In North Carolina, Democrats often lead in fundraising but trail at the polls | Opinion

If races were always won by the party that raised and spent the most money, Democrats should have no trouble winning big races in North Carolina this cycle.

Josh Stein, for example, has raised more than twice as much than Mark Robinson. The Biden campaign has been pouring resources into North Carolina for months. In races for lieutenant governor and state superintendent, Democratic candidates have a large fundraising advantage over their Republican opponents.

Considering how much money flows into these races, you’d think fundraising would matter a lot. After all, when election season rolls around, it feels impossible to watch the evening news or even a YouTube video without seeing some sort of political ad.

These races will still be as competitive as ever, though, because it’s not that simple. While Democrats have had success in big races at the state level, they’ve struggled to win presidential and U.S. Senate contests in North Carolina, even when they outraise and outspend their opponents. Cheri Beasley wielded a significant cash advantage over Ted Budd in North Carolina’s 2022 U.S. Senate race, and the Biden campaign spent more in North Carolina than Trump’s in 2020 (though outside spending in both races favored Republicans). In 2016, Hillary Clinton outraised and outspent Trump in North Carolina but still lost the state.

You’d think that fundraising prowess would make North Carolina a bit more purple. But victory continues to elude Democrats, at least at the federal level, even when that strategy pays off in other states. Biden and his allies have so far outspent Trump by a wide margin in North Carolina and other key swing states, including Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. The same happened in 2020, when spending in those states comprised the bulk of TV ad spending in the presidential election. It worked in most states, and Biden became the first Democrat to win in Arizona and Georgia in years. But North Carolina still has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008.

The problem is that politics today are so polarized that the advantage of fundraising has significantly diminished, particularly in federal elections, Mac McCorkle, a former Democratic consultant who now teaches at Duke University, said. Whereas some conservative voters in North Carolina have demonstrated a willingness to split their ticket and vote for a Democratic governor, federal elections tend to be much more ideological. North Carolina may be a swing state, but it doesn’t have many swing voters, and Republicans have a natural advantage simply because the state tilts more conservative.

McCorkle also said that, compared to other states, the nature of North Carolina makes advertising more difficult — and more expensive. North Carolina has several major media markets spread out across the state, whereas states like Georgia have a large portion of the electorate concentrated in just one market.

“It’s a very dispersed, geographically dispersed space, and that’s an oddity of North Carolina,” McCorkle said.

The same is true when it comes to spending money on turnout operations. Democrats in Georgia can focus most of their efforts on Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs, but there’s no one part of North Carolina that will help push Democrats over the edge. Rather, campaigns need to focus on the entire state, which is financially and logistically more difficult.

Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said that more money does not mean a greater chance of victory, but candidates generally do need to raise a certain amount of money in order to be competitive.

“More money doesn’t always mean better, and at a certain point you do get diminishing returns,” Cooper said. “For example, Stein is raising more money than Robinson, but Robinson is raising plenty of money, and he’s not going to have a hard time getting a message out there.”

These days, McCorkle said, fundraising provides the biggest advantage when one’s opponent isn’t spending much at all. He pointed to Pennsylvania’s 2022 race for governor, in which Republican Doug Mastriano did not have much of an ad presence at all and ultimately lost the election.

“It’s kind of this arms race where you don’t want to be stuck not having ads, but do the ads really have that much effect?” McCorkle said. “Well, unless you really have a strong ad, the ads kind of cancel each other out.”