Coach Jerry Moore Gets Used by the Watauga GOP

AsheCountyLine has the story.

At the Election Eve prayer meeting on the Watauga County courthouse steps last Monday night (they streamed it live), Republican faithful were urged to supply themselves with the yellow flyers advertising "Coach Jerry Moore's MVPs," an obvious counter-attack on "Pam'sPicks," a decades-old election year endorsement by a local progressive warrior that I happen to know very well.

"PamsPicks" is well known and closely attended to by people in and out of Watauga County and has attained a certain local fame.

The Republicans needed a celebrity name to attach to an "endorsement" of their candidates, and someone apparently thought, "I know! Legendary ASU football coach Jerry Moore ... that's the answer! The students will swoon!"

But someone's enthusiasm for a bright idea got ahead of their performance of that idea. No one bothered to ask Coach Moore for his permission.

So they produced their flyers ... actually several versions of their flyer. There's the one pictured here, and there's a better designed one with Coach Moore's photograph that's reprinted with the AsheCountyLine article, but on election day, there were other versions circulating that had no "Paid For By ____" disclaimer on them, which is required by North Carolina state election law and which caused the complaints that alerted Coach Moore that his name was being tossed around as the celebrity supporter of the entire Republican ticket, including all six constitutional amendments.

Oops.

There's sloppiness ... and then there's the Watauga County Republican Party.

Watauga GOP Shoots Self in Kneecap

Just leaving this here without comment.

New Hope in the US House: Joe Cunningham from South Carolina

Among the many nationwide Congressional races that animated my political corpuscles and my hope for surviving Trump ... Democrat Joe Cunningham's campaign in the 1st Congressional District of South Carolina, a coastal district that includes Charleston. Cunningham won the seat on Tuesday with 50.71% of the vote. I'm proud to say that I first took note of Joe Cunningham's arrival as a brand-new candidate back in February 2018, and I kept up with what looked to me like a winning and newly minted politician.





He's the first Democrat elected in this district in over 30 years. This was the seat once held by Tim Scott, the black Republican who went on to the US Senate, and by Mark Sanford, who went on a hike ... actually, two hikes, the second one being his loss in the Republican primary last spring after he dared to criticize Twitterman.

Katie Arrington, the Trump-endorsed woman who won that primary, had the Trump laying-on-of-hands during the final days of the campaign (see photo below), and her defeat is being called an "upset" by South Carolina political operatives. Arrington chose to ape Trump in talking about the "immigrant invasion" of our Southern border, and that didn't earn her any enthusiasm in the 1st District. She also supported Trump's plan to allow more offshore oil and gas exploration, something the coastal tourism industry hates and dreads.

Donald Junior stumped for Arrington on election eve, and The Donald Himself recorded a robocall for her ... more evidence that lashing yourself to Trump's axle in a urban/suburban district might not be good for your political health.

Junior with losing candidate Katie Arrington,
Nov. 5, 2018

New Hope in the US House: Sharice Davids from Kansas

New Congresswoman Sharice Davids

The Kansas 3rd Congressional District elected a lesbian, native American, civil rights lawyer to Congress. Oh yeah, and she's also a mixed martial arts fighter. Sharice Davids tried out for Season 20 of The Ultimate Fighting Championship, a pay-for-view venue with a big following. She didn't quite make the cut, but she's been a successful professional fighter since 2013. Davids is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and graduated from Cornell University. And she's going to Congress.

Say what? A muscle-woman in the marble halls?

She's also the first openly gay member of Congress elected from Kansas, and she joins Debra Haaland of the New Mexico 1st District as the first ever Native American women elected to Congress.

The Kansas 3rd District is suburban Kansas City. Hillary Clinton carried the district in 2016, but Republican incumbent Tea Party Congressman Kevin Yoder held on too, even though Republican women in the suburbs (even in Kansas) had begun to get a stomachful of Twitterman. This year Yoder earned the full Trump endorsement -- tweets and in-person campaigning, which probably helped doom him. When reporters questioned Yoder during October 2016 about "grab 'em by the pussy," Yoder couldn't think of one critical thing to say about DJT. He had also voted very publicly to repeal the Affordable Care Act many times, but by 2018 that vindictiveness toward the poor and sick just seemed unnecessarily cruel. That apparent lack of moral compass bit Yoder in the pants.

Yoder served eight years in the Kansas state legislature before getting elected to Congress in the 2010 Republican wave. By this year, he had gotten some rank, especially on the Homeland Security subcommittee. That's over now.

If the woman fighter who beat him -- with over 53% of the vote, mind you -- can just develop some policy chops to go with her karate chops, she might become the kind of new voice we need in Congress.

FOOTNOTE: Who Helped Get Sharice Davids Elected?

