The Human Cost of a New Map

 

You should already know that Democratic Congressman G.K. Butterfield, who's served in the US House representing the (old) CD1 since the election of 2004, saw his residence moved into the new 2nd, which he recognized would be next to impossible for a Democrat to win. So he's retiring. “North Carolina is the battleground,” Butterfield told The N&O Friday. “I’ve looked at all of this and weighed all of the circumstances and I’ve just decided that I don’t want to run on that map that is gerrymandered. That is unfair ... This map is the most partisan and racially gerrymandered I have ever seen. It is extreme. Every political party pushes the envelope a little with redistricting but this is extreme to have 11 Republican seats out of 14. On a good day 10 out of 14 seats is unlawful, unconstitutional and undemocratic,” Butterfield said.

Meanwhile, former state Sen. Erica Smith, who lost the US Senate primary to Cal Cunningham in 2020 and was an announced candidate again for the Richard Burr Senate seat in 2022, has left the Senate race to run in the new 2nd CD. She wasn't getting any traction in the Senate race. Maybe she can flip what has become a much more Republican district. DavesRedistricting.org scores it 65% Republican, 33% Democratic, and 68.8% white.

Democratic candidate Richard Watkins, a political novice but an accomplished scientist, has also left the US Senate race, where he was completely overshadowed by Cheri Beasley and Jeff Jackson, and says he will now run for Congress in the new 6th CD, where the dean of liberal Democrats David Price has announced his retirement. The new 6th is one of the "safe" Democratic districts, where there's already a pile-on of new candidates. State Sen. Wiley Nickel announced first, followed by Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, a Muslim woman who made a big splash, followed by state Sen. Valerie Foushee, who instantly became a front-runner.

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, a Republican who has been getting nowhere in the Republican primary for Richard Burr's Senate seat (despite or because of the endorsement by Madison Cawthorn), is rumored to be launching a 7th District race, where state Rep. Jon Hardister, also a Republican, is also considering a run. That's the district where football star and Yale graduate Bo Hines ("the educated Madison Cawthorn"), who once upon a time in the recent past said he was going to challenge Virginia Foxx, has finally landed his nascent congressional campaign. He's a Trumper. The new 7th CD is 78% Republican.

Giving Progressivism a Chance

So all three sitting Democratic congresspeople from North Carolina have endorsed Joe Biden for president -- Alma Adams, G.K. Butterfield, and David Price.

Congressman David Price

At least it wasn't Bloomberg.

Tell me it wasn't squeamishness about the possible progressive direction of the party that motivated Alma Adams and G.K. Butterfield -- really, rank fear. Adams said, “A vote for Bernie around here would mean that we’re going to lose our governor.” Butterfield said Democrats can not win the state’s electoral votes with Sanders at the top of the ticket (or Elizabeth Warren for that matter). David Price was more circumspect, said he'd support whoever won the nomination but thought Biden had the best experience for the job.

Democratic office-holders and wannabes all over the place have the heebie-jeebies over the very real prospect that a gen-you-wine progressive will be nominated for president by the Democratic Party. Haven't had a real progressive run for president since George McGovern, and you know how that turned out. Which is precisely the fountainhead source for all the inherited terror among Democratic politicians about being labeled "socialist," or anything that smacks of the Commie.

I've had that fear. I decided to overcome it.

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article240605446.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article240605446.html#storylink=cpy

Moderate Democrats lost presidential elections in 1980 (Jimmy Carter), 1984 (Walter Mondale), 1988 (Michael Dukakis), 2000 (Al Gore), 2004 (John Kerry), and 2016 (Hillary Clinton). They all mainly operated under Republican labels -- "liberal" or even the dreaded "radic-lib" -- while steadfastly advocating for gradualism. They stayed away from big structural reform, like McGovern had pushed for. They were always "realistic" about "gradual remedies" while mainly looking defensive and dodgy at least half the time. (I flash on Dukakis flinching at "card-carrying member of the Civil Liberties Union.") To me, the Democratic moderate is a nervous candidate -- by nature nervous about being taken the wrong way -- trying his/her best not to offend anyone (while also not exciting many), pulling punches, looking prime-time-ready while always courting money. Every Democratic moderate who ran and lost after McGovern hoped to wash the taste of McGovern's historic loss out of their collective mouths. They failed.

