As 2020 dawns, we should note that election years ending in zero have reshaped America in dramatic and lasting ways throughout our history.

Transformational leaders get elected. Profound social, economic, cultural and global changes follow. The consequences last decades.

Go back to the nation’s beginning. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson unseated President John Adams, the Democratic-Republicans upended the Federalists and what amounted to a second American revolution unfolded.

Then there was 1860: Abraham Lincoln and Civil War.

In 1900, President William McKinley was forced to take Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate. (Republican bosses in New York wanted Roosevelt out of the state). McKinley died, TR became President and the Progressive Era ensued.

In 1920, the first of three Republican Presidents in a row was elected. Americans wanted a return to “normalcy” after World War I and Woodrow Wilson. They got Prohibition, the Roaring 20s and the Great Depression.

In 1940, FDR became the first three-term President. America climbed out of the Depression, won World War II and became a world power. Then came the Cold War, Truman and Eisenhower.

In 1960, JFK promised to get America moving again. We got Camelot, Dallas, Vietnam, the civil rights revolution, more assassinations, riots and deep social and cultural divisions that live on today. Which led to Nixon, Watergate, Ford, Carter, gas lines, recession and malaise.

1980 brought the Reagan Revolution. Then Clinton Triangulation.

2000 – and the Supreme Court – produced “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush. Also, Dick Cheney, Neocons, 9/11 and wars that still go on. Then came a financial meltdown, deep recession and the first black President. And President Trump.

Brace yourself for 2020.

The year begins with Trump’s impeachment and trial. It will end with the most consequential election of our lifetimes.

Assuming the Senate acquits Trump, he’ll be the first President to run for reelection after being impeached. Some Republicans say Trump is a greater President than Lincoln. He may be the most polarizing President since Lincoln. Trump has even warned of civil war if he loses.

As if politics isn’t bitter enough already.

In 2020 Democrats will make a fundamental decision about their identity: a center-left party or a sharply left party. Will they offer a return to normalcy or a political revolution?

In North Carolina, voters will choose between two starkly different political visions, which trace directly back to another zero-year election that looms large in our state’s history.

That was 1960 and the battle for Governor between Democrats Terry Sanford, a progressive, and I. Beverly Lake, a conservative. (Republicans didn’t matter much back then. That changed in the ‘60s.)

Lake bitterly opposed desegregation; Sanford was a moderate on race.

Lake supported establishing segregated private schools; Sanford put public schools first.

On economic development, Sanford broke from conservative Democrats, like then-Governor Luther Hodges. Hodges wanted tax breaks to attract business. Sanford said the state should invest in education, especially teacher pay.

Sanford won in 1960, but the same battles have raged ever since – over race, public versus private schools and tax breaks versus education.

Governors Jim Hunt and Roy Cooper came out of the Sanford tradition. Senator Jesse Helms and today’s Republican legislative leaders came out of the Lake tradition.

In 2020, the battle will be rejoined. Plus, redistricting for the next decade is at stake.

Purists say the next decade doesn’t begin until 2021. In politics, the decade begins now. 2020 will set the direction of North Carolina and the nation for the next 10, 20 and 50 years.

No pressure.

Happy New Year.

As North Carolina’s endless redistricting battles rage on, people ask why the Governor can’t veto redistricting bills.

Well, up until 20 years ago, North Carolina governors couldn’t veto anything – bills, budgets or anything else. Ours was the only governor in all 50 states who didn’t have veto power.

What’s more, up until 20 years before that, our governors couldn’t run for a second successive term. They were limited to one four-year term.

North Carolina governors were weaker than zero-alcohol beer.

The veto was passed in 1996 through an unlikely coalition and an unexpected election outcome.

The coalition was between then-Governor Jim Hunt, a Democrat, and state House Republicans.

For years, Republicans had supported veto power for the Governor. They even put it in their party platform. They resented how the Democratic-majority legislature dismissed, disregarded and disrespected Republican Governors Jim Holshouser (1973-77) and Jim Martin (1985-93).

Legend has it that, when Governor Martin sent over his biennial budget proposals, Democratic legislative leaders would hold a little ceremony and dump the document into a trash can.

