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BIG CITY: A look at state races

Posted on April 5, 2012April 4, 2012 by Staff

By Kirk Ross

As you may have noticed from reading this series of elections-related columns, oddly shaped districts and their influence on who runs and who is elected has been a theme.

There is no more oddly shaped electoral area than the Old North State itself. I doubt if anyone in modern times would have intentionally drawn up a geopolitical unit running from a broad swath of the Atlantic coast to a narrow stinger in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Chalk the borders up to the British (mostly) and their colonial proclivities, which included a rather curious sense of geography.

One upshot of all that vastly different territory under one government has been a historical tug-of-war between regions, mainly between the mountains and the east. To run statewide, you’ve always had to have a strong base and a good road show.

Now, with a state growing more urban every day and spread out across a half-dozen television markets, you also have to be able to tap into a good deal of campaign money.

Looking at the primaries for governor, lieutenant governor and council of state, there are few candidates with any statewide recognition, few with money and only a couple with both.

Polling last month showed how that’s playing out with likely voters, with former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory holding a commanding lead over his lesser-known and underfunded rivals.

The governor’s race on the Democratic side is far more dynamic, with a recent Public Policy Polling survey showing a slight edge for former U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, who ran and won statewide races for superintendent for public instruction before running for congress. Trailing Etheridge by only a few points is current Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, who has also run statewide. Both men have enough money for a big television push close to the election and are polling far ahead of the rest of the pack, which includes Orange County state Rep. Bill Faison.

Faison has loaned himself more than $572,000 and has been running an active campaign, but only drew 3 percent in the PPP results, coming in second to last.

The next notch down on the ballot features two drastically different primaries.

The GOP primary for lieutenant governor is a wide-open, five-way race. The candidates include state representatives Dale Folwell of Forsyth County and Grey Mills of Iredell County; Dan Forest, an architect and the son of retiring congresswoman Sue Myrick of Charlotte; Garland business consultant Arthur Rich; and Wake County Commissioner and former stock car driver Tony Gurley. The PPP poll has Forest at 11 percent, Folwell at 10 percent and Gurley at 9 percent.

On the Democratic side of the lieutenant governor primary there’s an interesting race shaping up between former state personnel director Linda Coleman of Knightdale and state Sen. Eric Mansfield of Fayetteville. Coleman, who recently won the endorsement of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, leads in the race with 26 percent to Mansfield’s 14 percent, according to PPP. With their fundraising close going into this year, the contest may prove a lot tighter than the early poll numbers indicate.

The winner will make history as the state’s first African-American to win a primary for lieutenant governor. Then comes a general election featuring the coattails of Barack Obama.

The lieutenant governor’s contest is a key race to watch this year because right now McCrory is running about 10 points ahead of the closest Democrat. Should he prevail in the fall, either Mansfield or Coleman could become the top Democratic elected official in the state. They would also be in an office thought to be the perfect stepping-stone to the governor’s mansion. Just ask Walter Dalton.

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