If the Blue Wave Rolls Bigly, Brian Caskey Could Bring an Upset in SD48

Prognosticators consider North Carolina Senate District 48 as "Safe Republican" (although Bitzer rated it only "Lean Republican" at some point late last fall -- I have the print-out but don't ask me for the URL). Trump took 59.36 percent of the district vote in 2016. That's enough to sober anybody up -- ice water to one's tenderest aspirations. But Democrat Brian Caskey has been making a campaign there, and anyone should have seen it coming. 

I followed the rise of Caskey starting on December 31, 2019, shortly after the close of candidate filing. He was the frontrunner then, I thought, and has never stopped. He won the Democratic primary in March. In July, he called out Republican incumbent Chuck Edwards for being in Duke Energy's pocket. A scrapper, and that's what it will take to upset this incumbent. If anything, Caskey should do more of that hell-raising with Edwards' record.

The mathematical question: Does Democratic/Independent enthusiasm for voting (i.e., disgust with Trump) equal a 5 percent bump for Caskey? And does a downward trending enthusiasm gap among mountain Republicans equal another 5 percent advantage for Caskey? (Political observers whose roots run deep in the mountains say things aren't so keen for many Republican voters. There's a palpable sense of exhaustion.) Together, Democratic enthusiasm and Republican depression could wipe out Trump's 10 percent advantage from 2016. Is it possible? Hell, in a year when the very bedrock of our Republic, the Post Office, is threatened, I'll believe almost anything is possible

There's another factor impacting on Caskey's chances to flip this Senate district: SD48 overlaps with HD113 and HD117 where Democratic candidates have been mounting energetic campaigns -- Sam Edney in the 113th and Josh Remillard in the 117th. Edney especially is rallying the troops. Edney, Remillard, and Kim Bost over in the 96th District (Catawba County) have teamed up for their own "Breaking the Majority" campaign. The energy is noticeable for mobilizing "sometime" voters, new voters, independent voters (who hold the balance of power), and with Caskey assaulting the Senate, there's every promise of culmulative force applied against The Matrix.

Can a Democrat Win NC House District 96?

North Carolina House District 96 is weirdly carved out of northwestern Catawba County. Includes most of Hickory, St. Stephens, Conover, Long View, and Mountain View, plus the densely populated but more rural neighborhoods along Lee Cline Rd. and Spring Rd. in northernmost Catawba. According to numbers guy Michael Bitzer, Trump carried the district in 2016 with 63.79%. (Trump carried most other western North Carolina counties by 70% or more, except for a couple of exceptions -- Watauga and Jackson, I'm looking at you -- so a Trump majority of 64% looks almost like moderation.)

Democrat Kim Bost ran for the NCH96 seat in 2018. She got 39.26% of the vote. The Republican incumbent Jay Adams took 60.74%. Meaning that Kim Bost did better on the ballot than Hillary Clinton did against Trump in '16. Kim Bost is running again. She celebrated her 2020 Kickoff on January 14, attracting good attention and support. Where there's only a ten-point gap (did I just say only?) in a Western North Carolina district, there's hope. There's at least room for improvement. (Bitzer rates the district "Safe Republican.")

This district has a poverty level of 14.1%, slightly lower than the state's 16.1%. It's been a fading industrial sector with a blue-collar workforce under economic pressure. Median household income, $50,758. Only 26% of the population holds a four-year college degree, though the Apple data center in Catawba and the Google data center in neighboring Caldwell, along with high-tech manufacturers like Corning Optical and CommScope, may be drawing new residents with higher educational attainment. At first blush, this district offers a Bernie Sanders kind of demographic, though Bernie only pulled 44% of the vote in all of Catawba County against Hillary in the March 2016 Democratic primary. He might do considerably better on a General Election ballot (and we might actually get the chance to see that).

Kim Bost is an attractive candidate, but so far I can't tell that she's upping her game from 2018. She hasn't updated her website -- it still says "vote for me on November 6." The policy positions are solid and well written but safe. Considering the numbers above, why not go full "progressive populist" in House District 96, and find those citizens who haven't been voting and who need a little rabble-rousing incentive to register? Going for broke because the numbers are against you isn't every candidate's cup of tea. Bost can hope for a strongly progressive Democrat at the top of the ticket -- or for the old working-class affection to ignite for Joe Biden, if that's still a thing come November. I'm persuaded by the analysis of Rachel Bitecofer that Democratic winning margins since 2016 have depended on energizing a sector that hasn't been regularly voting -- not on winning mythical "moderate" Republicans. Democrats will not win Republican vote in sufficient numbers in a district like NCH96. Democrats have to find and register new, previously disengaged voters and build a fire under the slackers with what Bitecofer calls "negative partisanship."