Governor Hunt, who had served two terms from 1977-85, won a third term in 1993. He supported the veto. Senate Democrats, led by Senator Marc Basnight and including then-Senator Roy Cooper, also supported it. But the House Democratic leadership strongly opposed it. They wouldn’t even let the issue come to the floor for a vote.

Then came 1994 and President Bill Clinton’s first mid-term election. Republicans led by Newt Gingrich and his “Contract With America” won a nationwide landslide.

In North Carolina, for the first time in the 20th Century, Republicans seized the House. And Governor Hunt seized the opportunity. Veto was part of the GOP’s “Contract With North Carolina.” Hunt asked the legislature to pass it.

Some Republicans had second thoughts: “We’re going to give Jim Hunt the power to veto our bills?” But they kept their commitment.

Still, some Democrats were needed. As an amendment to the state Constitution, the change required a three-fourths majority of both the House and Senate – and had to be passed in a statewide referendum.

Governor Hunt put his allies and lobbyists to work in the House. One day they came to his Capitol office with good news and bad news: They had enough Democrats, but only if the veto didn’t cover redistricting and local bills.

Hunt wasn’t happy, but he agreed to the compromise. Veto passed the legislature and was approved in a statewide referendum in 1996. The same year, Hunt was reelected to his fourth and final term.

Almost 20 years earlier, in 1977, his first year as Governor, Hunt got gubernatorial succession through.

Most every Governor had supported succession. But Hunt thought they had all made a mistake by saying, in effect, “Do it for the state, for future governors, but not for me.”

That sounded noble. But it never worked.

Hunt figured that if succession applied to him, people in the deep and broad statewide organization that he had built in his 1976 campaign would have a reason to work hard for the issue. After all, they’d have a friend in the Governor’s Office for four more years.

Succession required a constitutional amendment, and there was tough opposition. Lt. Governor Jimmy Green, a conservative Democrat who wanted to run for Governor in 1980, opposed it. Senator Sam Ervin spoke out against it. But Hunt got it through the legislature.

During the referendum campaign that fall, Senator Jesse Helms’ political organization, the Congressional Club, ran ads against succession. But the amendment passed narrowly.

Succession and veto made the Governor a stronger executive and a much-needed check on the legislature.

Just not on redistricting.

The Democratic presidential race is ultimately a debate about whether to promise America a revolution or a restoration.

For much of 2019, revolution seemed to be winning. But then, in late November, a Quinnipiac University poll showed Elizabeth Warren losing half her support in just one month and Joe Biden retaking the lead.

Restoration now seems ascendant.

In October, Quinnipiac’s nationwide poll showed Warren leading with 28 percent, Biden at 21, Bernie Sanders 15 and Pete Buttigieg 10. In the November poll, Warren dropped 14 points. It was Biden 24, Buttigieg 16, Warren 14 and Sanders 13.

Warren’s drop was attributed to questions about and criticism of her Medicare For All plan, including how to pay for it and how people would react to losing their current insurance.

But there may be more to it.

Warren got the tough scrutiny at precisely the same time Democrats were watching the Trump impeachment hearings. The hearings reinforced their fear and loathing of Trump. They were reminded that, above all, they don’t want him reelected.

They might then have said: “Do we risk Trump winning if we nominate somebody who’s proposing big government programs?”

They might also have said: “Since Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate Biden, maybe he’s scared of Biden and Biden is our best bet to win.”

Look at the poll another way. Combine the numbers for the two “revolution” candidates: Warren, whose slogan is “Dream Big. Fight Hard,” and Sanders, who calls for a “Political Revolution.” Then combine the numbers for the two “restoration” candidates: Biden and Buttigieg, who propose more incremental change and promise a return to civility, normalcy and even bipartisanship.

In October, “revolution” led 43-31. In November, “restoration” led 40-27. That’s a 25-point swing.

The November poll showed how much electability matters: 35 percent of voters said it’s their top consideration. Tied for second, with 19 percent each, were “honesty” and “cares about people like you.”

Almost half the voters, 46 percent, said Biden is the candidate “who has the best chance of winning against Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.” Ten percent each said Warren and Sanders, and six percent said Buttigieg.

