Some Lowdown on Deanna Ballard's Candidacy for Lieutenant Governor

 

There are arch conservatives and MAGAts and slick campaign operatives running in the very crowded Republican primary for lieutenant governor, but there's only one Deanna Ballard, our former state senator who got double-bunked in 2022 with the wheeler-dealer Ralph Hise. We heard it was a plot to get rid of her because she was considered too soft and pliable in Raleigh for a Party that likes its politicians hard, like its laws. 

The Daily Haymaker, always on the far right of the known universe, considers Ballard insufficiently conservative and "way too close to legislative leadership" -- too establishment, in other words. That assessment was seconded by a lengthy article in The Assembly on the whole crowded field -- both Republican and Democratic -- running in both primaries for lieutenant governor (the most inconsequential job on the Council of State).

Carli Brosseau characterized Ballard's campaign this way in The Assembly:

Though Ballard has accepted the invitation extended to all GOP lieutenant governor candidates to speak on [Lt. Gov. Mark] Robinson’s rally circuit, she has avoided a full-throated endorsement of the MAGA movement.

Instead, she has positioned herself to appeal to unaffiliated voters, invoking her mother’s career as a school teacher, her seven years working in the George W. Bush administration, and her passion for improving data management.

“We could make some better policy if we had more timely data—and that’s across the board from business to education, K12, to higher education to the workforce,” she said.

On abortion, she says she supports the legislature’s recent move to ban the procedure, in most cases, at 12 weeks. Before Roe v. Wade was struck down, she sponsored a bill that would have banned most abortions at 20 weeks. Would she now like to see an earlier ban? “I believe life begins at conception,” she said, but “I don’t think it can be done in North Carolina.”

There are some indications that Ballard’s message is landing. She raised $194,000 from July through December, more than any other Republican candidate in that timeframe.

In the Republican primary, there are at least four candidates who will have formidable followings including Sam Page, the Sheriff of Rockingham, and Jeffrey Elmore, a House member from Wilkes, and Hal Weatherman, who was Dan Forest's main operative for a long time. Also Jim O'Neill, who came close to beating Josh Stein for attorney general in 2020. Ballard is up against some tough competitors. Odds are nobody gets to 30% on March 5, which means a run-off.

Proof of Life

 

Last night in B'Rock, NC.

Deanna Ballard, Ousted From Her NC Senate Seat, Now Running for Lt. Gov.

 

It was no secret that the Republican leadership in the NC Senate essentially put a knife in former Dist. 45 Senator Deanna Ballard's backside in 2022, double-bunking her in Dist. 47 with powerful Sen. Ralph Hise, chair of the Appropriations Committee and of the (ahem) Redistricting Committee. Hise did the deed to Ballard, drawing them both into his district, and he subsequently knocked her off in the 2022 primary (though with a winning margin of only 362 votes).

According to Ballotpedia, there are already five other Republicans running in the Lt. Gov. primary in 2024. None of them have big statewide name recognition, as is also certainly the case with Deanna Ballard.

Ballard has put out a press release announcing her candidacy for Lt. Gov. It's a curious document in that she seems to be running pretty exclusively on re-litigating the COVID pandemic, particularly the Governor's decision to close schools, because the Republican playbook during the Trump era is all about sorehead, backward looking, not-getting-over-it resentment for any public policy meant to save lives.

Ballard also manages to embrace Mark Robinson as a guiding light in her attempt to replace him in office. Yuck.

Update on Candidate Filings -- 1 Day Left

 

Deanna Ballard

Though Sen. Jeff Jackson dropped out of the US Senate race and cleared the path for Cheri Beasley, she still has -- believe it or not -- 8 Democratic primary opponents, some of them "perennials" and some who apparently don't mind spending the filing fee of $1,740. To gain what, exactly?

Speaking of Sen. Jackson, he's filed to run in the new 14th CD and at the moment has a single primary opponent.

Former congressman Mark Walker did finally file yesterday for the Republican primary for US Senate.

Perennial Democratic candidate Erica D. Smith has filed in the CD1 and will face state senator Don Davis in a primary for the open seat. No Republican incumbent but 4 Republicans filed in the primary.

