The North Carolina Republican party, recently finished flexing its new found muscles (aka total control of state government for the first time since Reconstruction) with the completion of a legislative session straight out of Charles Dickens, is in some serious political trouble. New polling from the accurate, well respected, Raleigh-based pollster Public Policy Polling shows that when you pass legislation that goes as far right as possible, your approval rating falls like Wile E Coyote off a cliff.
The pollster has been polling North Carolina monthly and has found Pat McCrory's approval rating fall sharply in recent months as he has signed nearly all of the Republicans' agenda, from refusing free money to expand Medicaid for hundreds of thousands of poor North Carolinians, to cutting unemployment benefits for those who can't find work, to banning non-existent Sharia Law, to requiring school curriculum to provide scaremongering falsehoods about abortion, to making it considerably harder for the poor to vote. Legislative Republicans have also fallen as well although unlike McCrory, they actually lost the popular vote in 2012 but got veto proof majorities anyway.
Unfortunately for Democrats and the state, McCrory isn't on the ballot for another three years in November 2016. However, the heartless class warriors in the state legislature are up for reelection just 13 months from now on November 5th, 2014. State Republicans hit the jackpot in 2010 when their capturing of the legislature allowed them to gerrymander the shit out of the district lines which enabled them to win over 60% of the seats in both chambers in 2012 despite losing the popular vote. In the state senate this was particularly acute and Republican votes counted twice as much as Democratic votes.
Even with this mountainous uphill climb for Democrats to regain the legislature, Republicans are sure trying hard to make it a possibility and PPP has new polls of 8 state senate districts showing that it just might happen. Democrats need a net gain of 9 to win back control and all 8 are polling as tossups or better for the party:
Now the Democrats will still need to recruit candidates and raise money to be able to win back the legislature, but these polls all show that they have a fighting chance despite the massive built-in advantage Republicans have by rigging the district lines in their favor. If these results hold on into 2014, Republicans are in for significant losses up and down the ballot 13 months from now. If the Democrats are unable to regain the legislature, it will be solely due to gerrymandering and this is outright anti-democratic.