Still, even Biden’s supporters feel shaky about his sometimes-shaky performances in debates and campaign events.

If Biden falters, does Buttigieg inherit the Restoration mantle? Or is there an opening for, say, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker or Michael Bloomberg?

Bloomberg’s $30 million-a-week TV blitz aims right at Medicare For All. He says he’d see that “everyone without health insurance can get it, and everyone who likes theirs can keep it.”

The Revolution/Restoration debate is fueled by ideological and generational tensions among Democrats. Liberals like big promises: Medicare For All, a wealth tax, free college tuition and Green New Deal. Moderates don’t argue with big goals but are more cautious about how to reach them.

Millennials and Generation Z voters are more willing than Baby Boomers and Silent Generation voters to embrace big changes. Younger voters are more economically stressed and more concerned about the coming climate catastrophe.

The Democrats’ debate over “Dream Big” or “Just Win” is far from resolved. But, for now, Just Win is winning.

These are bad times for newspapers. That’s bad news for us.

It’s easy to gripe about newspapers – and especially big newspaper chains. Newspapers make mistakes every day. And the big chains have made plenty of mistakes in their day.

But we, the readers, have the most to lose when our local newspapers fail, falter and cut back coverage.

And we have to bear some blame.

That hit me when I recently shared on Facebook one of the most searing stories I’ve read in a long time: Andrew Carter’s account in The News & Observer of the grief and suffering that have tormented Riley Howell’s family and girlfriend since that heroic young man body-slammed a shooter at UNC-Charlotte last April, sacrificing his own life and saving many more.

A friend complained that he couldn’t read the story because he doesn’t have a subscription to the N&O (or Charlotte Observer or Durham Herald-Sun or any paper in the McClatchy chain.)

I had no sympathy. Pay up, I told him: You’re part of the problem. It costs money to pay good people to write good stories.

It’s not just about the occasional, exceptional long-form story like the one about Riley Howell. It’s also about the day-to-day, year-in and year-out coverage of what’s going on in your community, city, county, state, country and the world.

Subscribing to your local paper is something a good citizen should do, like voting. For your own good and for the common good.

I’m preaching to the choir here. You’re reading this, so you (I hope) subscribe to this newspaper. Maybe you get the print edition; maybe yours is a digital subscription.

Either way, you’re investing in your right to know and to be informed.

That investment gives you the right to gripe about the paper: what it reports, what it doesn’t report, what editorial positions it takes, which columnists it publishes and, above all, which comics it runs.
You have the right to complain about cutbacks in copy desks and editors, which lead to embarrassing errors in headlines and photo captions.

You have the right to write a letter to the editor complaining about any and all of the above.

And, yes, you have the right to cancel your subscription. But don’t.

Full disclosure here: I’ve had a lifelong love affair with newspapers. My father was a printer. I started working at the N&O at age 16 as a newsroom copyboy. Later I was an editor and a reporter. I worked there for 10 years. I grew up at the paper, and I learned a lot.

One reason I write this column is that I’m concerned about the deep, drastic cutbacks newspapers have been forced to make in coverage and commentary. I hope to fill some of the hole.

Sadly, the hole could get bigger and deeper.

McClatchy – which owns about 30 papers across the country, including those in North Carolina – is in such bad shape it may not be able to make a pension fund payment in the spring. The company has already made severe newsroom cuts.

The merger of Gannett and GateHouse – which together own some 500 papers, about one in every six newspapers in the country – is expected to bring more layoffs. One estimate is that 3,500-4,000 of the 37,900 total newsroom employees in the U.S. today could lose their jobs.

The bleeding comes at a time when we need good reporters, good editors and good newspapers more than ever. It’s a hell of a time to lose them.

Support your local newspaper.

Remember the 1 percent – the richest Americans? Meet the 2 percent – the most powerful Americans. They’ll pick the President in 2020.

They’re not billionaires. They’re not political bosses. They’re average voters, except for two things.

First, they are “truly persuadable” voters who are undecided and up for grabs in the presidential race.

Second, they live in just six states, one of which is North Carolina.

If you don’t like this small slice of Americans being so powerful, blame the Electoral College. That’s how our presidential elections work, unlike any other election for any other office.

