To win statewide in NC, there’s one thing Democrats should change

There’s a reason Democrats struggle to win statewide elections in North Carolina and there’s a way they can do better.

That’s the upshot of an analysis of voter turnout in North Carolina’s 2022 Senate race by Michael Bitzer, a Catawba College political scientist. It should be required reading for Democrats as they approach the 2024 race for governor.

In the Senate race, Democrats nominated former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley and Republicans chose U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, a backer of gun rights and opponent of abortion and LGBTQ rights who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The contest looked promising for the Democrats: a respected jurist against a reactionary congressman, yet Budd won with 50.5 percent of the vote to Beasley’s 47.2 percent.

Democrats blamed their defeat on a lack of national Democratic funding that resulted in Beasley being heavily outspent by outside groups supporting Budd. That was part of it, but Bitzer’s analysis shows the main reason: Poor turnout among core Democratic groups.

“For Black/African Americans, their turnout rate was nearly 10 points below the state’s turnout rate, while white turnout was 7 points ahead,” Bitzer said in his analysis. He added that participation by voters under 40 – a key to Democrats’ successes in other states – was “abysmally below the state’s turnout rate.”

In part, the Democratic shortfall reflected historic midterm patterns, but Bitzer notes that Democratic turnout has not matched Republican turnout in any midterm or presidential election since 2008.

That trend matters as Democrats look ahead to 2024. The early favorites to face off for governor are Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein and Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. If that’s the case, it’s something of a replay of the Senate race: A prominent and politically cautious legal veteran vs. a very conservative firebrand.

The result could be the same, too, unless Democrats address the voting intensity gap they have with Republicans. Democrats who water-down their progressive positions in hopes of cutting their rural and suburban losses also diminish their support among core Democratic groups.

Pope “Mac” McCorkle, a professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and a veteran North Carolina political consultant, thinks Stein should stay the middle course. While Democrats haven’t won a statewide federal race since 2008, he said, they have won seven of the last eight gubernatorial elections. And Stein has won two statewide elections for attorney general. “That’s nothing to sneeze at,” McCorkle said. “He didn’t win big, but he still won.”

David McLennan, a Meredith College political science professor who runs the Meredith Poll, thinks Stein will have trouble repeating Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s feat of winning twice despite Donald Trump carrying the state. “Recent history suggests that Gov. Roy Cooper may be one of the few Democrats that can win statewide elections by any comfortable margin,” he said. “Stein, for example, ran almost four points behind Cooper in 2020.”

A Democratic strategy of trying to reduce losses in Republican areas is also questioned by Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political scientist. He said Stein “won’t be able to pull the Roy Cooper magic trick” of drawing votes from rural counties. “Stein’s path,” he said, “will be to double down on urban counties.”

That’s good advice for Stein or any Democrat trying to overcome their party’s troubles with winning statewide. Sure, Cooper succeeded twice, but he got a big assist in 2016 from Republican Gov. Pat McCrory’s disastrous decision to support the HB2 “bathroom bill.” In 2020, he had the advantage of incumbency as he faced Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest.

A key message for Democratic candidates is that trying to reach unreachable rural and conservative-leaning voters invites failing to inspire core Democratic voters. In short, to win as a Democrat, run as one.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-829-4512, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com