In CD4, considered "safe Democratic," a real fight is shaping up between Nida Allam, a Durham County commissioner; Valerie Foushee, a formidable state senator; and Richard L. Watkins, a young African American Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology.

CD6 (largely Guildford Co.), which is supposed to be a solid Democratic House seat, so far has no Democratic candidate. Apparently waiting for current Democratic incumbent Kathy Manning to file for reelection.

NC Senate race to watch: Deanna Ballard and Ralph Hise were double-bunked in this new district (Dist. 47),  and indeed Ballard has decided to take on Hise, the very man who drew the map that double-bunked them. The Republican establishment was evidently trying to encourage her to retire, but she ain't going easy.

Ashe County Democrat Ben Massey has filed to run against incumbent Republican Ray Pickett. Two Watauga precincts (Blue Ridge and Elk) have been removed from this district (#93) and added to Caldwell, while Allegheny County got added to Pickett's district.

For the first time in many years, there will be a Democratic primary contest for a County Commission seat between Carrington Pertalion and Angela Laws King.

Deanna Ballard Watch

 

Saw this headline in the High Country Press the morning after Thanksgiving, just in time for giving thanks: "Sen. Deanna Ballard Secures Critical Improvements for District 45." I immediately said out loud, "Oh she's definitely running for something."

To recap: She's double-bunked with Sen. Ralph Hise in what used to be her NC Senate District. What will she do? What will Hise do? (Hise is rumored to be considering running for the congressional seat -- CD14 -- as is Ballard.) Putting out an eye-grabbing press release like the one referenced above is evidence of a politician who intends to be noticed and of a comms team honed for the main chance.

The story in the High Country Press lists all kinds of special budgetary grants aimed at projects in Watauga and the other counties in Ballard's 45th Senate district, and I have no inside poop nor any reason to doubt the worthiness of any of those grants. I tend to support government funding of community-based projects, so good on Deanna Ballard. I do note that AppState is singled out for some $122 million, and I'm sure they can use it.

What's the Matter with Deanna Ballard?

 

Word filtering out of Raleigh -- and by "filtering" I mean strained and adulterated before it reaches these nether regions of the state -- authoritative word is that Sen. Ralph Hise drew Sen. Deanna Ballard into the new 47th NC Senate District, double-bunking her with him, because she's not won the esteem of Phil Berger and his boys (of which Ralph Hise is one). Deanna Ballard -- not always a team player with Berger and the boys? Surprised. But okay, yeah, maybe. (I'm fresh out of guesses why she may have fallen from grace; hoping someone will enlighten me.) I confess that I've never thought of Ballard, the recruit and employee of Franklin Graham, as having an appreciable ounce of independence. But because I'm a liberal Democrat, I'm prepared to accept the strangest things.

Opinions up here in the nether regions think it likely she's going to announce for the new 14th Congressional District -- take that! Phil Berger -- and that if she does announce, she'll instantly be the frontrunner among the Republicans and that she will sweep both the Republican primary and the general election against Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, who the smart money sez will be the Democratic nominee.

I don't know about any of that, but I pay attention to opinions coming from old hands in North Carolina politics. As a congressional candidate, Deanna Ballard is going to be new to most of that district (except for Watauga and Avery), and most of the Republican primary voters in the old 11th CD have been enthralled by the mad masculinity of petulant Madison Cawthorn, and they may not immediately take to Ballard's much softer presentation of politics.

In a congressional race, Ballard's main rival might be Bruce O'Connell, who's busily trying to don the Cawthorn mantle after being a potential rival in the Republican primary. O'Connell literally twisted himself into the frame to get photographed with Cawthorn, who does not look fizzy to be symbolically blessing the candidacy of the man who had recently set out to beat him out of his gravy train.

If Sen. Chuck Edwards from Henderson County decides to run -- who's been prominently mentioned as considering the race -- that will necessarily complicate things further. We don't know what's going to happen, but plenty of other people think they do.

Republican Dominoes, in Real Time

 

Former Republican state party chair and news reporter for the Carolina Journal, Dallas Woodhouse -- whose sources inside NC conservative circles must be legion -- broke the news that Congressman Madison Cawthorn was thinking of running in the adjacent 13th District rather than in his own 14th. Cawthorn said it would make North Carolina more conservative. He also said that Donald Trump fully supports the idea. He's talking it over with his wife this weekend and will get back to us on Monday. (My own confidence in this rumor is pretty much nil, but it's a welcome diversion on a Thursday.)

