Tag Archives: Rep. Dan Bishop

DeSantis Accepts Debate Challenge; Poll Shows Gallego Leading; New NC AG Candidate; Cuellar Starting Early

By Jim Ellis — Monday, Aug. 7, 2023

President

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) / Photo by Gage Skidmore

DeSantis: Accepts Debate Challenge — Gov. Ron DeSantis has accepted the rather unusual debate challenge he received from California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), a non-candidate. The idea came from an interview Newsom held with Fox News television host Sean Hannity. The California governor said he would go as long as three hours and not use any notes. He also agreed for Hannity to moderate. Details to follow.

Senate

Arizona: New Poll Finds Rep. Gallego Leading — A new Noble Predictive Insights (formerly OH Predictive Insights) Arizona survey (July 13-17; 1,000 registered Arizona voters; online) finds US Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Phoenix), the likely 2024 Democratic Senate nominee, leading incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I), and unannounced Republican candidate Kari Lake. According to the ballot test, Rep. Gallego is staked to a 34-26-25 percent advantage over Sinema and Lake. In this wild card race, as the Noble poll illustrates, all three candidates can craft a victory path.

The good news for Sen. Sinema is that 69 percent of Independents, 57 percent of Republicans, and 43 percent of Democrats say they are extremely willing, very willing, or at least somewhat willing to support her, which is a marked improvement when compared to previous research studies.

House

NC-8: Rep. Bishop to Run for NC Attorney General — As expected, three-term US Rep. Dan Bishop (R-Charlotte) announced late last week that he will enter the open 2024 race for attorney general in his home state of North Carolina. The move opens his 8th Congressional District, which, for now, is a safe Republican seat. With the North Carolina map slated to be redrawn in early October, we can expect this Charlotte metro open seat to be radically changed.

Rep. Bishop is the 15th House member to announce he won’t be seeking re-election in 2024, and the fifth Republican. Of the 15, only two are retiring. The remainder are seeking other elective offices. The North Carolina attorney general’s office will be open because incumbent AG Josh Stein (D) is running for governor.

TX-28: Rep. Cuellar Starting Early — Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo), generally viewed as the most conservative member of the House Democratic Conference, is taking fast action to answer two political questions.

First, if there there is a chance he might switch parties; and second, is he preparing for another Democratic primary challenge? He is clearly staying in the Democratic Party, and he is already working to blunt what could be another intra-party challenge. In the past two election cycles, he edged attorney Jessica Cisneros by a 48.7 – 46.6 percent split in 2020 followed with a bare 50.3 – 49.7 percent win in 2022.

In an attempt to unite the party behind him for the 2024 election, Rep. Cuellar late last week announced endorsements from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), Democratic Conference chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), and ex-Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC).

NY, NC House News; Polls Flipped in Mississippi; Robinson Leads in NC Poll

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, May 4, 2023

House

Former US Rep. Mondaire Jones (D)

NY-17: Ex-Rep. Jones Moving Forward — Former US Rep. Mondaire Jones (D) appears intent on attempting to re-claim the Westchester County Congressional seat he abandoned in an unsuccessful attempt to win a newly created New York City open district last year. Reports from the state say Jones has dismissed any thought of challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary to focus on a return to the 17th District.

Driving Jones’ decision to find a new seat in 2020 was then-Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney’s (D) plan to run in the 17th. Maloney being defeated in the general election at the hands of freshman Rep. Mike Lawler (R-Pearl River) in the D+7 rated district according to the FiveThirtyEight data organization makes this 2024 campaign a prime Democratic conversion opportunity.

Though Jones may return, he will face Democratic primary competition from at least one announced candidate: Katonah-Lewisboro School Board Trustee Liz Gereghty, the sister of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).

NC-8: Rep. Dan Bishop Testing the AG Waters — Reports are surfacing from the Tar Heel State that Charlotte US Rep. Dan Bishop may be looking to run for the state’s open attorney general’s post. Rep. Bishop looks to have the inside track to the Republican nomination if he chooses to run. Western North Carolina District Attorney Andrew Murray is interested in in the statewide post but suggests he will step aside for Rep. Bishop if the congressman decides to enter the race.

Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-Charlotte) is a potential Democratic AG candidate, looking to succeed incumbent Josh Stein (D) who is running for governor. Rep. Jackson appears as the potential top target in what is expected to be a new redistricting plan coming from the legislature as a direct result of the state Supreme Court’s recent redistricting and voter ID rulings.

Governor

Mississippi: Conflicting Polling Data Reported — Earlier this week, we reported about a Siena College poll (April 16-20; 783 registered Mississippi voters; live interview & online) that posted Gov. Tate Reeves (R) to an expanding 49-38 percent lead over Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley (D). Countering that result, Presley’s campaign yesterday released their own internal data (Impact Research; April 24-27; 600 likely Mississippi voters) the results of which portend a much different conclusion. IR finds its candidate, Presley, actually leading Gov. Reeves, 47-44 percent. Ths 2023 Magnolia State general election campaign promises to be much more competitive than in years past.

North Carolina: New GOP Primary Poll — Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has opened a huge lead in the open Republican gubernatorial primary according to a new Survey USA Poll. The study (April 25-29; 707 likely Republican North Carolina primary voters; live interview & online) projects Robinson to a whopping 43-9-8-4 percent lead over former Congressman Mark Walker, North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, and state Treasurer Dale Folwell, respectively.

The GOP winner will likely face Attorney General Josh Stein (D) in the general election. Gov. Roy Cooper (D) is ineligible to seek a third term. The North Carolina primary is scheduled for Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

North Carolina – A Different Take

North Carolina’s 12 Congressional Districts

    By Jim Ellis

    Aug. 19, 2021 — Based upon the 2019 census estimates, it appeared that the new North Carolina congressional seat was bound for the Charlotte area, but the actual 2020 census figures released late last week may be suggesting a different location.

    In looking at the current 13 congressional districts, all but Rep. G.K. Butterfield’s (D-Wilson) 1st District must shed population, hence the reason North Carolina was awarded a new seat. While the census estimates found Rep. Alma Adams’ (D-Charlotte) 12th District being the state’s most over-populated CD, the actual census data finds another district moving beyond the resident number that the Adams’ seat must shed (159,818) in order to reach the state’s target population figure of 745,671 individuals.

    The new data find that freshman Rep. Deborah Ross’ (D-Raleigh) 2nd District is the state’s largest, housing 165,703 people over the state’s new per CD quota. Additionally, neighboring Rep. David Price (D-Chapel Hill), whose 4th District also contains part of Raleigh’s Wake County, also must shed a large number (129,692).

    Looking at the neighboring districts in the Charlotte area, the 8th and 9th CDs of Reps. Richard Hudson (R-Concord) and Dan Bishop (R-Charlotte), along with one county from Rep. Virginia Foxx’s (R-Banner Elk) western 5th District, means that the Charlotte area’s population surplus is approximately 250,000, while the Raleigh districts are over-populated by a slightly larger approximate figure of 300,000 people.

    In the east, the Butterfield district is short just 6,238 people and neighboring Rep. Greg Murphy’s (R-Greenville) 3rd District must shed 10,979 individuals, meaning a relatively simple swap between these two seats and a sliver from a third, most likely Rep. David Rouzer’s (R-Wilmington) 7th District, will easily bring these seats into balance.

    The western sector is also relatively well defined. Freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s (R-Hendersonville) 11th District sits in the Tar Heel State’s far western corner. It needs to shed 22,890 people, but can only go one way, east, because this district is bordered on three sides by South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. Therefore, Reps. Cawthorn, Foxx, and Patrick McHenry’s (R-Lake Norman) 10th CD all shedding relatively small population segments to the east should also be a relatively easy population balancing exercise.

    This suggests the new seat could be placed in the region between Raleigh and Charlotte, meaning those existing districts that lie between the two metropolitan areas – those of Hudson, Bishop, and Rep. Ted Budd’s (R-Advance) open 13th District, in addition to the severely over-populated seats of Reps. Adams, Ross, and Price – will likely see the greatest change.

