North Carolina Primary Results – Marshall Wins, and my Analysis

Posted by John on May 7th, 2010 home title

Marshall wins, as predicted, but not by too much. The big story is that Ken Lewis almost made it into the run off. I admit that if he had, he might have earned my vote. For a lot of reasons, I predict that Elaine will handily win the run-off, but I’m still not certain about the general election. There’s absolutely no reason she shouldn’t win the general election, Richard Burr is a sitting duck. But she should have walked away with this primary, and instead she nearly lost it. If not for Cunningham in the race, Lewis might have won this thing.

I just checked the geographic breakdowns on the Marshall/Lewis/Cunningham primary, and it looks likeDurham is a place that Elaine really does have the least support statewide. She’s got about 5% less support here than everywhere else, and Ken has not surprisingly a ton more here than elsewhere.

Ken was going to carry the African American activist base in Durham with or w/out the Indie Endorsement… that’s the x factor between his Orange, Wake, & Durham county results.

But the Indie Endorsement really proved they can throw weight around. Based on that endorsement, it looks like Ken got a heck of a lot of young voters in the Triangle that he didn’t get in Charlotte. It will be interesting to see who they endorse for the primary…and who Ken endorses will matter too.

His results in Durham came straight out of Marshall’s statewide numbers… so I think that’s just another reason that Marshall will easily win the run off. If Lewis voters move to her all over, she’ll clean up (and I predict they will, and she will).

I think Elaine will get both of the above mentioned endorsements, pick up most of Ken’s votes, and she had a nice lead already… so the run off is not a danger to her.

For all these reasons, I’m surprised and a bit angry at her for publicly calling on Cal to step aside. Well, not surprised, it’s the kind of dumb thing she’s been doing all campaign. But I’m definitely angry at her for squandering the opportunity.

She’ll probably get the Lewis endorsement,
and even if she doesn’t she’l probably pick up most of his votes anyway.
She’s going to get better electoral demographics with the older voters that will show up in the even lower turnout special runoff.
And she’s going to get the few PAC and Paper endorsements that she didn’t get last time!
All of this on top of a small but nice lead already.

Quite frankly, this runoff is not dangerous to her.

And if it’s not a danger to her, then why not use it as an opportunity? As someone who’s worked my share of campaigns, I would have killed to have an extra primary to soak up earned media and test my field staff.

Plus, it looks super anti-democratic for Marshall (the freak’n Secretary of State in charge of elections!) to tell Cal to step aside. Which meant that on election night, she got bad coverage on WUNC.

Marshall can beat Burr, I know it. But will she? The answer is sadly no, not if her campaign doesn’t get better fast.

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