If that actually happened, O! O! O! the dominoes would begin falling. The 13th CD -- by all accounts -- was carved out explicitly to enable NC House Speaker Tim Moore to move his mahogany butt from Raleigh to DeeCee and to have a safe seat thereafter for as long as the grass is green or as long as it takes the rainmaker Moore to become sufficiently richer. He's not happy about Cawthorn's prospecting on his stake. And I bet he's on the phone right now.

Side note: Didn't know this. North Carolina needs to be more conservative, and Donald Trump agrees that Tim Moore needs to be eliminated. Interesting. I wouldn't think Trump would have a clue who Tim Moore is.

'Nother side note: If you're into state politics, what would be greater entertainment than Tim Moore's having Madison Cawthorn as a primary opponent? Two grifters -- of greatly differing ages and understanding -- enter. One grifter leaves.

Here's the new map: 

The other dominoes: If Cawthorn left the 14th open, three more Republican wannabes (Ralph Hise, Deanna Ballard, and Chuck Edwards) would also reportedly be making a decision about getting into the Republican primary (which already has three announced candidates -- see below). I first saw those new names on Dallas Woodhouse's Twitter. 

Edwards, like Ballard and Hise, is currently an NC state senator. His senate district 48 includes the heart of the new 14th -- Buncombe and Henderson counties. Edwards was appointed late in 2016 to replace the retiring Tom Apodaca, then won on his own in November 2016, ran for reelection in 2018 and got 56% of the vote, won again last year with almost 59%. He seems like a contender. Maybe stronger than Ralph Hise. Indubitably stronger than Deanna Ballard.

We have to leave for a later episode why Hise, head of the NC Senate redistricting committee, drew himself and Deanna Ballard into the same NC Senate district. Double-bunking of incumbents is usually received as a slap in the face ("someone wants to get rid of me"), is never welcome. Perhaps Hise and/or Ballard already had plans for a change in career, so maybe it's no biggie.

 

The 3 Republicans Already in the Race

Wendy Nevarez, ex-military and a moderate.

Bruce O'Connell, who came out with a boilerplate conservative "Contract" with the voters, making him look old and uninspiring. He runs the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Rod Honeycutt, also as dull as yesterday morning's dishwater, but he has been the most direct in attacking Cawthorn: "I will not watch from the sidelines as inexperienced, self-promoting characters seek to further careers while the hard-working men and women of WNC suffer the consequences" (quoted on WataugaWatch).

Deanna Ballard, Double-Bunked with Ralph Hise in the New 47th Senate District

 

Here's the new map for the 50 NC Senate seats. Watauga is entirely within the new 47th District. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave the whole map an F for "partisan fairness." Dist. 47 will have a Democratic vote share of 36.77% against the Republican share of 63.23%.

Interestingly, Sen. Ralph Hise of Spruce Pine, the Republican head of the redistricting committee, drew himself and Sen. Deanna Ballard into the same district. I suspect that Ballard is now toast, if she decides to challenge Hise in the 2022 primaries.

Deanna Ballard and Ray Pickett Used As Bait

 

Travis Fain, reporting for WRAL:

Ray Pickett. 

...Greater Carolina is a 501(c)(4), one of several "dark money" groups that can raise unlimited cash without identifying donors. It sent invites to lobbyists and others in the General Assembly orbit, inviting them to the Sept. 2 game between East Carolina University and Appalachian State University, which will be played in Charlotte.... 

For $1,000, donors can attend a pre-game tailgate with an open bar and food from a "double decker tailgate unit" ....

For $5,000, Greater Carolina throws in tickets to the game. For $10,000, donors also get two tickets to a stadium suite where Sens. Deanna Ballard, R-Watauga, Todd Johnson, R-Union, and Dave Craven, R-Randolph, will watch the game, along with Reps. Ray Pickett, R-Watauga, David Willis, R-Union, Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, and Matthew Winslow, R-Franklin.

So for a mere $10,000, you can watch Ray Pickett and Deanna Ballard watch a football game. 

