Democrats are surging in early voting in the newly-modified 19th Senate District.  The potential for Democratic challenger Kirk deViere to take this seat from Republican Senate Whip, Wesley Meredith is growing each day.  Here’s a breakdown of all the voters, by voter registration:

Percentage of Senate 19 Electorate (By Party Registration)

So far, registered Democrats are half of the early voting electorate in the new district.  This is driven in a large part by African Americans.  The tentacles that once captured African Americans in Fayetteville and combined them with Hoke County Democrats have been chopped off by the courts.

OLD SENATE 19

NEW SENATE 19

The result is a much cleaner district and surge in minority voters:

Percentage of Senate 19 Electorate (By Race)

WHY THIS MATTERS:

The 19th Senate District has hosted some of the most expensive legislative races in North Carolina history.  Wesley Meredith raises and spends over a million dollars on a routine basis to keep the seat and he’s on pace this year:

The ironic thing?  The money may not make a difference.  I know, it surprised me too.  But, here’s why:  the Democratic candidate’s vote share in Senate 19 typically tracks the percentage of registered Democrats that make up the electorate. 

Here’s a chart of the Data:

As you can see, registered Democrats look after their own in Cumberland County, even after the million-dollar barrage of negative advertising that Meredith throws their way every two years.  

On paper, it appears that Meredith beat George Tatum (2012), Billy Richardson (2014), and Toni Morris (2016) with a combination of Republican and Independent voters.   I’m not sure he can do that this year.

Registered Democrats are 49.6% of the early vote in District 19.

I’d call this a close race. 

With several days of early voting under our belt and a higher-than-expected turnout, we have enough raw data to draw some preliminary conclusions about the 2018 electorate in Cumberland County.

Women are Under-Performing

I’ve written at length about a predicted surge in female voters this election.  I appear to be dead wrong after several days of early voting as the opposite has happened, at least in Cumberland County.  Here’s the breakdown:

Here’s the same figures in a bar-chart:

In 2016, with a female on the presidential ballot for the first time, women took a massive share of the vote in Cumberland County:  56.11%.  Men didn’t come close with 39.99%, and the result was was a 16-point gender gap.

This year, the vote is closer than it’s been in the past three major elections with men making a 5 point jump to 45.3% of the vote.  With women at 51.99%, the gap has closed to 6.7 points.  It will be interesting to see if this trend holds.  Needless to say, I’m surprised.  This will definitely affect local races.  Read this link as to how that might work.

Party Vote Seems Stable

Here’s a breakdown of the recent historical vote by party in Cumberland County:

And a line graph of the same numbers:

As you can tell, party voting has remained relatively stable over the past three elections.  While Democrats are enjoying a slight edge in the 2018 early vote, that is to be expected.  Democrats like early voting, especially on weekends.  If anything, I would expect Democrats to be doing better than they are in the 2018 early vote.  The current figures suggest that Republican voters in Cumberland County are rallying around their Commander in Chief with more enthusiasm than anyone predicted.  Perhaps the Kavanaugh nomination battle got men agitated.  We’ll see if this holds as election day nears.

Wrap-Up

Enthusiasm seems high across the board in Cumberland County.  Party trends are stable, and men are doing better than expected.

On that note, I received my first ad from Wesley Meredith yesterday.  All the others (pink glitter and what not) have been addressed to my wife.  This one argued that Kirk DeViere wanted to take away my right to hunt and fish because he was against one of the proposed constitutional amendments.  I assume the ad was targeted toward men.  Looking at early vote out of Cumberland, it’s not a bad strategy for Meredith to target guys as we don’t seem to be going down without a fight this year.

By the way, like DeViere, I’m against all of the amendments.  Still, I’ll probably go fishing this weekend.  Certain rights are inalienable.

That’s my grandma on the New Bern waterfront as a young lady.  I wonder who she’d vote for.

We’re a month out.  The effects of Hurricane Florence are finally wearing off, the Kavanaugh fight is over, and people are beginning to pay attention to the midterm election.  Once sparse yard signs are clogging intersections.  The TV ads have started.  It’s time to do some Cumberland County prognosticating.

It’s well known that this election will be about Trump.  Most midterms are a referendum on the sitting president.  I’ve argued that his influence will trickle all the way down to to local races.   As it stands today, more than twice as many women disapprove of Trump than approve of him.  Men on the other hand seem to be sticking by him.  We’re left with a gender divide that may be the largest in modern American politics.

Women are fired up and for good reason.  On cue, more women are running for office than ever before.   But I think that this gender divide runs deeper than party.  Women want women in power.  They’re tired of the old, predominantly male class of folks running everything.  As a result, I’m predicting cross-over votes by women, for women in this election.   This will be a dangerous election for any incumbent male with a female challenger.  Will any men be left standing?  Of course, but many won’t.

Two local races that might test this theory are the Tal Baggett – Caitlin Young Evans race for District Court Judge and the Billy Richardson – Linda Devore race for NC House (44).  If Evans can win over Democratic and Republican women in her race, she has a good shot to unseat a long-sitting judge.  If Devore can poach Democratic women voters, she could pull an upset in a Democratic leaning district.  Expect both incumbent men to hit on kitchen table issues to woo women voters.  This will come in the form of ads regarding DWI’s/Public Safety/Domestic Violence for Baggett and Education/Teacher Pay/Water Quality for Richardson.

If you need some graphic proof of my theory, look at Kirk Deviere’s current Facebook logo:

It’s not hard to guess the target audience.  Deviere knows the key to taking down Wesley Meredith in 2018 is women.  Meredith knows this too and is undercutting Deviere by running negative ads featuring a female voice that mocks Deviere’s wardrobe.

Lady Justice will determine how the scales tip this election.   I think it’s time.

Note:  Billy Richardson (NC House 44) is my father.  I do my best to avoid commenting on his races, but in this case it was unavoidable.