In the 2016 campaign, Chris Gentry worked as a field team member for the Watauga County Democratic Party's Coordinated Campaign. He was a ball of fire. In the 2018 campaign just past, Chris Gentry worked for the Progressive Turnout Project (PTP), an "independent expenditure" group headquartered in Chicago. This is their self-description:

Progressive Turnout Project is a grassroots-funded organization with a single mission: get Democrats to the polls. We design, test, and execute specialized voter turnout programs targeting inconsistent Democratic voters in the most competitive districts in the country. In 2017, our trained teams flipped 10 Republican House of Delegate districts in Virginia. In 2018, we’ll bring that same strategy to competitive districts across the country.

The key is recruitment and training, which means boots on the ground for direct voter contact. PTP raised the money to target many flippable districts this year (I count 24 district field organizers on the PTP website), and they hired experienced field managers willing to live and work in those targeted districts. Chris Gentry earned the privilege of running the Kansas 3rd. He was working totally independent from the Sharice Davids campaign (the PTP is one of those "Not Authorized by Any Candidate" groups that continue to proliferate since 2016). Chris stayed on the ground for months in Kansas, organized troops to knock doors and register voters, and he obviously helped sweep the table.

Watauga County salutes an alumnus of local campaigning, Chris Gentry!

This May Be the Greatest Legacy of North Carolina's 2018 Blue Wave

Democrats Swept All State-Wide Judicial Races in North Carolina

Anita Earls Won Her Seat on the NC Supreme Court!

Anita Earls is a legal rock star. She founded the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and served as its executive director and became a major warrior against voter suppression and the evils of gerrymandering. She was the lead attorney challenging the gerrymandering of the state, the voter ID law, and other voting restrictions. 

“I passionately believe in the importance of the right to vote, and that an independent judiciary is crucial to the balance of powers necessary to maintain democratic government of, by and for the people,” Earls said. “... In these times, I am seeing how those values are under attack, and I admire the determination of ordinary people who take great risks to stand up for their rights.” 

"...Too often this political process feels like a powerful few rigging the system against a powerless many,” Earls said. “In light of recent attacks on the independence of North Carolina’s judiciary, and on the right of all citizens to cast a ballot that is counted equally, it is clear to me that I have to not just talk the talk, but also must have the courage to walk the walk.”

Earls took 49.48% of the vote against incumbent Republican Barbara Jackson's 34.12%, with the other Republican Chris Anglin drawing 16.39% of the vote. 

The NC Supreme Court now has a 6-3 Democratic majority.

 John Arrowood won reelection to the NC Court of Appeals!

Arrowood won reelection yesterday against his Republican opponent with 50.71% of the vote. 

Arrowood is famous in our household because of the way he was appointed to the bench by Governor Roy Cooper. When Cooper was sworn into office in December of 2016, the Republicans in the General Assembly were facing an unappetizing prospect. Three judges on the Court of Appeals — two of which were Republicans — were going to be forced into mandatory retirement during Governor Cooper’s term, meaning he would get to appoint their replacements. 

The troops under GOP legislators Phil Berger and Tim Moore got busy and came up with a new law reducing the Court of Appeals from 15 to 12 seats, meaning that those mandatory retirements would not be replaced at all. Governor Cooper vetoed that bill in April and before the Republicans could override the veto, Republican Judge Doug McCullough, one of the three facing mandatory retirement, retired suddenly and early to allow Cooper to appoint his replacement before the General Assembly could override that veto. Boom! Cooper appointed John Arrowood of Charlotte to the bench. 

So, naturally, the Berger/Moore machine has put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to give themselves appointment powers over all the judiciary. That constitutional amendment was soundly defeated yesterday. 

Arrowood has more than a quarter-century of legal experience behind him as a lawyer in private practice aside from his two stints on the Court of Appeals. He graduated from the UNC law school at Chapel Hill, clerked for NC Court of Appeals Judge Gerald Arnold, and also served as a staff attorney and head of the Court’s central staff. He was vastly more experienced than his Republican opponent.

Tobias (Toby) Hampson won an open seat on the NC Court of Appeals!

Hampson took 48.71% of the vote against two Republicans who divided the rest of the vote between them. 

Hampson is a Moore County boy who was plucked out for advanced studies during high school at the North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham in 1994. He went on to earn his law degree in 2002 from Campbell University with multiple honors including a seat on the Law Review. He began his career at the North Carolina Court of Appeals clerking for judges K. Edward Greene, Wanda Bryant, and Bob C. Hunter. He then practiced with Patterson Dilthey in Raleigh focusing on trial and appellate litigation before joining Wyrick, Robbins, Yates & Ponton in Raleigh in 2007, where he now leads the firm’s Appellate Practice group as a full partner. 

