Publisher's note: The author of this post is Mitch Kokai, who is senior political analyst for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.
Political director of N.C. House Republicans urged GOP activists not to be complacent, as any competent political strategist should
News flash: Republicans often use fear of Democratic politicians and policies to motivate the GOP base.
I hear many of you muttering, "Thanks, Captain Obvious." But that opening line wasn't meant for you.
Instead it was designed to calm some giddy left-of-center partisans. They overreacted to a recently "leaked" email from the political director of the N.C. House Republican Caucus. Touting that email as evidence that Republicans had conceded defeat in the upcoming midterm elections, left-leaning observers ignored the note's true purpose. It was designed to fire up Republican campaigns.
The story starts with a March 14 tweet. Opening with
"LEAKED EMAIL: Democrats [Will] Win Supermajority," the item caught this reader's eye. Interest increased when it became clear that the email's author was Matt Bales. He's working to elect and re-elect Republican House members.
Perhaps the email would highlight anemic GOP internal polling numbers. Maybe it would feature complaints about fundraising woes. It might warn Bales' Republican House employers about some developing scandal that could affect their campaigns.
Not exactly.
The email actually featured Bales' reaction to election results from a high-profile special congressional race in Pennsylvania. At the time, Democrats appeared to have pulled off a close victory in a solidly Republican district. The same district had awarded Republican Donald Trump a 20-point win in the 2016 presidential race.
"The outcome is yet another example of the Democratic base being fired up and the Republicans not turning out their voters," Bales wrote.
"The momentum on the Democratic side is real."
What does this have to do with a supermajority in the N.C. House of Representatives? That chamber has 120 members. A political party needs to hold three-fifths of the seats, at least 72, to hold a supermajority with the power to override a gubernatorial veto.
Republicans hold 75 House seats now. Democrats would need to hold on to all 45 of their current seats and flip 27 Republican seats to secure their own supermajority. On the surface, that sounds like a tall order.
Bales' email suggests that the Pennsylvania special election points toward a scenario that would help Democrats reach that goal. Based on Keystone State results, Bales projected a possible lineup of 74 Democrats and 46 Republicans in the next N.C. House. He lists 23 GOP incumbents who would lose their seats under that scenario.
Rather than accepting that outcome, Bales offers a rallying cry.
"We have time to do the things necessary to help the members listed here win their seats and help us continue the hard work we have done on behalf of North Carolina."
In case his audience has yet to get the message, Bales locks the all-caps key:
"RAISE MONEY. THEN RAISE MORE MONEY."
The email concludes with references to fundraising events, individual solicitations, and campaign timelines and messaging. In other words, it's a campaign worker's plea for his candidates to pay attention to their election campaigns. Fairly standard stuff.
Some Democrats appear to have read the numbers alone and skipped the fundraising pep talk.
"When NC GOP is saying IN MARCH a wave is coming, you know it's bad," the N.C. Democratic Party's communications director tweeted in response to Bales' email.
To be fair, it's likely that the tweet was designed more to encourage Democrats than to give an accurate assessment of Bales' message. As the N.C. House Republicans' political director wants GOP candidates to avoid complacency, a state Democratic Party official wants his fellow partisans to maintain excitement about their electoral prospects. That's only natural.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can employ a different approach. We can look for any useful clues a March election in Pennsylvania offers about North Carolina's November elections.
It's hard to imagine Republicans finding any good news from the Pennsylvania result. It represented a clear, sound defeat. It lines up with historical patterns that tend to hurt the president's party in a midterm election.
But it's unclear whether the news is as bad as the picture Bales paints in his email. The Pennsylvania special election featured an open race for a seat in which the previous Republican incumbent had resigned because of a scandal. GOP bigwigs fretted openly about the quality of their replacement nominee. Meanwhile, top Democrats lined up without dissent behind a Marine and former federal prosecutor who touted his support for gun rights and his opposition to U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
Few, if any, N.C. legislative elections will feature similar circumstances. The Pennsylvania election also featured none of the factors - John Locke Foundation Chairman John Hood labeled them "
money, maps, and momentum" - that will help Republicans in this state in the fall.
In other words, prospects for a "blue wave" in November are much less clear than either Bales or his Democratic opponents would like their respective audiences to believe.
