BY: CAROLINE WORONOFF
For the first time in 144 years, the Grand Old Party controls both the executive and legislative branches of North Carolina’s government. GOP candidate Pat McCrory won the governorship in 2012, putting an end to the Democrats’ long hold on the office. Since the Republican party has secured control over both branches of the state government, North Carolina has restricted access to abortions, enacted voting laws that many say are the most severe voting restrictions in the country, and taken away salary increases for teachers with graduate degrees. Amidst this political environment, North Carolina heads into its senate election for Democrat junior US Senator Kay Hagan’s seat.
North Carolina’s current US senators are Kay Hagan and Richard Burr. Burr is a Republican, and Hagan a Democrat. Hagan is up for re-election this November. According to The Cook Political Report, an independent, non-partisan newsletter that analyzes elections and campaigns for the US House of Representatives, US Senate, Governors and President, as well as American political trends, North Carolina is leans Democratic. That means the race is considered to be competitive, but at this juncture, ten months before the election, the incumbent Democrat has an advantage. Since the 1996 elections, Cook Report has correctly predicted the winner in the “lean” Democratic category with 90 percent accuracy, with one exception in 2002 when they had an 83.3 percent accuracy.
One factor that is currently working against Hagan is a recent poll by Public Policy Polling, a liberal-leaning polling firm, in which 49 percent of people disapprove of the job she is doing compared to only 44 percent of people who approve. Many blame her fall in the polls on Obamacare. Sixty-nine percent of people polled by PPP said the Affordable Care Act’s implementation has been unsuccessful.
This is a huge problem for Hagan. She has voted with Obama 96 percent of the time during her six years in Congress, so if people disapprove of Obama’ s policies then they tend to disapprove of Hagan. Republicans campaigning against Hagan throw out the 96 percent statistic frequently. However, the statistic is misleading. While Hagan voted with Obama 96 percent of the time, she separated herself from Obama’s views more times than all but three other Democrats in the Senate, according to Roll Call News. In fact, the National Journal ranked Hagan as the nation’s most moderate Senator. The Journal ranked her the 51st most liberal senator and the 49th most conservative. Heading forward, Hagan is trying to downplay her strong Democratic relationships in order to attract more moderate voters. Additionally, Hagan is campaigning hard with farmers and veterans. These groups typically both vote conservatively. Hagan’s website lists only six political issues, two of which are agriculture and veterans.
Presently, there are five Republicans seeking the nomination from the GOP. The hopeful nominees include physician Greg Brannon, Speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives Thom Tillis, Baptist Pastor Mark Harris, retired physician Edward Kryn, and Heather Grant, a nurse practitioner. They will face off in a primary on Tuesday, May 14. Some election observers believe a closely contested Republican primary may work to Hagan’s advantage. As the incumbent, she will get to conserve campaign funds, and not suffer as many political attacks as those participating in a contested primary.
The Hagan campaign is most concerned about Thom Tillis. Hagan and Tillis do not agree on much. Tillis believes government is too big and that the economy will recover with help from the private sector, not the public. For this reason, he wants to get rid of what he considers to be government handouts. He is pro-life and has played a big role in restricting abortion laws in North Carolina. He is against same-sex marriage as well. Tillis has been a leader in balancing the state budget in the past two years, which has reduced the state debt. Going forward, he would plan to implement policies that cut spending now, cap spending in the future, and require a balanced budget every year. On the Affordable Care Act, Tillis plans to devise private sector solutions to reduce healthcare costs instead of having the government pay for healthcare. Tillis wants lower taxes because he believes this will help the economy grow. He led the effort in North Carolina to lower taxes for citizens of all economic backgrounds.
Although Hagan is the “most moderate” senator, her positions are often counter to Tillis’s. The first bill she co-sponsored was the Lilly Ledbetter Act eliminating gender biases in salaries. The Lilly Ledbetter Act was the first bill that President Obama signed into law, and a Supreme Court case and an earlier version of the bill had not been able to accomplish what the Lilly Ledbetter Act did. She co-sponsored a bill that required contraceptives to be covered on health care plans, and she supports a woman’s right to choose. She backs same-sex marriage, and she made her opinion especially clear after North Carolina citizens voted to add Amendment One to the State Constitution, making same-sex marriage illegal. On education, Hagan has worked to improve schools that are not succeeding in the classroom, to keep the state’s public universities accessible to students from all economic backgrounds, to make preschool available to children from poor economic situations, and to support the state’s historically black colleges and universities. One of her campaign promises in 2008 was to work to increase the minimum wage. She voted for the stimulus package, and she supports tax cuts for the middle class instead of the top one percent.
The one area that Tillis and Hagan agree on — and that makes Hagan stand apart from her party — is that people have a right to bear arms. In her term as Senator, Hagan voted against the ban on high capacity magazines, against the ban on assault weapons, and for the expansion of gun rights to veterans. She explained her votes in a statement by saying she wants to “ensure our communities our safe while respecting the rights of responsible gun owners.” Not surprisingly, all three of these votes were against the Democratic majority and Obama’s opinions. She did, however, agree with her party and vote to expand background checks for gun purchases. Her opponents plan to exploit this vote heavily on the campaign trail.
Off-year elections in the second term of a lame duck president generally work to the advantage of the party that does not hold the White House, which bodes well for the eventual Republican nominee. The electorate in midterm elections also tends to skew older and whiter than presidential years, another boon for the Republicans. Mitch Beasley, the North Carolina Democratic Party Press Secretary knows that the Hagan campaign has a few things in its favor as well. Whichever Republican candidate is nominated will have to find some way to defend what the party has been responsible for in Raleigh including “a dismal record of gutting education spending which has increased tuition and classroom sizes across North Carolina” and they have “made it harder for students to vote.” Will either of the trends affect the North Carolina Senate race, and cause Hagan’s ouster? Will recently enacted conservative policies of the North Carolina legislature motivate registered democrats to turn out? What remains to be seen is if such efforts will be enough. Whichever way it goes, it will be a tight race.
This article originally featured in Campus BluePrint’s March 2014 issue. For more content check out Campus BluePrint in print, available on campus and online!
