Sep
2
On Thursday, two respected North Carolina-based pollsters, left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) and right-leaning Civitas, released separate bombshell polls that are rocking the North Carolina political world.
The Civitas poll shows Democratic Senator A.B. Swindell trailing Republican challenger Buck Newton 47-41 in the District 11 State Senate race. Newton is a first-time candidate running against 5-term incumbent Swindell in a district labeled “D+4″ in the NC Partisan Index (meaning Democrats traditionally hold a 4-6 point advantage).
In addition to that positive news for NC Senate Republicans, PPP released a poll showing Republicans leading the Democrats 49-41 in the generic legislative ballot. But the real news in this poll is the independent vote.Independent voters in North Carolina favor Republicans over Democrats 51-20. According to PPP, “If that holds through November the GOP will almost definitely take control of the General Assembly.”
Taken together, these polls vividly illustrate the growing momentum on the Republican side in North Carolina.
Sep
2
This week, the battle for the North Carolina Senate found its way into the national political discourse. Townhall.com, the popular conservative news website, ran a column by Ben Cannatti and Ford O’Connell called “North Carolina: Breaking More Than 100 Years of Democratic Control”. Here is a portion of the column:
1898 was a long time ago, so it’s unlikely that anyone remembers when the Republican Party last controlled the North Carolina Senate. 2010 may be the year that everyone’s memory of Republican victory gets a boost. With redistricting on the agenda next year, the GOP’s goal of a majority in the [...]
Sep
1
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: 2010 is the best year in over a century for Republicans to win the majority in the North Carolina Senate.
But this is not a foregone conclusion. Internal polling shows tight races all across the state in the crucial battleground districts. Without your help, the dream of a conservative state legislature will remain just that: a dream.
6 seats.
$63,381.
The goal is to pick up six seats. The fundraising gap is only $63,381. Help us CLOSE THE GAP. With your online donation of $6 (yes, SIX DOLLARS), a conservative candidate in a [...]
Aug
25
Yesterday, we brought you the story that Governor Perdue’s missing flight records from her 2008 gubernatorial campaign had mysteriously appeared in the form of a detailed Excel Spreadsheet.
Today, Tara Servatius at Creative Loafing, puts this news into perspective:
One of the ways that big donors funnel illegal campaign contributions to politicians is by “arranging” paid plane flights for them. (Candidates spend hundreds of thousands of dollars jetting around the state to raise money and campaign. It’s a major campaign expense.)
Candidates are supposed to disclose these flights by law; they are counted as contributions.
Former state house speaker Jim Black went to federal prison for swapping illegal cash in a bathroom. Trading cash for flight time for a candidate is the same thing, just one step removed. The campaign of Gov. Beverly E. Perdue did it 41 times (that we know of) without disclosing it. She says her campaign “forgot” to disclose them — all 41 of them.
Whether the planning for the flights took place in a bathroom is unknown. The guy who would know the most about them, the guy who drove the proverbial getaway car, wasn’t questioned by the State Board of Elections investigator. That’s because Board of Elections Chairman Larry Leake blocked the board’s elections investigator from grilling Perdue campaign and staff manager Zach Ambrose about the flights.
Then Leake, who was appointed to his position by Perdue, went a step further. He and elections officials deleted the part of the investigator’s report that noted that she hadn’t been allowed to interview Ambrose, the guy driving the getaway car.
Then they put out a letter saying they’d found no evidence of wrongdoing by Perdue’s campaign. Case closed.
Read the rest of the article at Creative Loafing.
It’s time for change in North Carolina’s leadership. Help the NC Senate Republicans win in November.
Aug
24
Seemingly out of thin air, Gov. Bev Perdue’s campaign released a computer spreadsheet to North Carolina investigators that shows that her staff kept detailed records of private flights taken by Perdue, provided by 2008 election supporters, which were not reported as campaign expenses. Previously, Perdue’s staff blamed the failure to report 41 flights on “poor record-keeping.” It would seem that the real reason the Perdue campaign failed to report the flights was simply “poor ethics.”
As reported in the News & Observer, Will Polk, the chief legal advisor in the Lt. Gov. Perdue’s office in 2008, said that in the spring [...]
