Oct. 18, 2004
More Than a Few Already Elected
By J. Barlow Herget
RALEIGH - I’ve got a secret.
Many of you probably are excited about going to the polls on Nov. 2 to vote for candidates for the Congress and state legislature. The secret is that many of these politicians can’t lose. Effectively, they’ve already been elected because they have no opposition.
No Republican, no Democrat, no Libertarian, nada.
There are 55 candidates running for the General Assembly who have no opponents. The legislature has a total of 170 seats, 50 in the Senate and 120 in the House, all up for election this year.
John N. Davis, executive director of the North Carolina Forum for Research and Economic Education (NC FREE) based in Raleigh, follows state races and recently provided analysis for his members around the state. His group’s figures are well respected among politicians, lobbyists and the media.
Davis goes beyond what’s on the state Board of Elections’ website that shows simply who is running for what office and what elections have two or more candidates. (Those Libertarians won’t go away.) Davis looks at contested races and divides them into five categories by party: strong Democratic districts, leaning Democratic, swing districts, leaning Republican, and strong Republican districts.
His analysis is stunning.
For example, his forecast finds only four swing districts in the Senate- four out of 50. These are districts that either major party could win. Incumbents in these four are Sens. Walter Dalton, D-Rutherfordton, Cecil Hargett, D-Onslow; Hugh Webster, R-Alamance, and Woody White, R-New Hanover. Among the four, Davis picks three as “likely winners.”
The number of swing districts in the House is not so dramatic, but still revealing. Davis counts only 14 out of 120. Adding up all the House elections, Davis believes that Democrats have what he calls 61 “safe seats,” the Republicans, 58. That leaves only one seat too close to call.
(The same pattern affects congressional districts. Of the state’s 13 congressional races, only one, the 8th, is considered halfway competitive.)
Both state houses are closely divided. Indeed, the House has worked this two-year term under a co-speakership even though it is currently split 61-59 in favor of Republicans. The Senate has a 27-23 Democratic majority. Thus, legislative power can change hands with upsets in only a few races.
This makes for high-stakes politics. And one result is sky-high campaign costs. Voters and candidates have watched the average cost of legislative campaigns triple since 1994. After 2002, the average cost for a House seat was about $61,000 and $198,000 for a Senate seat, according to Bob Hall of Democracy South, a nonpartisan and nonprofit election watchdog in Carrboro.
“Costs for both has jumped more than three-fold since 1994,” says Hall. “It’s not going down.”
But the average cost hides what is really happening. Because so many races are uncontested or strongly favor the Democratic or Republican candidate, the few remaining contested races have become very expensive. Rep. Don Munford, R-Wake, for instance, expects to spend between $300,000 and $400,000 to retain his seat against Democratic challenger attorney Grier Martin.
The same dynamic affected the 2002 elections. According to Hall, seven key Senate races that year recorded over $400,000 in combined spending. Democratic Sen. Eric Reeves, who steps down at the end of this year, spent $680,000 to retain his Raleigh seat; former Sen. Fountain Odom, D-Mecklenburg set the record at $702,000— and he lost!
Sen. Hamilton Horton, R-Forsyth, remembers his first years in the legislature 35 years ago when there seemed to be more competition. “To me, they were all contested as a beleaguered Republican,” he laughs, referring to the state’s one-party, Democratic heritage of that era.
Legislative leadership was not so concentrated, either.
“The president pro tem [of the Senate] served for one session and changed. It was similar in the House. They alternated between east and west. This meant a reinvigoration of leadership,” he says.
Horton, who sits unopposed in a safe seat, nevertheless thinks that computers and census tract technology, combined with civil rights requirements have allowed legislators to draw an unusually large number of safe districts. “I think it’s a shame,” he says, and he champions an independent commission for drawing districts.
The current system, he believes, “allows legislators to select their constituents instead of the other way ‘round.”
Barlow Herget is a former Raleigh city councilman and writes the Follow the Money column for N.C. Center for Voter Education.
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