The Outlook from Tobacco Road

North Carolina seems to be an example of the presidential voting trend in most of the South — although the vote hasn't been lopsided, as it has been in some states.

With the solitary exception of its support for Jimmy Carter in 1976, North Carolina has voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election since 1968. But it's frequently been close in North Carolina — closer than it tends to be in the rest of the South.

There will be a lot of electoral activity in the state this year, with incumbents from both parties seeking re-election. The nature and the competitive level of each race will decide whether Barack Obama or John McCain will be the beneficiary of the activity.

• North Carolina has a couple of statewide races in 2008 — for governor and senator.
  
  The governor, Democrat Mike Easley, is forced by state law to step down after serving two terms. His approval ratings have remained high, and he might be able to win a third term if the law allowed him to seek one.
  
  Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, says the governor’s office is likely to remain in Democratic hands. The state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, Beverly Perdue, will be facing Pat McCrory, the Republican mayor of Charlotte, in the governor’s race in November.
  
  Easley was considered a possible candidate for Elizabeth Dole’s Senate seat this year, but he declined to make the race.
  
  As an experienced governor who will be leaving his office this year, he might be a good choice for running mate for Barack Obama. Easley is more conservative than many Democrats, which could serve to attract independents and Republicans.


• In the South, nearly every state (with the exception of Florida) will have a U.S. Senate seat on the ballot in November.
  
  In most states, the incumbent senators are running for re-election. As usual, some have no opponent — or merely token opposition.
  
  But some are facing competitive challenges for the seats they currently occupy — and some incumbents have chosen to retire, some for health reasons but some simply to avoid the very real possibility of being rejected by the voters.
  
  In North Carolina, Sen. Elizabeth Dole has been mentioned as a vulnerable incumbent, even though North Carolina has been a safe haven for most Republican candidates in recent years.
  
  State senator Kay Hagan won the Democratic nomination in May, and polls at the time showed her in a tight battle for Dole’s seat. One poll even showed her with a narrow lead right after the primaries.
  
  But by mid-June, Sabato was saying that ”[n]ow that the dust has settled and the initial over-excitement has ended, the actual landscape is a little more clear. What once seemed to be a dead heat is probably more like a 8-10% lead for Dole, perilous, but certainly no reason to begin writing her obituary just yet.”
  
  Nevertheless, Sabato says the race merely ”leans Republican” at this point — which appears (on the surface) to be less than a rousing endorsement for Dole’s chances of being re-elected to the seat that Jesse Helms held for three decades.
  
  The fact is, if Dole’s lead is 8-10%, as Sabato says, that puts her at the upper end in the typical range, historically, for Republican Senate candidates in North Carolina. Dole took a 9% triumph, 54% to 45%, when she was first elected to the Senate in 2002. Helms, in his final Senate race in 1996, received 53% of the vote.
  
  And Dole’s colleague in the Senate from North Carolina, Republican Richard Burr, received 52% of the vote when he won the seat that was vacated by Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards in 2004.
  
  Democrats tend to be competitive in North Carolina’s statewide races, but the voters usually support the Republicans — by relatively slim margins. And, even when Democrats win, as Edwards did in the 1998 Senate race and as Easley did in the governor’s races of 2000 and 2004, the margins have tended to be narrow.


• The state’s representation in the House reflects the division between the parties. Before the 2006 elections, Republicans held a 7-6 lead in the House delegation. After the 2006 elections, the Democrats held a 7-6 lead — thanks to Democrat Heath Shuler, the former football player who won the seat in the 11th district against incumbent Republican Charles Taylor.
  
  North Carolina’s 11th district is mountain country. It is nearly 90% white and 56% rural. It has tended to vote Republican in national campaigns — George W. Bush topped 55% of the vote in the district in both 2000 and 2004 — but Michael Barone, co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, has referred to an ”ornery” streak in the 11th district’s voters.
  
  When voters have a reputation for being "ornery," they're apt to do anything.
  
  Even so, Sabato is keeping his eye on only one congressional race in North Carolina this year — and it isn’t Shuler’s seat. So I have to assume that that means Shuler has been meeting the needs of his district.
  
  Sabato is watching the 8th district race, which was decided by less than 400 votes two years ago. The district is in the southwestern portion of the state, along the North Carolina-South Carolina boundary.
  
  It is currently represented by Republican Robin Hayes, who won the seat in 1998. Hayes is in a rematch with the Democrat he defeated last time, high school teacher Larry Kissell, and, as Sabato observes, voters in the 8th will have the opportunity to ”re-write the ending if they choose.”
  
  At this point, it’s anyone’s guess whether the 8th district will keep Hayes in office or switch to the Democrat. Nearly 27% of the district’s residents are black, and nearly 70% of the population is urban.
  
  Sabato calls it a toss-up right now.
  
  In national politics, the 8th district voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, both times with 54% of the vote.