Cooper leads in the polls amid coronavirus. Will RNC move affect his re-election bid?
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic boosted his approval numbers and his campaign lead, seemingly placing the first-term Democrat on the path to easy re-election in November.
But his cautious approach to the state’s reopening has frustrated Republicans and his refusal to guarantee that August’s Republican National Convention, scheduled for Charlotte, can have 19,000 people at an indoor arena has led the GOP to say it will move the convention’s signature event.
“I’ve said all along, I’ve said to the president personally, I’ve said to the RNC, we’ve put it in writing: We want the RNC convention in North Carolina. We want to make sure that it is held in a safe way to protect the health of North Carolinians.,” Cooper said Thursday.
Cooper’s narrow 2016 victory is often attributed, in part, to the high-profile events and businesses that moved from or canceled on North Carolina as a result of House Bill 2, the so-called “bathroom bill,” a controversial law criticized as anti-LGBT.
Will the potential loss of some of the GOP convention create a similar dynamic and opening for Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, the Republican nominee for governor and critic of Cooper’s approach?
“Gov. Cooper has delivered a clear message that North Carolina is not open for business, and the repercussions to jobs and livelihoods will be long-lasting. When other states’ ‘science and data’ shows that it is safe to host a convention in August, it is clear the Cooper Administration is playing politics,” Forest said in a statement Wednesday.
Cooper has taken on a higher profile in recent months due to the pandemic and several news conferences per week. Cooper has consistently led Forest by double figures in polling.
A Public Policy Polling survey released Thursday showed Cooper leading Forest 50% to 39%. A Civitas poll released Wednesday found Cooper leading 49% to 37%. The poll showed Cooper’s job approval at 63%, a strong number but down seven points from Civitas’ early April poll.
The poll of 500 likely voters in North Carolina also found that 51% said they believe Cooper’s reopening of the state was about right. About a quarter (26%) said it was too slow and 19% said it was too fast.
“The reason Cooper has had such strong public support is he has let his decisions be guided by science. The polls have showed broad bipartisan support for cautious reopening,” said Asher Hildebrand, a politics and policy analyst at Duke University and former chief of staff for Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat.
“Gov. Cooper was absolutely right to continue to let science and public health drive his decisions here (on the RNC), and I think the vast majority of North Carolinians agree with that approach no matter what economic disappointment there might be.”
North Carolina has more than 30,000 lab-confirmed cases of the coronavirus and on Thursday reached 1,000 reported deaths due to the virus in The News & Observer’s county-by-county count. Cases, hospitalizations and the percentage of tests that are positive have ticked up in recent days. The state is currently in Phase Two of its reopening, which limits indoor gatherings to 10 people and does not open bars.
Economic impact
Sensing an opening, Republicans have hit Cooper on the economic impact of the potential loss of the convention, which is scheduled for Aug. 24 to Aug. 27 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte.
President Donald Trump tweeted that Cooper was “still in Shelter-In-Place Mode” and that because of the governor he is forced to seek another state for an event that “Would have showcased beautiful North Carolina to the World, and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, and jobs.”
Organizers said they still hope to conduct the convention’s official business in Charlotte, but that Trump’s acceptance speech will be moved somewhere that will allow a large crowd without social distancing and face-covering restrictions.
It’s unclear what that change would mean to the projected $164 million economic impact from a full convention. That’s about what the 2012 Democratic National Convention did for Charlotte, a number that fell short of projections, as did the 2016 conventions for both parties.
But with businesses, particularly those in lodging and hospitality, reeling from the coronavirus shutdown, the convention loomed as a bright spot.
“Restaurants, hotels and service workers across multiple industries were counting on this business, especially after the major hit they’ve taken from Gov. Cooper’s COVID-19 restrictions,” Forest said in his statement.
House Bill 2 was estimated to have cost the state between $450 million and $630 million in the first year after its March 2016 passage. The NBA moved its All-Star Game, the ACC moved its football championship game, the NCAA moved part of its men’s basketball tournament and other events and companies opted not to come to the state.
A controversial repeal bill passed in March 2017, months after Cooper narrowly won the office, defeating incumbent Republican Pat McCrory by 10,277 votes out of 4.7 million.
Forest was a strong supporter of HB2 and argued that the economic impact, even at those numbers, was not a tremendous loss to the state’s overall economic outlook.
“If you look at the most extreme instances of economic impact, by the media and by the universities and the people who come out and say ‘This is the impact,’ that most extreme impact equates to one-tenth of 1 percent of our annual GDP,” Forest said.
PolitiFact said he was right. The economic impact of the convention was projected to be about one-third of that.
Longtime Republican strategist Carter Wrenn said the fallout from the convention might not impact voter’s choices — especially with the coronavirus, economic conditions and protests or “riots,” as he called them, dominating headlines.
“I’m not sure the average voter is really focused on where the convention is going to be or even really cares. It’s possible it could be an opening for him, but I’m a little skeptical about it,” Wrenn said in a phone interview.
He said Forest needs to be more forceful in calling out Cooper over shifting logic for the shutdown and his response to the protests.
Several cities have seen multiple nights of protests, including some that have turned destructive, over the death of George Floyd, a black man, in custody of the Minneapolis police department. Four now-fired police officers have been charged in Floyd’s death, including one for second-degree murder.
Republican criticism
Republicans’ criticism of Cooper over his slower approach to reopening had been somewhat muted, though there were ReopenNC protests in Raleigh. But the RNC’s potential departure has raised the volume from lawmakers.
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican seeking re-election in a tough race, was largely complimentary of Cooper. Tillis is a former North Carolina Speaker of the House.
“When we get into emergency mode, like hurricanes and flooding in the past, I’m not going to nit pick at the margins where I think fundamentally he’s done well,” Tillis told McClatchy last month. “As we work toward opening up the economy, I’m hoping, as we learn more from other states that have moved more quickly, we can keep our foot on the accelerator.”
This week the attacks have turned more personal and bitter.
U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy, a Greenville Republican, accused Cooper of manipulating health data for partisan political purposes and of “angling to force out” the RNC. Asked about his data manipulation charge, Murphy pointed to a delay in releasing individual nursing home data.
“I am extremely disappointed that the governor played politics with such an important event for our state, costing our state millions of dollars in much-needed relief to our citizens,” Murphy said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican from Charlotte, said losing the convention was a “tragedy for my hometown,” pointing to businesses like hotels, restaurants and bars. He blamed Cooper’s “incompetence.”
“Some governors managed tough COVID outbreaks to success. Cooper started with a modest problem and created a disaster,” Bishop tweeted this week.
Cooper has repeatedly said his approach is rooted in science and data. His administration laid out benchmarks for relaxing restrictions.
Most other Southern states, with Republican governors, have relaxed their guidelines much faster. Republicans are now considering several of them to host the convention or, at least, Trump’s speech, including Tennessee, Georgia and Florida.
How it plays out could determine if Cooper can hold onto support from Republicans. For example, 24% of 2016 Donald Trump voters approve of Cooper’s handling of coronavirus, according to the PPP poll.
Some of that could slip “especially if there’s a full convention somewhere else that looks like it has positive economic impact. If this whole thing is smoke and mirrors and there is no full RNC anywhere, then Cooper doesn’t take it on the chin as hard,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina.
“He still is riding the public opinion wave on this. I don’t think this is going to be the death knell for Cooper by any stretch.”
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 4:41 PM.
