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Tuesday, 02 July 2024
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Written by John Hood
A little over a year ago, I penned a column using polling data to explore why North Carolinians appeared to favor Republicans over Democrats in generic-ballot tests.
“No, it isn’t just because of unfair redistricting,” I wrote. “Nor is it a lack of resources. North Carolina Democrats have raised and spent lots of money on races they still ended up losing. What I mean is that, on many of the public’s top concerns, Democrats lack credibility with the swing voters they need to prevail.”
That is, of the 10 issues ranked most important in a March 2023 survey by High Point University, North Carolinians preferred Republican positions for six of them. On three, voters had no clear preference. On only one highly-rated issue, healthcare, did Democrats enjoy an edge.
Well, HPU’s polling unit recently issued a comparable survey of 829 North Carolina voters. It still shows GOP with a modest lead on the generic ballot. And it still identifies issue saliency as a potential explanation.
The survey listed 20 policy topics, then asked voters to rate their importance. Here are the top 10, ranked according to how many respondents called them “very important”: inflation, national security, school safety, health care, supporting veterans, protecting democracy, gas prices, taxes, education, and immigration.
Voters were then asked which party they thought would do a better job dealing with each issue. A sizable share of respondents, exceeding a third in some cases, expressed no preference between the parties. And for three of the 20, the differences in party preference were too small to be of consequence.
On the rest of the issues, however, one party enjoyed a clear advantage. Forty-three percent of North Carolina voters said Democrats would do a better job on climate change, for example, while just 23% said the Republicans would. On the flipside, 42% picked Republicans to tackle gas prices, with 29% picking Democrats.
As before, the latter’s challenge is that voters in the 2024 survey give the GOP the edge on six of the top-10 issues: gas prices, national security, inflation, supporting veterans, immigration, and taxes. Indeed, Republicans have double-digit leads on all but taxes. Voters prefer Democrats on health care, education, and protecting democracy — salient issues, to be sure, though the party’ advantages aren’t particularly large (8%, 5%, and 4%, respectively). On the final issue, school safety, there was no partisan lean.
Now, to say that Republicans are better positioned on highly-ranked issues is not to say they are destined to prevail. Other factors matter as least as much, including the quality of candidates, the financial and other resources available to the two parties, and how effectively they’re deployed.
More to the point, some of the salient issues in question are more applicable to federal races than state ones. For the relatively small group of swing voters likely to determine the outcome of tight legislative or Council of State races, general partisan leanings on, say, national security or immigration may not seem relevant.
So far, as usual, Democratic candidates for state-level offices are faring better than their federal counterparts. That HPU poll had Trump leading Biden for president and Democratic Josh Stein leading Republican Mark Robinson for governor, although neither difference lay outside the credibility interval of 3.4 points.
A Carolina Journal poll conducted last month put Trump five points ahead of Biden in our state, even as Stein and Robinson were tied at 39% each. An East Carolina University poll taken a couple of weeks ago also had Trump ahead by five, with Stein and Robinson tied. Recent surveys for Cook Political Report, The Hill, and other outlets show similar dynamics.
Standard disclaimers apply. Polls are snapshots in time, and data this early in the cycle aren’t necessarily predictive of what will happen after months of news events and campaign ads. Nevertheless, Democrats will enter the homestretch of the 2024 cycle with at least one disadvantage: their best issues aren’t top-of-mind for most voters.
Editor’s note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).
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Tuesday, 25 June 2024
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Written by Margaret Dickson
If you suspect North Carolina’s children are under siege, I agree with you.
First, there is the ongoing and relentless attack on public education by the current brain trust at the North Carolina General Assembly.
Somehow millions of American parents, including an alarming number in our state, have signed on to the notion that public schools are irrevocably broken, despite the reality that almost 9 out of 10 Tar Heel students are indeed in public schools. This belief has given license to a rogue legislature to decrease support to public schools and give tax dollars paid in by you and by me to private, often religious, schools with next-to-no oversight.
Some of this shifting of public funds comes under the banner of “parents’ rights.” Of course, parents have rights but so do everyday, hardworking taxpayers who want and expect public education to give their children, grandchildren, and future North Carolina workforces the tools to make our state’s economy thrive.
Then there is the all-out assault on North Carolina educators, who are leaving their chosen profession in droves. AXIOS reports that 11% of NC teachers bolted during the 2022-2023 school year, up almost 4% from the prior year. Money is certainly part of the departure equation. North Carolina ranks 41st in teacher pay, down from 38th the year before, and 36th the year before that, according to the National Education Association. The World Population Review ranks North Carolina even lower, ahead of only West Virginia, Mississippi, and South Dakota.
Inadequate pay is bad enough, but it is hardly the only issue teachers face. The Assembly, an online, non-profit newsletter, recently ran a piece written by one of those departing teachers, Lisa Williams, now working in the private sector. Williams taught in public high schools for more than 2 decades in Kentucky and New Hanover County, teaching about 3500 students. Salary does not appear to be her major concern. Instead, she wrote this.
“This year, I started carrying a bulletproof backpack to work. I kept my classroom door locked all day….When we were called into lockdowns, I stood behind the classroom door so I could greet anyone who might be on the other side, because, while I might go down, I could buy time for my students to run.”
And, this.
“This year, I worked an average of four hours after school every night and at least 10 hours during weekends….It wasn’t because I enjoyed the work or because I am a perfectionist. It was so I could meet the demands of the local school board policy stating that every paper should be graded within one week of its due date.”
Also, this.
“There’s a mentality surrounding teaching right now that involves gaslighting and misinformation….They ask, Isn’t that what you signed up for? Welcome to the myth of the American teacher. Most of us are not trying to become stumps in exchange for abuse and martyrdom, but at the core of our being, a voice of conviction poses the question we all have to answer: What about the kids?
“Kids are losing the most in the battle over public education.”
How anyone thinks degrading public education is a forward-thinking policy is beyond me. North Carolina valued and protected public education through most of the 20th century but beginning around 2010, we seemed to forget that we all benefit from an educated and productive workforce, and we all suffer when we do not have one.
It becomes a 5-alarm fire when we also realize that United States students lag behind their peers across the developed world. According to PBS, students in 29 other countries have higher math scores than American 15-year-olds and US scores in reading and science rank 20th and 23rd respectively.
Clearly, North Carolina needs to get its education house back in order and fast.
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