The two percent were identified in a deep-dive polling analysis by Nate Cohn of The New York Times. He looked at a Times-Siena College survey of voters in the six states that had the closest margins in the 2016 presidential race: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina.

Fifteen percent of the voters in those 2020 battleground states say they are undecided in the presidential race. But, in fact, Cohn found that many of them are almost certain to vote for either Trump or a Democrat. He concluded that only nine percent “showed no consistent partnership” and can be called “truly persuadable.”

Since the six battleground states have about 30 million votes total, there are fewer than three million truly persuadables. That’s less than two percent of the 150 million Americans who will vote next year. That two percent is crucial because the Times-Siena poll found that the presidential contest is essentially tied in the battleground states.

And they’re a mixed bag of voters, fitting no clearly identifiable economic, demographic or ideological profile. They’re just folks. Mighty powerful folks.

Cohn’s analysis shows why it’s so misleading to look at nationwide polls of the presidential race. As Hillary Clinton can tell you, a candidate can win the national popular vote but still lose in the Electoral College.

Even that is misleading. Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes in 2016, but only because she won California by 4.3 million votes. Trump won the other 49 states by 1.4 million votes.

Will we ever get rid of the Electoral College? Almost certainly, we’ll never pass a constitutional amendment abolishing it. We’re way too polarized for that.

But there’s another way to do it: the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under the compact, states pass a law awarding their electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. No longer would the electoral votes go to the winner in the state.

To take effect, the compact needs to be enacted by states with a total of 270 electoral votes – the number needed to elect a President. The compact has passed in 15 states and the District of Columbia, for a total of 196 electoral votes. It needs states with 74 more electoral votes.

We can debate whether to abolish the Electoral College – and whether the National Popular Vote Compact is the right way to do it. We can be sure that, in 2020, the two percent will rule.

The fellow from down east was fed up with his neighbors calling Democrats “socialists.” He fumed, “Some of the people yelling loudest about socialists are the biggest socialists around.”

How’s that?

“They’re farmers, and they get farm subsidies, agriculture programs, crop price supports and, now, payments to farmers hurt by Trump’s tariffs. Isn’t that socialism?”

This man has nothing against farmers – or farm programs. In fact, he used to own a farm.

“I’m all for agriculture,” he said. “I just don’t like hypocrites.”

Critics – on the right and left – agree.

The conservative Cato Institute bluntly calls the 2018 Farm Bill “socialism”:

A conservative website called “Downsizing the Federal Government” chimes in:

“It will spend $867 billion over the next decade, thus pushing up government debt and taxes…. At its core is central planning, which is obvious when you consider that the bill is 807 pages of legalese laying out excruciating details on crop prices, acres, yields, and other micromanagement. Furthermore, the bill lines the pockets of wealthy elites (landowners), which is a central feature of socialism in practice around the world.”

“The federal government spends more than $20 billion a year on subsidies for farm businesses. About 39 percent of the nation’s 2.1 million farms receive subsidies, with the lion’s share of the handouts going to the largest producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice.

“The government protects farmers against fluctuations in prices, revenues, and yields. It subsidizes their conservation efforts, insurance coverage, marketing, export sales, research, and other activities. Federal aid for crop farmers is deep and comprehensive.”

Then there are the federal payments that President Trump ordered for farmers hurt by his trade war with China. They total $26 billion so far, and Trump tweeted this weekend that another round is coming before Thanksgiving.

“Morning Joe” Scarborough called it “pure socialism.”

Liberals don’t like it any more than conservatives. The liberal Environmental Working Group says:

“Farm bailout payments intended to offset the impacts of President Trump’s trade war have instead flowed to an estimated more than 9,000 ‘city slickers’ who live in the nation’s largest cities.”

The poster boy could be the conservative Democrat-turned-Republican governor of West Virginia, Jim Justice. Justice is said to be the only billionaire in West Virginia. A farming business owned by his family received $125,000 in soybean and corn subsidies, the maximum allowed from Trump’s “replacement money.”

Then there’s the “price support and stabilization program” that governed North Carolina’s tobacco farms for more than 70 years, from the 1930s to 2004.