Ibram X. Kendi boldly suggested the McGovern's defeat as the (curable) virus that's been afflicting moderate Democrats since 1972:

Richard Nixon won 49 states and 520 electoral votes, severely wounding the spirits of countless young progressives. And I don’t think some of them ever fully recovered. “It was a generational defeat,” as BuzzFeed’s Katherine Miller wrote.

Don't I remember it! The wounding of the spirit is a serious thing. Takes time to recover, or maybe recovery is not even possible, especially when fear dominates philosophy.

Here's the myth the moderates accept, which Rachel Bitecofer cheekily nicknamed "The Chuck Todd Theory of American Politics":

About 55 percent of eligible voters are likely to go to the polls, and the winner is determined by the 15 percent or so of "swing voters" who flit between the parties. So a general election campaign amounts to a long effort to pull those voters in to your side.

How you do dat, moderates? Pull those swing voters to your side? You know how you do it. You begin to talk (and God help us! think) more like a Republican. 

Moderate Democratic organs want to talk about the 6 million Obama-to-Trump voters that won the election for Trump in 2016. They think they can win them back in 2020 but not by being too "progressive" and certainly not by being within shouting distance of "socialist." But here's a fact that Ibram X. Kendi zeroes in on: in Obama's reelection in 2012, after he'd shown himself as less a progressive warrior than a man repeatedly genuflecting to the bankers, some 4.4 million Obama voters from 2008 simply did not vote at all in 2016, uninspired by Hillary and devastated that the true progressive in the race -- Bernie -- got shut out. In 2012 another 2.3 million former Obama voters went third party, and progressivism went back in the closet but wouldn't stay there. 

Ibram Kendi

The Great Untapped (new or only occasional voters energized for major progressive change) are more likely to be younger and people of color. I'm with their rising. Given the chance, might they not take their rightful place in the power structure?

Ibram X. Kendi again:

Moderate Democrats blame progressive candidates for losses, but they can’t seem to blame moderate candidates for losses. Moderates can’t seem to reflect on the historical electability of their candidates, as they implore progressives to reflect on the historical electability of their candidates. Moderates recognize how progressive candidates alienate certain voters, but they can’t seem to recognize how moderate candidates alienate certain voters. Moderates implore progressives to give moderate candidates a chance, but they can’t seem to give progressive candidates a chance.

Belly Dancing for Donald Trump

I count 37 North Carolina Republicans who want to go to Washington, or who want to remain in Washington -- Republicans who have filed for either the US Senate seat currently held by Thom Tillis and Republicans who have filed in one of our 13 Congressional districts (including seven Republican incumbents). I went looking to see which ones wrap themselves most theatrically around Donald Trump, and which ones keep a more antiseptic distance. This is a survey based on cursory evidence -- a quick tour of candidate websites and/or social media feeds.

We know Senator Thom Tillis as a conspicuous Trump toady, a lickspittle who's been trying to take back that one moment of independent thought he had about Trump's state of emergency at the southern border, but the one person you don't see on Tillis's website is Trump. Nor hear his name. However, the Tillis Twitter feed is a different story -- littered with little coos of @RealDonaldTrump and pictures of Dear Leader and links to articles about how deaf, blind, and dumb the Democrats are for failing to recognize the greatness of Trump. His Twitter feed looks like a burlesque act for an audience of one. He puts tassels on his tits and twirls them for Trump.

In the Republican primary for Congressional District 1 -- and the privilege of getting to lose to Democratic incumbent G.K. Butterfield -- Republican candidate Sandy Smith, who likes to refer to herself as the "Little Red Firecracker," is in a pro-Trump class all to herself. She had intended to run against Thom Tillis in the senatorial primary, but -- well, I'll let her explain:

Why not continue to primary Thom Tillis? I originally ran against Thom Tillis for the US Senate in order to defeat him for his horrible anti-Trump rhetoric, opposing the border wall, supporting gun control, among other liberal positions.

It was not long after I filed for Senate that he began to change his tune and passionately support President Trump. He even changed his vote in support of the border wall, even though he publicly said he would not support it previously.

Then, President Trump endorsed Thom Tillis for reelection. Like many of you, I am skeptical of Tillis’ “newly found support” and my entire reason for running was to hold Thom Tillis accountable for being a roadblock to the America-first agenda. Then last week President Trump reaffirmed his endorsement of Tillis. President Trump very clearly wants Thom Tillis to be reelected.