    This brings us to the Republican-controlled state legislature and how they might draw the new congressional map. In North Carolina, the governor has no veto power over redistricting, so Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper will not be a factor in how the congressional and NC House and Senate maps are constructed. Republicans gained four seats in the state House in 2020 bringing their majority to 69-51. In the state Senate, Democrats added a net one seat thus lessening the GOP majority to 28-22. Therefore, the Republican leadership is in the driver’s seat.

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New Seat Location in North Carolina

North Carolina’s 12 Congressional Districts

By Jim Ellis

May 21, 2021 — With the new reapportionment map public and the states gaining congressional districts now certain, we can begin to speculate where the new CDs might land. Today, we look at North Carolina, which continues to be one of the most important states from a national redistricting perspective.

The Census Bureau’s apportionment report, released on April 26, almost five months after their Jan. 1 deadline, contained the smallest transfer of congressional seats since the World War II era.

Just seven seats are moving from one state to another. As mentioned above, one of the recipients is North Carolina, the state that came the closest to gaining in the last census, missing by just a few thousand people. Today, we speculate as to how a new North Carolina congressional map might unfold.

The 2020 individual state population data has not yet been distributed and is not expected until October, apparently at the earliest. Once the specific state data is made public, the redistricting process can begin, but for now we can only use the latest available data (July 2019) for estimation purposes.

In examining the population numbers for each of the 13 current North Carolina congressional districts, we see that all must shed population to reach the state’s Census Bureau target number of 746,711 individuals, hence, the reason for the Tar Heel State gaining a new district.

In North Carolina, the state legislature has sole jurisdiction over redistricting. The governor, in this case Democrat Roy Cooper, has no veto power over the maps both houses jointly produce. This means the Republicans will control the process since they hold majorities in both the state House and Senate.

No matter what map is drawn, we can count on seeing post-redistricting litigation. In the previous decade, the courts twice altered the original map because of various lawsuits. The final iteration broke 8-5 in favor of the Republicans after the state Supreme Court redrew sections of the state and in effect awarded two previously Republican seats in Raleigh and Greensboro, respectively, to the Democrats.

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Early Senate 2022 Previews:
Florida & North Carolina

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 14, 2021 — Regardless of how many in-cycle Senate seats – there are 34 in the 2022 election cycle – come into political play, we can count on seeing Florida and North Carolina once again hosting crucial battleground campaigns.

Florida is always consistent in their close vote totals, particularly when remembering the 2000 presidential campaign — and pollsters, while typically forecasting tight finishes, have often missed the outcomes. In fact, the cumulative polling community has predicted close Democratic victories in the last four key statewide elections: two presidential (2016 & 2020), one senatorial (2018), one gubernatorial (2018), and been wrong on each occasion.

Since 2016, inclusive, Florida has hosted eight statewide races with Republicans winning seven. Yet, their average cumulative vote percentage for these eight victorious campaigns was just 50.7 percent, with the high point being 52.0 percent (Sen. Marco Rubio-R, 2016). Democrats recorded the low winning total: 50.04 percent — 6,753 votes from 8,059,155 votes cast; agriculture commissioner, 2018; winner Nikki Fried (D) vs. Matt Caldwell (R). The aggregate average among the statewide contests in these three most recent election years is 50.7 – 47.9 percent in the GOP’s favor.

With this background, Sen. Rubio will presumably seek a third term next year against what will surely be a highly competitive Democratic opponent. At this point, most of the speculation surrounds two Democratic House members, neither of whom has closed the door on either running for the Senate or challenging Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as he seeks a second term.

Reps. Stephanie Murphy (D-Winter Park) and Val Demings (D-Orlando) are the two most prominently mentioned prospective contenders, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see one run for Senate and the other for governor. It is less likely that we would see a primary developing between the pair in one of the races.

Other names being floated are Rep. Charlie Crist (D-St. Petersburg), who is always mentioned as a potential statewide candidate because he previously served both as attorney general and governor and lost two other statewide campaigns. Other potential contenders are Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Boca Raton) and former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Miami). The state’s lone Democratic office holder, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, is more often associated with running for governor as opposed to the Senate contest.