The Congressional Research Service described the program this way:
“Federal law specified a guaranteed minimum price for leaf tobacco. The price guarantee was achieved by controlling supply. Each tobacco farm was assigned a marketing quota that balanced national production with domestic and export demand. Any tobacco that did not bring at least the guaranteed price was purchased by a ‘price stabilization cooperative’.”

“Guaranteed prices.” “Controlling supply.” “Price stabilization cooperative.”

Sounds like the Soviet Union.

Over the next year, you’ll hear a lot of talk about “socialism” from President Trump and Republicans. They’ve already attacked ideas like Medicare For All, the Green New Deal and wealth taxes.

Just like the farm programs, those ideas would shift money from one group of Americans to another. Just like Social Security and Medicare.

What’s the difference?

One North Carolina politician who’s been involved in farm policy for a long time put it this way: “Most people think: ‘If it benefits me, it’s not socialism’.”

Contrary to what you might read and hear, not all Americans have made up their minds about impeaching President Trump. A poll of battleground states – including North Carolina – suggests that a decisive slice of voters is keeping an open mind until they hear the evidence.

The public hearings on impeachment, which begin this week, could be crucial in shaping their views.

Here’s why. By 52-44 percent, voters in the six states oppose impeaching and removing Trump from office. But, also by 52-44, voters support the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry.

That means about eight percent of voters aren’t convinced Trump did anything wrong, but they want to hear the facts. Then they’ll make up their minds.

That eight percent could decide the presidential election one year from now. Because those same six states could decide the Electoral College. And the same poll found that voters in those states are closely divided on whether to vote for Trump or a Democrat.

The poll was done by The New York Times and Siena College. It interviewed registered voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – six states viewed as key to 2020.

In those states, the poll found, the 2020 race is basically a jump ball. Trump trails Joe Biden by an average of two points, is tied with Bernie Sanders and leads Elizabeth Warren by two points. In North Carolina, Trump leads Biden by two and both Warren and Sanders by three.

On impeachment, the results in North Carolina were slightly better for Trump than in the other states. Voters here oppose impeachment and removal from office by 53-43. But they support the House inquiry by 50-45. That’s seven or eight percent who could go either way on impeachment.

One question in the poll touches on a key issue: Were President Trump’s comments and actions related to Ukraine and investigating Joe Biden “typical of what politicians do” or “much worse than that of typical politicians”?

By a narrow 47-43 margin, voters in the six states combined said “typical of politicians.” That’s key to Trump’s defense.
His campaign will go farther. It will try to make Trump’s combative style a plus.

Note this line from the 30-second TV ad the Trump campaign ran during the seventh game of the World Series – at a cost of $250,000:
“He’s no Mr. Nice Guy, but sometimes it takes a Donald Trump to change Washington.”

Democrats will call Trump rude, crude and racist. Trump will counter: “Americans elected me to shake things up, and that’s what I’m doing.”

As the impeachment hearings begin, the swing voters will be watching and asking: Is Trump just shaking things up, or is he abusing the Presidency? Is it politics as usual, or is it out of bounds?

If Democrats make their case, they could mortally wound Trump. If they fail, he could be on the way to reelection.

This is a high-stakes game of power poker. Televised live.

The late Senator Kay Hagan’s one term and two campaigns epitomized the volatility of North Carolina’s Senate races. They also showed how our Senate elections rise and fall with national political tides – and how North Carolinians view the offices of Senator and Governor very differently.

Hagan was an unlikely and unexpected Senate candidate in 2008. A state senator, she was recruited by leading Democrats after better-known prospects declined to take on incumbent Senator Elizabeth Dole.

Dole was a formidable challenge. She was a national figure. She served in the Cabinets of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. She ran for President – briefly. She was married to Senator Bob Dole. She beat Erskine Bowles for the Senate seat in 2002. She replaced Jesse Helms, who had been in the Senate for 30 years, and she seemed set to stay there a while herself.

But Hagan won a bruising, expensive campaign. One Democratic group ran ads hinting that Senator Dole was too old. Dole’s campaign ran a last-minute ad suggesting that Hagan didn’t believe in God.

