Democrats swept Mecklenburg elections in 2018. Now, 4 Republicans want to return.
Last year Democrats swept to victory across Mecklenburg County, ousting five of the county’s six Republican legislators and all three GOP commissioners.
Now, Republicans are trying to prove that was an anomaly.
At least four Republicans who lost seats in 2018 will try to regain them in 2020.
Former GOP Reps. Bill Brawley and John Bradford are running against the Democrats who beat them. And Matthew Ridenhour and Jim Puckett are running for the seats they held on the Board of County Commissioners.
Democrats benefited from several factors in 2018:
▪ Off-year elections typically favor the party out of power. Democrats were energized across the county, capturing the U.S. House.
“Last year the Democratic Party did a phenomenal job of get-out-the-vote,” said Puckett. “I think it woke up many in the Republican Party who had become somewhat complacent.”
▪ Democrat Dan McCready, running in the 9th Congressional District, carried the Mecklenburg portion of the district by more than 9,000 votes. That included most precincts in once-heavily Republican southeast Charlotte — the so-called wedge.
That helped Democrat Susan Harden beat Ridenhour in District 5 by 1,100 votes. She’s not planning to run again.
▪ Democrats spent money on their legislative candidates to break GOP supermajorities in the General Assembly, which they did.
Democrat Rachel Hunt raised a record $1.7 million in narrowly edging Brawley. Their race, decided by 68 votes, wasn’t determined until two weeks after Election Day. She got $900,000 from the state Democratic Party. That was twice as much as Brawley raised all together.
In north Mecklenburg, the party gave Democrat Christy Clark $583,000, a good chunk of the $742,000 she raised overall. She beat Bradford by just 415 votes.
“2018 is starting to look more and more like an aberration,” said GOP strategist Larry Shaheen.
An aberration?
Bradford and Clark will face off in House District 98, which changed just slightly under new maps approved this fall. Michael Bitzer, a Catawba College political scientist who analyzed the new districts, said it’s competitive but continues to lean Republican.
Bradford said he doesn’t expect to get outspent nearly 4-1 like he was in 2018. And he expects more GOP voters will show up.
“It’s going to be a high voter turnout so I just expect a more competitive race because more people will be coming out to vote,” he said.
North Carolina, which hosts the GOP convention in Charlotte next summer, will be targeted by both parties in 2020. That, plus races for president, U.S. senator, governor and a host of other offices is expected to boost turnout for both parties.
Clark said she welcomes the rematch and believes Democrats will be just as motivated as they were last year.
“I won against him one time and can do it again,” she said. “I don’t think 2018 was an aberration.”
For Hunt, changes to House District 103 appear to be favorable. The southeast district lost most of Republican-leaning Mint Hill. Bitzer said it’s competitive but leans Democratic. In Brawley, she would again face the one-time chairman of the House Finance Committee.
“The numbers are better for me this time,” she said, alluding to the redistricting. “This is a different race. I’m an incumbent. People know my name.”
Brawley could not be reached.
With a glut of races, it’s unclear how much either party will have to spend on legislative contests. In July, the state Democratic Party reported cash on hand of nearly $800,000. The GOP reported $131,000.
Mojo and incumbents
Ridenhour, who filed Wednesday, said the 2018 circumstances — turnout, McCready’s race and the push to “break the majority” — “just sort of created a perfect storm where a lot of us got caught up.”
Democrats make up a plurality of Mecklenburg voters. Barely a fifth are Republican. More than a third are unaffiliated.
Shaheen said he believes that unaffiliated voters who may have voted Democratic in 2018 will, as they often have, break for Republicans in a presidential year.
“What we’re going to see tested is whether unaffiliateds will swing back to voting conservative,” he said.
But Democratic strategist Dan McCorkle said the changes seen last year are here to stay. The demographics of southeast Charlotte have changed in his party’s favor, he said. And McCready’s campaign “left a lot of talented, experienced campaign folks behind.”
“I don’t see how anything is going to change,” he said. “We’ve got mojo and we’ve got incumbents. The Republican wedge went away in 2018 and it’s not going to come back.”