Thom Tillis now owes President Trump for helping him clear the field, and honestly, Tillis can’t win reelection against the Democrats without President Trump’s help. So I have a feeling he will remain a supporter of the president, at least until November. By 2020, there should be more conservative senators in office to counter Thom Tillis if he decides to go back to his old ways.

The Little Red Firecracker has some competition in the CD-01 primary from Michelle Nix, who says she's running against Butterfield because he voted to impeach Trump and brags that she was a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2016 and says she traveled the state on Trump's behalf. "Trump" is all over her issues page, along with his photograph.

Greg Murphy was only just elected to Congress in CD-03 last year, so I was curious how he would play Trump. He's a medical doctor, and what I see on his website looks like a quarantine to lessen infection. Under the heading "Greg Murphy on the issues," he headlines this: "SUPPORT PRESIDENT TRUMP." The wording of what follows is equivocal while ostensibly kissing ass:

President Trump is one of the few Presidents in recent memory who is attempting to do exactly what he said he was going to do on the campaign trail. If Senate Republicans had supported him, Obamacare would have been repealed. I will support the Trump agenda because it is the people’s agenda, especially Eastern North Carolina that voted so overwhelming in his favor."

Short version: When the people cease to support Trump, so will I.

For a celebrity hound who is famous for photo-bombing President Trump, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (CD-05) stays strictly separate from the Prez and never mentions his name on her website and social media accounts. Go figure. She's been photographed multiple times standing practically in his armpit.

David Rouzer in the CD-07 is adamant on his official website: "Rouzer Lays Out Case Against Impeachment Sham." On Facebook he has been a warrior against Democrats over impeachment, for which he sometimes suffers significant anti-Trump blow-back from his constituents. Rouzer is constantly defending Trump on his Twitter feed.

Big contrast on Trumpiness between Congressman Richard Hudson (CD-08) and newly installed Congressman Dan Bishop (NC-09). Bishop on his Twitter feed obviously feels his Trumpy oats, adding to the echo chamber that anyone who supports the impeachment is disloyal to America, while Hudson nowhere mentions Trump -- ever.

Congressman Patrick McHenry (CD-10) rivals Thom Tillis for coochee dancing for Trump's benefit on Twitter, though, like Foxx, he clearly doesn't have a use for Trump on his campaign website.

Here ends this survey, because there's only so much punishment a body can take in one morning, and I'm out of coffee.

2018 North Carolina Congressional Races--Lay of the Land

Keep in mind that filing for office in 2018 doesn't end until the last day of February, so there will be flux to come in the races below, both primaries and -- hence -- general elections.


District 1
Incumbent Democrat G.K. Butterfield [safe]
Solid Democratic district.


District 2
Incumbent Republican George Holding [?]
Holding already has a primary opponent and a wave of Democrats who want to take him on. The Cook people put Holding in the "Competitive Races" category, but leaning Republican decidedly.

Allen Chesser, his Republican primary opponent, attacks Holding for not holding town halls (ping Virginia Foxx). He doesn't return phone calls. He ignores his constituents. He's never accessible. Chesser is a younger Iraq war veteran and a pretty standard foot-soldier for conservative talking points. He's a Steve Bannon wet dream, is what he is.

Sam Searcy

The Democratic primary could get even more interesting with the entry of Linda Coleman, a high-profile African American public servant and former candidate who ran twice statewide for lieutenant governor. She'll get big backing and can raise money. But the district is 74% white. Dunno if that means anything necessarily, not in a wave year.

The entry of Coleman may have persuaded ASU alum Sam Searcy, who had previously announced for the seat and was raising money, to drop out and run for an NC Senate seat instead. (Searcy has become an entrepreneur businessman and a manufacturer of a local brand of Vodka, and he might beat Tamara Barringer, the incumbent Republican state senator. He looks like a wave candidate to us.)

Other Democrats running in the 2018 primary: businessman Ken Romley and transgender veteran Wendy Ella May. (Scoff not. Remember what happened recently in Virginia?) "Romley, 52, was the CEO of Zift Solutions, a marketing software company based in Cary that employs about 200 people, until he stepped down last month to run for office."