Hard-hitting ads have marked North Carolina’s Senate races since Helms won in 1972. His Congressional Club pioneered direct-mail fundraising and negative ads.

When Thom Tillis beat Hagan in 2014, it was the most expensive – and one of the roughest – races in the country. In 2020, even before what is sure to be a bitter and costly general election, Tillis faces a tough fight in the Republican primary. Carter Wrenn, who ran many of Helms’s campaign, is working for Tillis’s opponent, Garland Tucker.

For all the money and TV ads, North Carolina’s Senate races often track national politics.

Hagan won in a good Democratic year. Barack Obama carried North Carolina in 2008 – the first Democrat to do so since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Democrat Beverly Perdue was elected the state’s first female Governor.

Hagan wasn’t so lucky in 2014. That was Obama’s second mid-term election, and Democrats lost their U.S. Senate majority.

It helps to be on the right side of a landslide.

Helms became North Carolina’s first Republican Senator in the 20^th Century thanks to Richard Nixon’s landslide over George McGovern. Helms won his toughest reelection fight, over Governor Jim Hunt in 1984, when Reagan swamped Walter Mondale.

Helms won five Senate races, but since he retired in 2002 his old seat has changed parties in every election – first Dole, then Hagan and now Tillis.

Senator Richard Burr has won his seat three times – in 2004, 2010 and 2016. Each year, he had the national political winds with him. Before Burr, that seat changed hands – and parties – in 1974 (Democrat Robert Morgan), 1980 (Republican John East), 1986 (Democrat Terry Sanford), 1992 (Republican Lauch Faircloth) and 1998 (Democrat John Edwards).

Republicans have won 12 of the 16 Senate races since 1972. But Democrats have won eight of the 12 Governor’s races since 1972. Governor Jim Hunt won four of them.

Why the difference? It’s that voters look at the two offices very differently. We elect Governors to do good things in Raleigh, which favors Democrats. We elect Senators to stop bad things in Washington, which favors Republicans.

Our tendency is to elect Senator No and Governor Yes.

When Kay Hagan won in 2008, Obama’s slogan was “Yes we can.” When she lost in 2014, the mood was more “No we won’t.”

A wave of new and young voters has come ashore in North Carolina – and could reshape politics in the state and nation in 2020 and beyond.

Political scientists have long said that millennials – born between 1981 and 1996 – are the biggest and fastest-growing bloc of potential voters. But will they vote?

Well, they did in Raleigh’s municipal elections this month, and they upended the City Council.

In 2020, millennials – bolstered by Gen Z (born after 1996) – could play a decisive role in the race for President and, in North Carolina, races for U.S. Senate, Congress, Governor and the General Assembly.

Polls show these voters are more liberal and more Democratic than older voters. They could take politics in a sharply different direction.

Raleigh: the wave hits

Two long-time Raleigh City Council members, Russ Stephenson and Kay Crowder, were unseated in October by two young, first-time candidates. The winners, Jonathan Melton and Saige Martin, are the first openly gay members ever on Raleigh’s City Council.

Virginia Reed, Melton’s campaign manager, said their strategy was to reshape the electorate: “We knew he couldn’t win if the only people who voted were the people who always voted in municipal elections. We had to turn out new, younger voters.”

Those new voters helped Melton, who was elected city-wide, beat Stephenson by over 3,300 votes. They helped the new mayor, Mary-Ann Baldwin, beat her closest challenger by 3,800-plus votes.

David McLennan, political science professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, said, “When I talked to young people, it was clear they were energized about the City Council races.”

Reed said, “I believe that younger, more diverse people are more likely to vote if they see themselves in the candidates on the ballot.”

The Trump Factor

Reed and McLennan agreed that young voters, in Raleigh and across the county, have been energized by President Trump.

“Under-30s didn’t think their votes mattered,” Reed said. “Then Trump won in 2016.” Young voters’ opposition to Trump contributed to Democratic gains in the Virginia legislature in 2017 and in mid-term elections in North Carolina and across the country in 2018, she said.

This fall’s Meredith Poll found that millennials and Gen Z in North Carolina are more negative about Trump than older voters. Trump’s job approval among all voters was 40-55 negative; with millennials and Gen Z it was 34-59 negative.

