Friday, November 20, 2015

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Moneyball in Campaigns & Elections: Asheville, NC, Style

An interesting article about an Asheville, NC, local candidate who used data, and not a lot of money, to secure a first place in an election. It goes to the idea that strategic data analysis is filtering down from presidential campaigns to local campaigns; a good resource about this strategy is "The Victory Lab."

Clinton Sees Early Lead in Superdelegates

Was interviewed by The Daily Tar Heel about the significant number of superdelegates to Hillary Clinton. A part of the 'invisible primary' season that we are currently in, you can follow the delegate counts for both the Democrats and Republicans at 538.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Charlotte's Election was 52-48, But It Wasn't That Competitive

I have a new blog post up at WFAE's The Party Line that goes more in-depth into the recent mayoral election in Charlotte and, while the end result appeared to be competitive at a 52-48 spread, for most precincts, it was solidly for one candidate over the other.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Redistricting and Gerrymandering in North Carolina

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Abe Holtzman Public Policy Forum at NC State University on redistricting and gerrymandering in North Carolina, presented by NC State's School of Public & International Affairs with funding provided by the MacArthur Foundation.

The folks at Common Cause NC videotaped the presentations, and my presentation starts at about the 40 minute mark.

The first speaker, Dr. Andy Taylor, professor of political science at NC State University, began the forum with a general overview of the principles behind redistricting in North Carolina. The second speaker, Dr. Allan Parnell of the Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities, discussed the growth in population in the state since the 2010 census, and then I presented some thoughts on how it's not just the maps, but us as polarized and sorted voters, who are impacting this issue.

The forum concluded with remarks from NC State Representatives Grier Martin and Skip Stam.

An update: Rob Christensen at the Raleigh News & Observer has written a column on the forum last week.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Could I-77 Take A Toll on McCrory's Re-Election Bid?

I spoke with Erik Spanberg of the Charlotte Business Journal about the pending fight over I-77 toll lanes in Charlotte and Governor McCrory's re-election bid.