 

New NC Senate Map

The full impact of this new NC Senate district map will take some time to reveal itself.

Will note here that Senate District 7, in which Democrat Donna Lake is already a declared candidate, did not change. Neither did Deanna Ballard's 45th Senate District.

Deanna Ballard -- Going Full "Berger" On the Citizens of Surry County

Senator Deanna Ballard (District 45) belongs to the Republican Party. The Republican Party has always preached that local government knows best, is wisest, more frugal, and "Big-Brother" state and national governments need to quit imposing themselves on the wise citizens. That doctrine is preached and rarely followed, especially when some high-ranked Republican dudes attain great power and get to meddling.

So Watauga County State Senator Deanna Ballard has joined up with Phil Berger, president of the Republican Senate and no slouch when it comes to power-grabs, and introduced Senate Bill 674, which will force all school board elections in Surry County -- just Surry -- to become partisan in nature. Ds versus Rs. Meanwhile, for independent candidates ... too bad, so sad.

The great majority of school boards in the state are elected via non-partisan ballots, including the one in Watauga. (Surry County has three separate school boards, all of which have been heretofore elected on a non-partisan ballot.)

Ballard thinks -- if she's thought about it at all and isn't just Berger's puppet -- that school boards need a transfusion of the same bile and vitriol that is currently stripping the political paint off the two-party system. She either thinks that partisan labels and partisan marching orders and partisan doctrine imposed from above will be good for the governance of public school boards in Surry County -- but nowhere else in particular -- she either believes that, or she's Berger's dumb tool.

And why just Surry County? If it's such a good thing to do and not just a naked, clumsy, embarrassingly obvious power-grab imposed on the citizens of that one northern-tier North Carolina county? Why?

The three separate school boards in Surry -- representing Elkin City Schools, Mount Airy City Schools, and Surry County Schools -- held a first-time-ever joint meeting in April, together signing a resolution to “oppose any legislation changing the manner of election of any one or more of these boards of education from nonpartisan to partisan.” The Elkin city commission passed a similar resolution.

Deanna Ballard wants to impose not just the state on Surry County, but the machinery of partisan witch-hunting. Just what public education needs!

Sen. Deanna Ballard Wants to Unleash Digital Billboards in North Carolina

The billboard industry in North Carolina has tried at least three times in recent years to get massive new power to override local laws and local governments and put their massive signs pretty much anywhere they want to. They're trying again this year with simultaneous bills in NC House (H645) and Senate (S534), "Revisions to Outdoor Advertising."

The industry's revisions (and have no second thoughts about who wrote or dictated the language of this bill) will allow more tree cutting around billboards, force taxpayers to pay billboard companies more to remove existing signs for public works projects, and allow billboards to be relocated from one part of a community to another even if local ordinances prohibit them. Worst of all, the bill will unleash a new scourge, digital billboards, the garish lighted eyesores the industry wants to replace their old billboards with.

Talk about distracted driving.

Sen. Deanna Ballard of Watauga is a secondary sponsor of the Senate bill. You gotta ask yourself, on those occasions when Sen. Ballard is pushing some new law, what's in it for Franklin Graham? Dunno. Why is unleashing the billboard industry -- to override existing municipal laws -- of such burning interest to Deanna Ballard?

#NCGA Races to Watch in 2020

Ray Russell

Thanks to Real Facts NC for opening the window a crack on what NC House and Senate races might be in most contention next year.

Real Facts lists 14 House seats currently held by Republicans that might be subject to flips. Many of those 15 were highly anticipated flips in 2018, but that didn't happen. The situation and the ground games will be considerably different in 2020, what with the president and the entire NC Council of State on the ballot. We'll be following the Democrats who announce for any of these seats.

Real Facts lists 14 House seats currently held by Democrats that might be in danger of going back Republican. Ray Russell's District 93 is one of those.

On the NC Senate side, ten Republican seats appear worth watching. Deanna Ballard's 45th District seat isn't one of them.

Sen. Deanna Ballard, Why Won't You Vote To Expand Medicaid Coverage in North Carolina?

At a healthcare townhall meeting last evening at the Watauga Medical Center attended by both Rep. Ray Russell and Sen. Deanna Ballard, according to someone who was there, Senator Ballard was all "big smiles and a blizzard of excuses on why the #ncgop refuses to expand Medicaid. An Ashe Co. couple then explained how they struggle without healthcare."

