CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Purplish-red North Carolina is hard to figure out. That may be why national eyes tend to watch local, state and federal races for clues of political trends, particularly whether or not the Donald Trump phenomenon is fading. Or perhaps it’s just the state’s unpredictability and the entertainment value of its outsize personalities who make news, even when they wish they had not.
GA and SC Special Elections
CHARLOTTE, NC –Republicans now hold all four congressional seats up for grabs in this Spring’s special elections.
Republican Karen Handel won Georgia’s 6th congressional district in Tuesday’s special election. The House race between Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff was the most expensive in history with a combined $50 million. Ossoff hoped to flip the long-held Republican congressional seat left vacant when Tom Price became Health and Human Services Secretary. However, the victory margin was smaller than Republicans have maintained in the district in years past. This special election gained national attention because it was largely seen whether President Trump’s low approval ratings will impact the 2018 mid-term elections.
In South Carolina, Republican billionaire developer, Ralph Norman, won the 5th congressional district. Norman beat Democrat billionaire, and former Goldman Sachs tax adviser, Archie Parnell. The seat was previously held by Mick Mulvaney, who now serves in the Trump cabinet.
WCCB Political Contributor, Mary C. Curtis weighs in.
Jun212017
Opinion: Democrats May Be Too Optimistic About 2018 Gains
The redrawn congressional districts in North Carolina turned out to be too racially driven for a Supreme Court dominated by conservatives — with Justice Clarence Thomas siding with the majority.
Who’d have thought it?
But the fact that it’s arguably a toss-up, in some judges’ reasoning, how much the Republicans in the state legislature used race or pure partisan advantage while doing their dirty work highlights how difficult it will be for Democrats to retake the majority in the House — Trumpian scandals and a proposed budget that hurts many in the GOP base notwithstanding.
May252017
Washington Politics: A Hint of Compromise or North Carolina-Style Dysfunction?
Though the year has just begun, there are already signs that the partisan power struggle in Washington will not benefit from a fresh start or optimistic resolutions of renewal.
“I want to say to the American people: We hear you. We will do right by you. And we will deliver,” said re-elected House Speaker Paul Ryan, as he no doubt relished uniting with President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Washington to celebrate the consolidation of power by undoing President Barack Obama’s actions of the last eight years.
But is he listening to all of the American people when his party is deciding what exactly it will deliver? Does a president elected by an electoral- but not popular-vote majority present the best evidence of a mandate to completely change course?
The Republican majority in Washington might look south as a warning of what could happen when you believe you’re not only right, but good, and those who disagree don’t matter. It’s a charge that was lobbed at Democrats and President Obama during their years in power, but irony is in short supply when the tables are turned. It certainly did not matter in North Carolina, a state almost evenly split in party and political sentiment, where one party, nonetheless, is more interested in ruling than governing.
Jan052017
Mia Love is black, Mormon, Republican and blowing people’s minds
Mia Love is already getting more attention than most of her newly elected congressional colleagues. She is Haitian American, a woman, daughter of immigrants, Mormon, Republican and from Utah, all things that she seems eager to boast about, except when she isn’t, as those who contrasted her post-election speech with a subsequent CNN interview noted. But her own confusion about when to tout her history-making achievement and when to downplay it is more than matched with the contortions of others who are trying to figure her out.
Nov122014
