There’s one thing both Democrats running in tomorrow’s North Carolina Democratic Senate primary runoff can agree on: turnout is going to be very, very low. But even if most North Carolinians don’t care much about the runoff, you probably should.
Democrats didn’t exactly pour out back on May 4, the first time former State Senator Cal Cunningham and Secretary of State Elaine Mashall met in the primary. And even fewer of them are expected to head out in the summer heat to cast a ballot this time around. So it might be easy to write-off tomorrow’s runoff election (after all, most North Carolinians have.) But the candidate who wins tomorrow faces Sen. Richard Burr (R) — a relatively unpopular incumbent in a seat known for changing occupants regularly. National Democrats have long said the North Carolina Senate race could be one of this fall’s surprises. That alone makes the primary worth watching.
But beyond that, the Democratic battle is another setting for the progressive vs. establishment fight that has defined primaries on both sides all year — but with a twist.
On the side of the establishment? The relatively unknown Cunningham, a veteran of the Iraq War who national Democrats have said has the best chance to beat Burr. The DSCC has given him at least $80,000 and has sent national resources down his way. But that national help didn’t do much for Cunnhingham on May 4 — he finished nine points behind Marshall despite outspending her. Cunningham, however, sees the situation differently.
“I have been an underdog since the minute I got in this campaign,” he told me Friday. “Our challenge was to introduce a new guy, a fresh face, against an incumbent who has been on a statewide ballot nine times.”
That would be Marshall, the first woman to win statewide in North Carolina and a fixture on the state political scene since 1996, when she beat stockcar legend Richard Petty to get the job she has now. But she hasn’t been able to convert her electoral success at the state level to federal elections — the last time she ran for Senate, in 2002, she ran a lackluster campaign and failed to earn her party’s nomination. This time around has been different. Marshall has positioned herself on the left on some issues — most notably President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan, which she opposes — and that has drawn her the support of national progressive groups like MoveOn and Democracy For America.
“The folks here are very resentful of the national party coming in here and telling them what to do,” she told me. “That’s been helpful.”
Despite the differences over things like the Afghanistan War (Cunningham says ending it prematurely would be “dangerous”), the runoff has focused mostly on electability — i.e. who can take the best shot at beating Burr.
Cunningham’s team not-so-subtly suggests that Marshall’s sometimes less-than-polished style means Burr and the GOP will have a field day with her should she get the nomination. Cunningham himself says the attractiveness of his personal story (he’d be the only Iraq War vet on a Senate ballot this fall) gives him a boost on the electability score that Marshall doesn’t have in the runoff.
“This is an electorate where voters read their newspapers and study their candidates,” Cunningham said of the turnout he expects.
But Marshall predicts that that argument won’t mean much to the runoff electorate. North Carolinians made their choice between the two once, she said, and they’ll do it again. She told me her list of activated Democrats is ready to turnout out for her tomorrow — and that other voters have been influenced to go her way thanks to what happened in May.
“I’m the one with the track record of winning,” she said. “I feel very, very good.”
For his part, Burr says he doesn’t care who wins. Polls have shown him to be vulnerable (a prospect he totally rejects), but his staff says once things get rolling that will change. “[Burr] will gladly take on either opponent’s agenda of higher taxes, more spending and bigger government,” spokesperson Samantha Smith said.