District 3
Incumbent Republican Walter Jones [safe]
Solid Republican district. Jones, a total fuck-you maverick and hence admirable in doses, is safe unless he gets knocked off in a primary, of which there will certainly be one. Put your money on Jones.


District 4
Incumbent Democrat David Price [safe]

Richard Watkins

David Price will have a loser Republican opponent in November (whichever of at least two candidates wins the Republican primary), but he'll have his own primary too.

Richard Watkins, a young African American Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology, is challenging Price. Looks like a generational contest to me, and a potentially important one. Watkins probably can't beat David Price, but I'm glad he might be a once and future candidate. We need more young scientists on the ballot.

District 5
Incumbent Republican Virginia Foxx [safe]
Yuck. The consensus is always "she can't be beat." Anyone can be beat. Anything can happen in a wave.

Two Democrats, both impressive women, are vying in the primary to take Foxx on next November. We'll know come middle of May who the candidate will be.

District 6
Incumbent Republican Mark Walker [safe]
The district is solid Republican, but there's a small gaggle of Democrats massing to challenge Walker. Walker is a charismatic Baptist preacher and the slayer of Phil Berger Jr. in the Republican primary of  2014, for which he will always be memorialized.


District 7
Incumbent Republican David Rouzer [safe]
Rated solid Republican district.

Jonah Gardner

Two Democrats so far have gotten in the race. Dr. Kyle Horton, an internal medicine doctor and a woman, announced way back in May, followed in June by Jonah Gardner, a computer programmer and IT professional. This 2018 crop of young activists of both sexes (thank you, Donald J. Trump!) inspires new confidence and old hope.

District 8
Incumbent Republican Richard Hudson [safe]
Solid Republican district (but it's a lot of suburbs, bro, and the suburbs is where the turn will come). No considerable Democrat has stepped forward yet.


District 9
Incumbent Republican Robert Pittenger [?]
Cook calls this district competitive but "likely Republican" (a moment which may be slipping away).

Pittenger may not make it through his primary with Baptist firebrand Mark Harris (who knows a special place in hell for those who disagree with the Lord him and who almost beat Pittenger in the primary of 2016).

Dan McCready

On the Democratic side: Front-runner Dan McCready, along with Christian Cano, who ran for the seat in 2016,  and Maria Warren, an attorney, will face off in May. All the smart money's on McCready, who could beat Pittenger and will beat Rev. Harris, should he prevail in the primary.

District 10
Incumbent Republican Patrick McHenry [safe]
Despite being high up in leadership in Congress, McHenry usually draws a primary opponent, and 2018 will be no different. But he also hasn't drawn a stand-out Democrat yet.


District 11
Incumbent Republican Mark Meadows [safe]
Meadows has made a name for himself in Washington as The Man Who Shut Down Government in 2013, a badge he wears happily among the conservative voters of the 11th District and unhappily among the Republican leadership in Washington. He's a pain in the ass tool of ALEC.

Meadows has a dark horse Republican by the name of Christopher Money running against him in a primary.

For awhile two Democrats wanted to run against Meadows. Matt Coffay, a leader in the Asheville chapter of Our Revolution, got into the race with a splash back in April but pulled out in July. Scott Donaldson announced in September. He's a 53-year-old urologist from Hendersonville who has made "a name for himself in certain circles with a series of YouTube videos, radio show appearances and even a published book."

District 12
Incumbent Democrat Alma Adams [safe]
Safe Democratic seat. But Adams does have one Republican announced against her. Yawn.


District 13
Incumbent Republican Tedd Budd [?]
Cook rates this district "competitive" but "likely Republican." Democrats are massing to challenge

Adam Coker

the relatively indistinctive Budd.

Adam Coker also ran for this seat in 2016 in a crowded field but lost the primary. His big issue is health insurance and he wants to win by getting Republicans to vote for him (a fool's errand). His Democratic opponents include Kathy Manning, "a former immigration lawyer who is well known in her district for her philanthropy," and Beniah McMiller, a 36-year-old African American teacher at Mitchell Community College in Statesville.

Fat Cats Are Purring This Morning

Merry Christmas, Wall Street!

You rolled the president again, got rid of a part of Dodd-Frank in the "cromnibus" so you can once again take huge risks on derivatives and get a guaranteed government bailout when everything goes south. Sweet!