The crowd for @BernieSanders in Cedar Rapids last night

Bost is active on both Twitter and Facebook, though less active on Twitter where she could drive a message ("North Carolina is broken, and I can tell you who broke it! His name is Jay Adams"). I appreciate videos but not ones with poor sound quality. I think Bost has a following of dedicated volunteers who'll do door-knocking and phonebanking, but she needs exceptional data management that can identify and target persuadable marginal voters and turfs with concentrations of the unregistered.

The Man Who Broke North Carolina -- Incumbent Jay Adams

Republican incumbent Jay Adams is a 73-year-old Boomer and real estate broker (specializing in commercial real estate) who's held this House seat since the elections of 2014. In Civitas rankings, he's 13th most conservative in the House, going along with the tax-the-middle-class-but-not-the-rich agenda of the Republican majority in Raleigh -- shift the tax burden while squeezing education and denying health insurance to the most vulnerable. He chairs no committees. He's a soldier who marches to Speaker Tim Moore's drum, and he looks plenty prosperous for the effort.

Kim Bost, Taking Another Shot in Catawba County

In 2018 we paid attention to Democrat Kim Bost when she ran for the NC House, District 96, contained entirely within Catawba County and taking in most of Hickory and Conover and some of Newton. The 2018 Blue Wave didn't make it to NCH96. Bost drew only 39.26% of the vote against Republican incumbent Jay Adams.

She announced on Facebook yesterday that she's going again for the seat in 2020. It's an uphill slog, no doubt, but certain indicators ought to mean something for Bost to build a stronger coalition in 2020.

For one thing, Charlotte Williams, a very strong Democrat, won her primary for Hickory Ward 2 alderman back on October 8. She's up against a Republican in the November elections. Granted, the alderman races in Hickory are officially non-partisan, but Williams in one of those classic progressives who's very visible in the community: She's the associate dean of Engaged and Global Learning and the program coordinator for the Human and Community Service major at Lenoir-Rhyne University. She serves on the Habitat for Humanity board and the Cognitive Connection Substance Abuse Program board. She previously held leadership roles as the vice-chair of the Hickory City Public School Board, president of the Women’s Resource Center, vice-chair on the Council of Adolescents, and secretary of the United Arts Council.

Why am I talking about Charlotte Williams, a candidate for Hickory City Council, and not Kim Bost, an incipient candidate for the NC House? Because Charlotte Williams obviously has a base of support in Hickory that Kim Bost can/should build on (especially if Williams ends up winning the Ward 2 alderman seat in November).

Furthermore, the two candidates squaring off in November for the Ward 1 alderman seat are both Democratic-leaning Unaffiliated candidates, which means I can't bring myself to think of the City of Hickory as a total Republican stronghold. There are signs of progressivism afoot. Plus the City of Newton has two Democrats serving on its city council and two very left-leaning Unaffiliated members. All of which should add up to an opportunity for coalition-building by a Democrat running in this heavily urban/suburban NC House district. (City of Conover, also in Dist. 96, is a much harder Republican nut to crack, with all of its sitting council members registered Republicans.)

First thing I'd do if I were Kim Bost and had the money -- conduct a telephone robo-poll (combined with texting) of all voters in Dist. 96 and ask one question: "Do you support President Donald J. Trump?" The answer to that question will tell her a great deal about where the persuadable voters are, and where the boulders are that she should avoid dashing herself against. After impeachment, do the poll again. If there's no movement in the Hickory electorate, go to Plan B.

Kim Bost Making (Blue) Waves in NC House District 96

It's downright edifying to watch North Carolina Democratic candidates for General Assembly seats in  "unlikely districts" proving conventional expectations all wet. When did we last see such energy on the Democratic side, such volunteerism among the rank-and-file, such blazing commitment among the resistance?