Hampson is massively qualified for a seat on the appellate bench. He was named one of the “Top 100 Super Lawyers in North Carolina” (2015, 2017, 2018) by Super Lawyers Magazine. He was a top-rated appellate attorney by North Carolina Super Lawyers — recognized in Appellate Practice (2014-2018) and as a “Rising Star” (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). He is recognized as “Legal Elite” in the area of appellate law (2018) and “Young Guns” (2010, 2012) by Business North Carolina magazine.

Allegra Collins won an open seat on the NC Court of Appeals!

Collins took the seat with 48.50%. The rest of the vote was divided between a Republican and a Libertarian. 

Collins is both a judicial scholar and an athlete with a pedigree of high-level competition. She represented the United States at the Pan American Games in 1999 and 2003 as a member of the United States Women’s Handball Team. She was a “resident-athlete” at the United States Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, NY, in preparation for the 2003 Pan American Games. She’s played professional team handball in Italy and Germany. She received a full athletic scholarship (tennis) at both UCLA and the College of William and Mary. And she played on the professional tennis circuit, earning a world ranking in doubles. 

In addition to her education at UCLA and William and Mary, she attended Campbell Law School in Raleigh for her J.D. She was no slouch at legal research either: While still a student, she received the I. Beverly Lake Constitutional Law Award for outstanding writing in constitutional law. She served an important apprenticeship under Court of Appeals Judge Linda Stephens, 2007-2010, and she’s established her own practice specializing in appellate cases. 

She knows the Court of Appeals inside-out.

Holy Flippity Flip, Batman!

What happened in these NC House and Senate races that we were watching:

NC HOUSE -- Districts that flipped are highlighted. NOTE: The race in District 103 (Rachel Hunt) is so close that provisional ballots could still win it for Democrats. Bottomline: Republican super-majority has been decisively broken

Winner Christy Clark in NCHD98

Gail Young in NC House District 83 -- incumbent Larry Pittman beat her 52.95% v. 47.05% -- impressive showing by Gail Young

*Christy Clark in Dist. 98 -- is ahead of incumbent John Bradford by 333 votes. Provisional ballots and mail-in absentees still to be counted

Joe Fowler in Dist. 76 -- was easily beaten by incumbent Harry Warren

Steven Buccini in Dist. 59 -- beaten by incumbent Jon Hardister, who took almost 57% of the vote

Dan Besse in Dist. 75 -- made a respectable showing (almost 47%) against incumbent Donny Lambeth

Marcia Morgan in Dist. 19 -- incumbent Ted Davis beat her by less than a thousand votes and couldn't reach 50% of the total because of a Libertarian in the race

*Terence Everitt in Dist. 35 -- beat Republican veteran incumbent Chris Malone with 51% of the vote

*Brandon Lofton in Dist. 104 -- won this district with 51.63% of the vote

Rhonda Schandevel in Dist. 118 -- lost her rematch with incumbent Michele Presnell

*Joe Sam Queen in Dist. 119 -- took his old seat back from Republican Mike Clampitt

Lowell Simon in Dist. 52 -- was easily defeated by the Republican

*Ashton Clemmons in Dist. 57 -- buried her Republican opponent with 67.53% of the vote

Leslie Cohen in Dist. 20 -- was edged out by a slim margin of 2,000 votes

*Kandie Smith in Dist. 8 -- buried her Republican opponent

Sam Edney in Dist. 113 -- didn't come close against the Republican

Rick Foulke in Dist. 68 -- didn't come close against the Republican

Dan Whitten in Dist. 15 -- was buried by his Republican opponent

Darryl Moss in Dist. 2 -- easily beaten

Linda Bennett in Dist. 26 -- easily beaten

Erica McAdoo in Dist. 63 -- heartbreaker! She's 295 votes behind Republican Stephen Ross

Wendy B. Sellers in Dist. 80 -- buried by the Republican

*Wesley Harris in Dist. 105 -- won, taking over 52% of the vote

Susan Maxon in Dist. 109 -- easily beaten by the Republican. Interestingly, write-in candidates took 77 votes

Albeiro Florez in Dist. 45 -- only took 41.54% of the vote

Ron Wesson in Dist. 1 -- took 46.88% of the vote against the Republican

Kim Bost in Dist. 96 -- attractive candidate in an impossible district

*Zack Hawkins in Dist. 31 -- a foregone conclusion ... took 80.99% of the vote. This is not a flip, as the seat was held by Democrat Mickey Michaux for years 

*James D. Gailliard in Dist. 25 -- won this district with 51.43% of the vote

Tess Judge in Dist. 6 -- lost in her second try for this seat

*Sydney Batch in Dist. 37 -- won against the Republican with 49.76% of the vote, with a Libertarian also in the race

Rachel Hunt in Dist. 103 -- is 52 votes behind Republican Bill Brawley. Provisional ballots still to be counted. It ain't over!

