685 Helms - 1,076,425 Hunt. If that means Gantt has to get at least 1.3 million votes to knock off Helms, I think it can be done.


Barack Obama, first black president of the Harvard Law Review and a Harvey Gantt fan, on the night of the 1990 mid-term election returns.

But there are storm clouds. Initially, in the May 8 primary, a total of 693,054 non-Helms votes were cast.

May 8, 1990 Democratic/Republican primary

(1) Non-Helms Vote for white candidates

203,576 Easley (D)
116,399 Ingram (D)
80,262 Thomas (D)
13,764 Wimbish (Republican, Helms challenger)

414,001 total

(2) Non-Helms Vote for black candidates

256,107 Gantt (D)
7,907 Hannon (D)
15,039 Nixon (Republican, Helms challenger)

279,053 total

693,054 total non-Helms vote

Because North Carolina is historically such a Democratic state, registered Democrats still outnumber registered Republicans by at least 3-1. The Republican votes that Helms got in the primary weren't miniscule, but paled in omparison to what the Democrats polled.

Helms vote (May 8)

153,781 Helms
11,096 Garner (Democrat, right-wing fundamentalist)

164,877 total Helms vote

Not all Republicans who will vote for Helms in the fall voted in the primary, since he was virtually assured nomination, but the real reason for this total being so low is that a lot of Helms' support comes from conservative voters who are also registered Democrats, also known as "Jessecrats". Which is no big deal. I'm assuming that Helms is assured about the number of votes he picked up in '84. The thing that worries me, though, is that a lot of non-Helms voters in the first primary didn't return to the polls on June 8 for the runoff - about 213,280.

There could be a number of explanations for this, but what most likely happened was that Mike Easley lost some of his initial (white) liberal support in urban areas, votes that went to Gantt. Gantt also probably picked up votes from a slightly higher black voter turnout the second time around, which is good news, because it proves that in all likelihood, a lot of black voters are going to get out there and vote for Harvey again in November. And that's fantastic...22% of North Carolina's total population is black. The problem is that as recently as 1980, only 49% of black Tar Heels were registered to vote, the lowest percentage of any state in the South.

At the same time, Easley probably picked up a roughly corresponding amount of support from white Democrats who had previously voted for Ingram or Thomas, which explains why his popular vote total was about the same (200,000) during the two contests as opposed to percentage-wise (30% of the vote May 8, 43% on June 5). But, then a lot of other former Thomas or Ingram supporters didn't bother to return to the polls, which makes me wonder how enthused they're going to be over voting for a very liberal candidate like Gantt (whose skin color is black) against Helms.

None of this business about Harvey's chances for the fall has concerned me. The newspapers down here are all very supportive of Gantt, even the smaller, rural ones, and I'm a little surprised. Definitely a good sign. It really looks as if a hell of a lot of people just don't like ol' Jesse any more!

- letter to a friend