You bet that Virginia Foxx voted for The Omnibus All-the-Crap-You-Can-Eat Budget Bill. She does not buck the establishment. The rest of the Republicans in the North Carolina delegation voted "yes" too, except for Walter Jones (who does buck the establishment, regularly) and Mark Meadows, the tea-bagger from the NC-11.

Also voting "yes"-- and it's a puzzlement -- was Democrat David Price. The other three Democrats from North Carolina -- Alma Adams, G.K. Butterfield, and even Mike McIntyre -- voted "no." Since the Omnibus Crap Fest needed 218 votes and barely got 219, we've decided to blame everything on David Price. Or Virginia Foxx. Yeah, Foxx is better! The wicked step-mother of woe.

Maybe Price got one of those calls from President Obama last night before the vote. The president was "whipping" Democrats to get them to vote yes, according to Rep. Maxine Waters, along with J.P. Morgan's chief executive Jamie Dimon, who was also whipping Democrats. When it comes to Wall Street, you can successfully whip some Democrats with wet noodles, let alone with CEO Jamie Dimon.

The Democrat who comes out of this colossal cluster-f**k with her integrity intact is Elizabeth Warren, who highlighted what was transpiring and tried to rally the troops. Of course, the Senate will pass this bilge later today over her objections, but as a voice for the people, Warren's standing is only enhanced.

How They Voted in the NC Delegation

On the Billionaire Coup Act of 2011, a.k.a., Debt Ceiling and Deficit Reduction Surrender:

Democrat Heath Shuler voted yes
Republican Howard Coble voted yes
Republican Renee Ellmers voted yes
Republican Virginia Foxx voted yes
Republican Patrick McHenry voted yes
Republican Sue Myrick voted yes

Republican Walter Jones voted no
Democrat G.K. Butterfield voted no
Democrat Larry Kissell voted no
"Democrat" Mike McIntyre voted no
Democrat Brad Miller voted no
Democrat David Price voted no
Democrat Mel Watt voted no

Redistricting "Oops"?

John Davis is a big-wig Republican strategist who has insider access to everything happening with the new Republican majority in Raleigh. His for-profit "Political Report" got to release a "first peek" at NC House and Senate district maps, which caused some trouble for the Republicans holding the maps out of reach from their Democratic brethren.

Anyway, now John Davis is saying that eastern NC congressional districts may have to be redrawn because G.K. Butterfield's 1st Dist. map violates the federal Voting Rights Act.

Davis sez this "could be a blessing in disguise," to keep all the new maps out of years-long litigation ... which would mean that the next election could be conducted under the old maps ... not something any right-thinking Republican would welcome.

Tales From the Gerrymander

Legal eagles may enjoy reading this argument for why the Republican scheme for redistricting Mel Watt's and G.K. Butterfield's 12th and 1st NC congressional districts may be illegal under existing Voting Rights Act rules and case law.

The Latest in Gerrymandering

Republican U.S. Congressional map is now out.

Shuler's 11th gets redder (natch). He's lost big chunk of Buncombe (city of Asheville, mainly, which has been moved into Patrick McHenry's 10th), and gains four Republican counties (Avery, Mitchell, Caldwell, and Burke). That athletic director job at the University of Tennessee is perhaps looking better all the time.

Brad Miller's 13th adds Surry and Stokes, formerly in the 5th. He loses some of Raleigh, loses Greensboro, but also gets northern Durham and Orange.

David Price's 4th loses Raleigh and Wake County except for a small chunk. He's left with southern Durham and Orange, a piece of Chatham, and Lee, Harnett, and Cumberland counties.

Wake County (Raleigh) is now split up between four different districts: Miller's, Price's, Ellmers', and (amazingly) Butterfield's. Butterfield's 1st District now does the loop-de-loo from the coast into Wake County.

Larry Kissell's 8th gets redder with Rowan, Davidson, and part of Randolph.

Renee Ellmer's 2nd moves south, out of Franklin, Nash, Chatham, and Lee, loses most of Harnett but gets Sampson, most of Cumberland, and west Wayne.

Virginia Foxx's 5th adds more of Forsyth (but not downtown Winston-Salem) and gains parts of northern Davidson and Rowan counties in exchange for losing Surry and Stokes to Brad Miller. They managed to keep all those black voters in W-S out of Foxx's district by wrapping her around downtown.