Thirty years ago Jesse Helms changed N.C. politics when he won a U.S. Senate for the Republican Party for the first time in the 20th century. A year ago this week, Helms changed the state’s politics once again when he announced he would not seek re-election –– not only opening up a Senate vacancy this year but also setting the stage for a successor who, odds indicate, will be someone not at all like Jesse Helms.
The Republican nominee for Helms’ seat most likely will be Elizabeth Dole, lately of Salisbury, whose manner and style are decidedly nonconfrontational and who seems unlikely to toss off the kinds of divisive barbs that characterized much of Helms’ careers as a television commentator and as a conservative standard-bearer in the Senate.
Dole’s closest challenger is Jim Snyder of Lexington, a wealthy attorney who carries solid conservative credentials and who would seem, on the face of his positions alone, to be more like Helms. But Helms endorsed Dole. Snyder, like every other candidate, badly trails Dole in the polls.
The Democratic race is less clear. Erskine Bowles, the Charlotte businessman who impressed Washington insiders with his ability to work with liberals and conservatives in Congress, leads the field. Close behind are former N.C. House Speaker Dan Blue, who managed to forge links with Republicans in the House on leadership issues, and N.C. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who first won election to the legislature from a conservative eastern N.C. district. Bowles, Blue and Marshall, in other words, have records of seeking accommodation and inclusion with adversaries.
Thus, after three decades of Sen. Helms and his tough-as-rusted-iron, take-no-prisoners approach in the Senate, North Carolinians next year will be represented by a senator who is entirely unlike Jesse Helms. If that senator is Elizabeth Dole, she will no doubt be seen as conservative. But in a Senate and on a national political stage where Helms set the standard for conservatism, few believe she will try to match Helms point for point on that score.
If Helms’ successor is a Democrat, the state’s representation in the Senate will be decidedly different. For one thing, it will be the first time since Richard Nixon’s first term that North Carolina will have had two Democrats in the Senate. In those days, when Sam Ervin of Morganton and B. Everett Jordan were in the Senate, both men were old-line Southern Democrats, generally conservative on most issues. Helms’ election insured that one of those Senate seats would be strongly conservative, though the other seat has seesawed between Democrats and Republicans since Ervin retired in 1974.
Helms is the first N.C. senator to leave under his own steam since Ervin’s retirement. And Helms will have set a record for a North Carolinian serving in the Senate when he leaves, putting both his ideological imprint and a stamp of longevity on the Senate.
Helms also changed North Carolina politics with this accomplishment: He is the only Tar Heel Republican in this century to have won a U.S. Senate race in a non-presidential election year. He won his first race in 1972 with the help of Richard Nixon and then won four re-election campaigns –– two in non-presidential elections (1978 and 1990) and two in presidential years (1984 and 1996).
Two other Republicans won Senate seats, but both were in presidential election years, when turnout is high. John East won in 1980 with the help of Ronald Reagan, and Lauch Faircloth won in 1992. A third Republican, Jim Broyhill, was appointed by Gov. Jim Martin to the Senate to replace the deceased East, but Broyhill was defeated by Democrat Terry Sanford in 1986. Other than Helms, Republican nominees have lost their U.S. Senate bids in non-presidential election years –– William Stevens in 1974, Jim Broyhill in 1986 and Lauch Faircloth in 1998.
Helms won every race he ever ran, a remarkable record. Even more remarkable is that he never won big, but he always won. His margins of victory are reflective of North Carolina’s strongly divided populace on political issues.
What accounts for the fact that Republican Senate candidates do well in presidential election years but, except for Helms, not in off-year elections? One theory, pondered by Ferrell Guillory, a long-time journalist now at UNC Chapel Hill, is that contrary to conventional wisdom, Republicans are helped by a heavy turnout. And heavier turnouts are likelier to occur in presidential elections, when North Carolinians go out to vote for GOP presidential candidates.
But in other election years, Guillory points out, Democrats have done well in statewide elections when they run knowledgeable candidates and run good campaigns. That may again be the case in the 2002 general election, which Guillory believes will be fiercely competitive after the primary despite Dole’s current high standing in the polls.
“The one thing that we know from the last decade and a half of North Carolina political history is that the Democratic nominee starts out with 45 percent of the vote and the Republican nominee starts out with 45 percent of the vote,” says Guillory.
Once the primaries are over, in other words, both candidates scramble for the remaining voters –– voters Jesse Helms always won. Who’ll win them this time around?
Jack Betts is Raleigh-based associate editor of The Charlotte Observer. Reach him at jbetts@charlotteobserver.com.