Kim Bost, running in House District 96, is just one example of in-it-to-win-it grit in a district where no Democrat even filed for the office in 2016. District 96 is a compact piece of real estate taking in some of the densest neighborhoods in Catawba County -- Hickory and Conover, principally. Think post-industrial landscape where factory jobs have been disappearing, median family incomes have not kept pace with the rest of North Carolina -- let alone the rest of the nation -- and property values have been in a slump. Trump Country, right?

Enter Kim Bost, a native of New Jersey who came to Hickory in 1999 to work as a designer for Ellis Hosiery. She's been a close observer of the struggling textile industry and has focused her campaign on North Carolina's ranking as 47th among all the states for worker wages and worker protections. That's a dismal statistic that can be laid on the Republican-dominated General Assembly.

Bost is running an energetic campaign and drawing volunteers in to help with weekly door-knocking, phone banking, and other direct voter contact. She's already passed the landmark of 1,000 doors knocked and is showing no sign of slowing down. It's like she's revved up a resistance that's just been waiting for a leader, for a standard-bearer, for a candidate willing to work hard for it. Bost is active on Twitter and on Facebook. Nothing inspires followers like a hard-working candidate with a solid platform of support for public education, worker rights, and expanded healthcare.

Meanwhile, the incumbent Republican Jay Adams looks like furniture. He votes for what his bosses tell him to vote for, which is every piece of regressive legislation that Berger/Moore came up with. Adams managed to get himself on HB2 as a sponsor, one of the most destructive bills for business in the state's history.

If anyone can break the bad Catawba habit of voting for do-nothing Republicans like Jay Adams, Kim Bost is that candidate.

Democratic Insurgents File in Catawba County House and Senate Districts

There's Blue Wave movement in Hickory, North Carolina!

Kim Bost, running in the NC House District 96

District 96 takes in a chunk of Catawba including most of Newton-Conover and most of Hickory and the dense sub-developments of St. Stephens, Long View, and Mountain View.

Incumbent Republican: Jay Adams hasn't yet announced his intentions, but another Republican, Taylor Huffman, filed yesterday. Jay Adams, first elected to the chamber four years ago, is a real estate broker who says he wants to bring back manufacturing to

Kim Bost

Hickory, presumably the furniture industry which is both a worthy goal and probably an impossibility. Adams ran unopposed by any Democrat in 2016. The other RepKiublican, Taylor Huffman, is a blank page.

Democrat Kim Bost is a design consultant who has her own small business. She moved to Catawba County over 20 years ago to work in the hosiery industry. In her work as a designer, she has partnered with entrepreneurs and local hosiery manufacturers to develop new products domestically. She is a graduate of the University of Delaware and the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is active in her community as a volunteer for many organizations including the Hickory Soup Kitchen, the Hickory Museum of Art, and the March of Dimes Foundation. She is the founder of the local opioid awareness group, Parents for Prevention and Recovery. Kim and her husband, Walter, have one son, Connor, age 13. She says, “I’m not a politician. I’m a wife, a small business owner, and a community volunteer. But most importantly, I’m a parent. And as a parent, I want all our children to grow up in a North Carolina with great schools that meet the needs of every student from preschool through college. A North Carolina that offers meaningful, fulfilling and good paying jobs."

Ric Vandett, running in the NC Senate District 42

Senate District 42 includes Catawba and Alexander counties, taking in Taylorsville, Hiddenite, Hickory, Newton-Conover, and the up-scale enclave of Bethlehem.

Republican incumbent: Andy Wells, who filed for reelection yesterday alongside the first of what will probably be two Republican primary opponents, is the owner of Prism

Ric Vandett with June Atkinson

Development, a commercial real estate company. He ran unopposed by any Democrat in 2016.

Democrat Ric Vandett is the former superintendent of Hickory Public Schools, 2006-2009. Vandett is a veteran of the Vietnam War and a leader in the Foothills Veterans Stand Down Committee and the Foothills Veterans Helping Veterans organization. He filed his candidacy yesterday and told the Hickory Record, “I’ve decided to run because I just -- I don’t like the tenor, the mood of politics in this country, in this state right now. It’s just too nasty and I don’t think that serves the citizens of our state very well.” In particular, Vandett said he wants to focus on issues like public education, veterans’ health, opioids and state spending. “I would like an opportunity to address those things in a civil manner and maintain the integrity that I think our electoral process needs.”