N.C. Supports Democrats Locally, Republicans Nationally

N.C. voters straddled party lines once again this election, as Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush ran away with the state's 14 electoral votes while Democratic candidates continued to dominate state and local elections.

Bush won North Carolina by a clear margin over Democratic candidate Al Gore. But Mike Easley and Beverly Perdue, both Democrats, won the positions of governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.

The same scenario occurred in 1996 when Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole won in North Carolina but Gov. Jim Hunt, a Democrat, once again clinched the governor's race.

Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win North Carolina, in 1976.

In the 2000 election, Democrats also retained a slight majority in the state House and received two-thirds of the seats in the Senate.

Supporting Republican national candidates and Democratic state and local candidates is consistent with the state's political philosophy, said UNC political science professor George Rabinowitz.

"Our voters are fairly conservative at the national level, but they are not entirely antagonistic to liberals at the local level," Rabinowitz said.

He said people tend to vote conservatively at the national level to insure little influence from Washington, but N.C. residents do want a government that would make improvements in local communities.

Scott Salmlen, N.C. Democratic Party executive director, also said N.C. voters see state Democrats as more conservative than traditional Democrats nationwide.

More state residents are registered Democrats, which Salmlen attributed to the voters' agreement with the general philosophy of the Democratic Party.

Dan Gurley, political director for the Republican Party of North Carolina, said local Democratic leadership was the result of the larger number of registered Democrats combined with little knowledge of most lower-level candidates.

"When you have less information about the candidates, as is the case with local elections, the tendency is to vote within one's own party," he said.

Gurley attributed the Republican vote at the national level to more aggressive campaigning by those candidates.

Despite the state's recent history, a Democratic presidential candidate could win North Carolina in the not-too-distant future, Rabinowitz said.

Salmlen added that such a candidate would need to be able to relate to the people whose votes he is courting, at least more so than the other candidate.

"Who you're running against is just as important as what you're running for," Salmlen said.

Rabinowitz also pointed out that Clinton came close to winning North Carolina in the 1996 presidential election but that Gore chose not to campaign in the state in this year's presidential election.

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.