Why are her pleasant smiles, her "thoughts and prayers," not at all helpful?

500,000 people in North Carolina make too little to afford health insurance and too much to qualify for Medicaid. This is known as the Medicaid Gap. The Affordable Care Act provides subsidies to people of modest means, but it gave money to states to expand Medicaid programs to cover the very poor. North Carolina did not accept this money.

Single people making less than $12,000 a year and families of three making between $8,000 and $20,000 do not qualify for health care premium subsidies, but also do not qualify for Medicaid. For these people, healthcare is unattainable.

37 states have expanded Medicaid. In these states, the very poor have access to health insurance and medical care. These states are led by both Republicans and Democrats.

Expanding Medicaid would add 43,000 jobs to North Carolina’s economy. It would bring $4 billion in federal funding to North Carolina annually.

Sen. Meredith Just Woke Up From His Months-Long Nap, Sez ... "Who Put That There?"

Sen. Wesley Meredith, one of Phil Berger's top lieutenants in Raleigh, just discovered ("No way! I couldn't have! I didn't!") that he voted for a really putrid constitutional amendment that takes away the governor's ability to appoint judges to vacancies and gives that power to Phil Berger. And his boys.

Or maybe Senator Meredith thinks he was egregiously misled, or blinded by the light, or was possibly dosed with a knock-out drug at the time(s) that he voted (repeatedly) to give Phil Berger the power over judgeships. Phil Berger and his boys, of which Wesley Meredith is one.

Anyway, at a public forum in the Cumberland County Public Library, Senator Meredith suddenly announced that he was against the constitutional amendment changing the way favored people get on the bench. Precisely no one at the forum asked the obvious follow-up -- "But didn't you vote for it, not only on final passage but also in committee votes, and in totally different forms -- the one ruled unconstitutional by a judge and the second version the Republicans put on the ballot November 6th along with five other putrid power grabs? Didn't you vote for that repeatedly?"

Rob Schofield at The Progressive Pulse got hold of Senator Meredith and did ask that question. Senator Meredith went into a kind of fugue state trying to explain the inexplicable. You have to read that interview.

For the election upcoming Meredith is threatened by Democrat Kirk deViere, who starred on WataugaWatch months ago. DeViere looks to be mounting an energetic campaign, while by comparison, Senator Meredith looks ... panicked. "Flummoxed" was the word Schofield used.

Deanna Ballard with NCH93 Rep. Jordan

FOOTNOTE
Two more Republican lawmakers have subsequently come out against the judicial selection constitutional amendment: Sen. Rick Horner (R – Johnston, Nash, Wilson), who also voted for the amendment on final passage, and Rep. Chuck McGrady (R – Henderson).

Know who else in the Senate voted for the amendment and all the other amendments, both in committee and on the floor and who hasn't apologized for any of them? Deanna Ballard of the 45th Senate District. Over on the House side, Jonathan Jordan did as he was told and voted for all of them too. No recanting from him.

Wes Luther -- Democrat Running for NC Senate District 45

Wes Luther

You may not know that Democrat Brandon Anderson withdrew from the NC Senate race against Deanna Ballard within the timeframe that allows political parties to name a replacement candidate.

Democrat Wes Luther, a 29-year-old veteran of the Marine Corps. He's come back to ASU to study sustainable technology. He's just cranking up his social media ... FB page and Twitter.

I Think Continually of Voting

Nothing matters as much as this fall's General Election.

With the five conservatives on the US Supreme Court decreeing that DJT can discriminate on the basis of religion, how long will it be before he officially discriminates on the basis of race, and they say that's all right too, Bro, because you're doing it to keep us safe.

Democrats need the US Senate as a check on a would-be dictator who's already a full-time fool.

In North Carolina, Phil Berger and Tim Moore are offering six modifications to the state's constitution in an effort to keep themselves and their ilk in power forever. They're hoping that their power-play will rev up their lackadaisical troops to turn out and vote for them and "their boys" this fall.

Those constitutional amendments (my personal favorite: a measure to make it impossible to sue a hog-shit-sprayer for messing up the enjoyment of your property) may backfire on them. I'm possibly more revved to vote against their crap than their target audience is revved to make them King and continue the backward tumble of our state.