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Is A Budding Red Rebound Emerging?

By Jim Ellis

May 19, 2020 — Two years ago, several national political prognosticators were predicting a strong Democratic election, i.e., “a blue wave,” by using special election results, mostly from state legislative campaigns, as one of their fundamental support arguments. As we know, the forecast proved correct.

To what degree the special election totals were a precursor is difficult to say, but it is reasonable to believe that real-time results are a better voting trend indicator than publicly released polls, many of which are methodologically flawed. Therefore, it is worth analyzing similar voting patterns as we approach the 2020 election.

North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop (R-Charlotte)

The victory of Republican Mike Garcia in California last week marked the first congressional special election of this election cycle to flip from one party to the other. Republicans have won five of the six special US House contests, including those of Garcia and Wisconsin state Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua), who easily claimed his state’s vacant 7th District, last Tuesday.

The other significant special election occurred late last year. Though Rep. Dan Bishop’s (R-Charlotte) victory in North Carolina came in a seat that historically produced Republican victories, he was certainly considered an underdog at the outset of the special election campaign. He rebounded, however, to score a two-point victory, nonetheless, which in many ways makes it as noteworthy as the Garcia win.

The NC-9 election was necessitated because voter fraud in the 2018 general election prevented the Republican candidate from being certified the winner. After almost a year of keeping the seat vacant, the state’s Board of Elections called a new election that Gov. Roy Cooper (D) scheduled for Sept. 10, 2019.

In the campaign, Bishop was outspent $7.5 million to $2.7 million and that was on top of the $6.1 million Democrat Dan McCready expended in the 2018 general election. Furthermore, Democratic strategists predicted victory in this race because the Charlotte-Fayetteville seat contains a large suburban population, the type of district where their candidates certainly excelled in 2018, and President Trump’s job approval ratings were languishing around the 40 percent mark at the time. All things considered, the Bishop victory should not be characterized as a routine Republican hold.

According to the Ballotpedia election research organization, during the 2018 voting cycle, 197 special state legislative elections were held around the country, 98 of them in 2017, and 99 in 2018. Republicans risked 110 of the seats, substantially higher than the 87 the Democrats were forced to defend. In 2017, Democrats gained a net 11 legislative seats nationally, and eight more in 2018 for a cycle total of 19 net flips (Democrats actually won 26 Republican-held seats, but the GOP took back seven Democratic districts). It was these numbers that largely led the prognosticators to point to changing trends.

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The North Carolina Filings

All the best for a wonderful holiday season.
Ellis Insight daily updates will return on Jan. 3, 2020.

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 24, 2019 — Candidate filing in the Tar Heel State closed Friday, and the North Carolina political contestants are now set for the March 3 Super Tuesday state primary. In addition to the presidential race, North Carolina voters will choose nominees for governor, US Senate, 13 congressional races, the state constitutional offices, and state legislature.

No surprises came from the presidential filings, though 38 individuals filed to run for the nation’s highest office. Twenty of the 38 are minor party candidates, however. Fifteen Democrats are running, including all of the major contenders. President Trump draws Republican primary opposition from former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld and Illinois ex-congressman Joe Walsh.

Sen. Thom Tillis sees only minor Republican primary opposition and now is a cinch for re-nomination. Businessman Garland Tucker was expected to run a competitive primary race but decided to end his effort prior to the filing deadline. When Rep. Mark Walker (R-Greensboro) was drawn out of a winnable district in the court-mandated redistricting plan, he began considering entering the Senate race. The congressman, however, ultimately decided to wait a cycle and looks to run for Sen. Richard Burr’s (R) open seat in 2022.

Five Democrats filed for the Senate, but the nomination battle is realistically between former state senator Cal Cunningham, who is the party leadership favorite, and state Sen. Erica Smith (D-Gaston). The eventual Democratic nominee will face Sen. Tillis in what promises to be a competitive general election in a state that has defeated more incumbents in the modern political era than any other place.

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