Hope and fear for N.C. Democrats

North Carolina Democrats are whipsawed right now between giddy hope and nagging fear.

For weeks, they’ve acted like it’s bad karma to talk about good polls.

Now - with the polls holding and early-vote looking good - they’ve started to dream out loud.

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling wrote on Facebook this weekend, “After 9 days of early voting in North Carolina I am over 50% on thinking we will get control of the State House…and that we will come awfully close in the Senate.”

Democratic House leaders are talking about what to do if they win a majority - with maybe 15 new members and many inexperienced returning members.

One Democratic lobbyist told friends a Senate majority is conceivable.

Democrats have been in the minority of both chambers since 2010. That’s a long time - and a lot of leadership rust.

Would winning a majority usher in a new day - or a mosh pit of crippling infighting?

Majorities are a long shot, for sure. But elections can bring earthquakes.

It looks likely that Republican super-majorities will be broken and Governor Josh Stein will have a real veto the next two years. That alone will bring big changes to Raleigh.

But if hopes turn to dust, Democrats may suffer a collective nervous breakdown.

I’m reminded of the first election I worked in: 50 years ago, the 1976 Democratic primary in Jim Hunt’s first race for governor.

We were just as hopeful and nervous then as Democrats are now.

Hunt, the 38-year-old lieutenant governor, was running against Ed O’Herron, a wealthy Charlotte businessman; George Wood, a former state senator from Camden County who had support from Skipper Bowles’ 1972 network, and Tom Strickland, a conservative state senator from Goldsboro whose base was in fundamentalist Christian churches.

(You can tell it was a different Democratic Party then.)

Hunt had to win 50% in the first primary to avoid a runoff. That was tough to do, and we had painful memories of progressive Democrats who led the first primary but lost the runoff - like Frank Porter Graham in 1950 and Richardson Preyer in 1964.

Yes, that sounds like ancient history. But 1950 was as close to us then as Al Gore’s 2000 defeat is to today, and Preyer’s defeat almost as close as Trump’s first election in 2016.

Our polls had Hunt on the cusp of 50%, and our pollster, Peter Hart, kept reminding us: “Polls don’t predict. They’re a snapshot in time.” You never knew how turnout will break at the end.

The night of the primary, we had a staff dinner before returns came in. One of the older heads in the campaign told us, “In a few hours, we’ll all be hugging each other or crying.”

As it turned out, we were hugging. Hunt won the nomination with over 53%.

Our vote-watch party exploded, and we celebrated long into the night.

Hunt went on to win the general election, his first of four, with 65% of the vote.

Here’s hoping for a lot of hugging next Tuesday night.

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