McLennan said national polling shows that millennials and Gen Z favor Democratic candidates and Democratic policies by a margin of two-to-one. They favor Medicare For All and gun-safety laws.

What it means for 2020

Millennials and Gen Z have the numbers to significantly impact future elections, McLennan said.

Trump is President because he won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by a total of 80,000 votes. He won North Carolina by 173,000 out of nearly five million votes.

In North Carolina next year, Democrats will target congressional and legislative races in newly redrawn districts in metropolitan areas, where the population of young voters is growing fastest.

Young voters could swing the Democratic presidential primary here March 3 – and help the Democratic candidate in November.

The Meredith Poll found:
• Among all North Carolina voters, Trump leads Joe Biden 38-34, Elizabeth Warren 39-33 and Bernie Sanders 39-33.
• But among millennials and Gen Z, Biden leads Trump 39-28, Warren leads 36-28 and Sanders leads by a whopping 48-26.

Sanders’s lead suggests he’ll have strong support from young voters in North Carolina’s March primary.

A Republican friend of mine was down in the dumps after the 2008 election. Democrats had won the White House, both houses of Congress and, in North Carolina, the U.S. Senate race, the Governor’s office (for the fifth straight election) and both houses of the legislature.

My friend feared for his party’s future. “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “We Democrats will screw it up.”

Sure enough, in 2010, Democrats suffered devastating defeats up and down the ballot.

I’m reminded of that experience today as Democrats celebrate polls showing President Trump’s approval ratings falling and support for his impeachment rising.

There are two big reasons Democrats shouldn’t get too cocky. The first is the economy. The second is the party’s uncertain search for a candidate who can beat Trump.

As James Carville said, it’s always the economy, stupid

Americans are upbeat, if anxious, about the economy. One poll suggests that Americans have more confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the economy than a Democrat’s.

An October 6-8 Internet Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 people (including 1,241 registered voters) found that:

• By 61-39, people say the news about the economy is positive.
• While Trump’s overall approval rating is under water (43-49 negative), his handling of the economy gets a 47-42 positive rating.
• If Trump is reelected, 33 percent think the economy will get better and 37, worse. That’s not great, but only 29 percent think the economy will get better if a Democrat wins; 39 percent say it will get worse.

Which Democrat can beat Trump?

Last week’s 12-candidate Democratic debate showed how split the party is on a presidential nominee. The big split is between moderates and progressives, and there are divisions over race and age.

Elizabeth Warren’s surge in the polls worries moderate Democrats. In the Economist/YouGov poll, 42 percent of people said Democrats are “too liberal.” Only 34 percent said Republicans are too conservative.

That’s why the moderates on the stage – Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg – targeted Warren. They said Medicare For All would cost too much, take away people’s insurance and scare away swing voters.

Bernie Sanders might be over his heart attack, but he gave some Democrats a heart attack when he said out loud what Warren wouldn’t say: Taxes will go up to pay for Medicare for All, although he claimed that premiums, co-pays and, thus, total costs would go down.

Klobuchar and Buttigieg clearly think Joe Biden is fading, thanks to his shaky debate performances and the Hunter Biden questions. They calculate that the moderate lane to the nomination is opening up to an alternative. But the Democratic Party’s debate rules kept other moderates – Steve Bullock, Michael Bennett and John Delaney – off the stage.

Then there’s race. Barack Obama won the Presidency twice by turbocharging minority turnout. But neither Kamala Harris nor Cory Booker are winning strong support.

Obama also energized young people. Can a 70-year-old-plus nominee do that? At the other extreme, is America ready for a 37-year-old – and gay – President Pete?

Trump’s at his best one-on-one

Here’s what will likely happen now: The House will impeach Trump. The Senate will acquit him. Trump will claim victory. And he will end up in a head-to-head, WWE-style mudwrestling death match with one Democrat.

It won’t be Trump against “somebody else.” It will be Trump against somebody. He’ll do just what he did against Hillary Clinton in 2016: He won’t try to build up his numbers. He’ll try to tear down his opponent’s.

And Trump is good in that wrestling ring.