*Julie von Haefen in Dist. 36 -- is 687 votes against Republican powerhouse Nelson Dollar

*Ray Russell in Dist. 93 -- edged out incumbent Jonathan Jordan with 52% of the vote

Barbara Yates-Lockamy in Dist. 46 -- hardly ran a campaign and lost badly

David Brinkley in Dist. 111 -- wouldn't run against incumbent Tim Moore's corruption and lost badly

Aimy Steele in Dist. 82 -- took a respectable 47% of the vote against Republican Linda Johnson

Terri LeGrand in Dist. 74 -- another heartbreaker ... lost to Republican Debra Conrad with 45.36% of the vote

Martha Shafer in Dist. 62 -- beaten

NCSENATE -- Republican super-majority has been broken

Winner Natasha Marcus
in NCSD 41

*Natasha Marcus Dist. 41 -- easily beat Republican incumbent Jeff Tarte

Mack Paul in NC Senate District 18 -- barely beaten by Republican John Alexander, who took 49.85% of the vote in a three-way race

*Harper Peterson in Dist. 9 -- is ahead of his Republican opponent by a mere 36 votes, with many provisional ballots still to be counted. A Libertarian candidate appears to have taken important votes from the Republican

Ginger Garner in Dist. 2 -- attractive candidate, beaten badly

Helen Probst Mills in Dist. 25 -- lost to incumbent Republican Tom McInnis

Ric Vandett in Dist 42 -- lost badly in a really difficult district

Caroline Walker in Dist. 35 -- another really attractive candidate who couldn't make a go against the Republican running for an open seat

*Sam Searcy in Dist. 17 -- took 50.44% of the vote against incumbent Republican Tamara Barringer

Cheraton Love in Dist. 29 -- was buried by the Republican

Bobby Kuppers in Dist. 50 -- buried

Jen Mangrum in Dist. 30 -- our greatest heartbreak ... she lost to bully Phil Berger but was an inspiration to thousands

*Wiley Nickel in Dist. 16 -- won easily in a three-way race

J. D. Wooten in Dist. 24 -- lost, but took a respectable 46% of the vote

*Michael K. Garrett in Dist. 27 -- is ahead of the poisonous Republican Trudy Wade by 763 votes

*Kirk DeViere in Dist. 19 -- won against Wesley Meredith, with 50.26% of the vote

*Mujtaba Mohammed in Dist. 38 -- buried his Republican opponent with over 81% of the vote. This is not a flip, as the district was previously held by a Democrat, whom Mujtaba defeated in the primary

A Note on Gerrymandering and the Current Unconstitutional District Lines in North Carolina

You don't think it makes a difference who draws the district lines?

Yesterday for the NC House -- GOP won 55% of the seats but only 48.5% of the votes. Democrats took 50.9% of the votes but won only 45% of the seats.

For the NC Senate -- GOP won 58% of the seats with only 50.5% of the votes. Democrats took 48.6% of the votes but won only 42% of the seats.

Statistics from Jonathan Kappler

Election Finals in Watauga

The Early Vote numbers came in first, and they were pretty astounding ... with Ray Russell leading Jonathan Jordan in Watauga almost 65% to 35% ... with D D Adams leading Virginia Foxx 63% to 37% ... with every other Democrat in contested races way out front in Watauga (at least).

Biggest news of the night ... Ray Russell wins the NC House seat, District 93.

In Watauga, looks like a Democratic sweep.

More granular detail tomorrow when I can go deep into the North Carolina numbers.

Signs of the Times

I'm totally to the point of just stealing wholesale off my Twitter feed.

This is the longest day of any year.

More Data Points from North Carolina Early Voting, 2018

➼ 29% of all NC voters cast ballots during Early Voting ... compared to 18% in 2014

➼ 42.5% of early voters in 2018 = Democrats; 30.3% = Republicans ... compared to 45.3% Democrats in 2014 and 32.1% Republicans in 2014

➼ 32% of registered Democrats voted early in 2018, compared to 20% in 2014

➼ 29% of registered Republicans voted early in 2018, compared to 19% in 2014

➼ 26.9% of early voters in 2018 are Unaffiliated, compared to 20.4% in 2014

➼ 24% of those registered Unaffiliated voted in 2018, compared to 13% in 2014

➼ 9.1% of early voters in 2018 were aged 18-29, compared to 5.9% in 2014

➼ 99 of NC's 100 counties experienced increased turnout during Early Voting, with several counties experiencing double-digit increases


All statistics: Andrew Carter in the NewsAndObserver.