Democrats need at least enough seats in either chamber of the General Assembly to break the Republican majority and uphold Governor Cooper's veto. Majority control of at least one chamber would be even better, and that's clearly in reach.

Who's to blame for the misdirection of our state?

Rep. Jonathan Jordan, left, and
Sen. Deanna Ballard, right

Republican Malpractice in the NC General Assembly

Rob Schofield decries the rush of new laws in this current session of the North Carolina General Assembly -- laws written in secret and sometimes quickly, with scant understanding of or respect for unintended consequences (let alone the nasty intended ones): "Time and again last week, in fealty to an artificial and never fully disclosed deadline, legislative leaders summoned new and hugely controversial proposed laws out of thin air, conducted rapid-fire kangaroo committee meetings to bless them, and then waved the detritus briefly in front of glassy-eyed rank and file members for quick, often dazed approval."

That's democracy malpractice, and the practitioners must be called to account. Here's two of them:

Republican Rep. Jonathan Jordan and Republican Sen. Deanna Ballard

A handful of the most powerful of the Republicans in Raleigh wrote their budget in secret and rushed it through by preventing any amendments. The new budget "starves schools, the environment and countless other essential state services in order to give tax cuts to millionaires" (Rob Schofield). Jonathan Jordan and Deanna Ballard voted yes to it and to everything else.

Out of Thin Air

Other pieces of shit coming out of the General Assembly in rapid order:

"A transparently partisan bit of legal scalpel wielding that would alter early voting laws in order to target and discourage participation by minority voters." Their monkeying with early voting now sits on Governor Roy Cooper's desk. It's clearly meant to discourage the whole infrastructure of early voting, as it mandates that all satellite sites must be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every weekday, 12-hour shifts. That provision defies local knowledge of local populations and their druthers and will strap the budget of county boards of elections. Some -- probably many -- satellite sites will have to be closed in Watauga and other counties. Plus ending the last Saturday of early voting aims at black people, who have historically favored that day.

A brand-new "farm bill" -- "what ought to have been labeled The Polluting Corporate Industrial Hog Factory Relief Act.” It's a real piece of shit that we wrote about here recently.

An 18-page compilation of giveaways to favored special interests bearing the laugh-out-loud title “Regulatory Relief Act of 2018.” We'll slowly become aware of the political bribes this bill delivered on.

A bill to gerrymander the judicial districts of roughly a third of the state’s population, because General Assembly Republicans haven't liked the judges.

Speaking of the damned judicial system, a superior court judge recently ruled in favor of a tenant, and the General Assembly promptly passed a special giveaway to landlords. In Raleigh it pays to be upset by a court ruling, especially when you have expensive lobbyists and compliant Republican troops.

And the icing on the cake: Last Friday, a rushed new backroom deal to "put teeth" into penalties on crazy behavior by crazy prison inmates, because harshly punishing craziness always makes it stop.

It's a Raleigh power-trip on acid and with the pedal down. But be informed, you clowns of the apocalypse-- Judgment Day is coming, and the people remember.

Sarah Palin Endorses Deanna Ballard in NC Senate District 45

"I don't know about you, but I've had it with establishment politicians," says Sarah Palin in an endorsement message posted on Sen. Deanna Ballard's website.

The establishment politician in question here is Shirley Randleman from Wilkes who was first elected from Senate District 30 in 2012 and has been reelected twice since then, before redistricting threw her into Ballard's Senate District 45.

I'm assuming that Ballard's mentor Franklin Graham arranged for the Palin endorsement. Because he thinks the failed governor of Alaska and the failed candidate for vice president will carry great weight with Republican voters in District 45. And perhaps she will.

A Democrat Has Announced for the 45th Senate District

Big news for the 45th NC Senate District, which includes Watauga, Wilkes, Allegheny, Ashe, and Avery counties. Brandon Anderson, who is currently the Chair of the Wilkes Democratic Party, will announce his candidacy on Monday. He'll be challenging either Shirley Randleman or Deanna Ballard, two Republican incumbent senators who were double-bunked and who will face each other in a Republican primary in May (hint: Randleman is going to win).