Candidates in Triangle swing district switch to middle-of-the-road tactics

Candidates running to represent North Carolinians in the 13th Congressional District are bouncing toward a moderate platform.

State Sen. Wiley Nickel, the Democratic Party’s nominee, recently aired a commercial with children in a bounce house divided among those wearing Make America Great Again, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shirts. Nickel wanted voters to know he was the moderate making sure everyone worked together to keep the bounce house fun.

His Republican opponent, Bo Hines, is inching toward middle ground on his stance on abortion.

In the weeks before the May 17 primary election, Hines told McClatchy in a submitted statement: “Abortions should be made illegal throughout the United States. No exceptions.”

In an interview published Friday, he told WRAL he believes in an exception if a mother’s life is in danger and he might consider exceptions for rape and incest but needs to study those topics more.

“Some of this is normal,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “We expect candidates to moderate a bit in the general election. We expect that to happen more often in swing districts like NC 13.”

Politics of middle ground

Cooper said the electorate is different in a primary than in a general election. The Republican primary electorate leans farther right than in the general and the Democrats lean farther left.

“The traditional candidate strategy is to tack towards the center, assuming that you are not going to be outflanked on your own side,” Cooper said. “So if you’re a Republican and you go to the center, the Democrat isn’t going to gobble up those right-wing voters. It’s a strategic move of moderation to try to win an election, and you’re more likely to do it in a competitive seat like NC 13, because you might not win otherwise.”

Cooper said unlike Nickel, Hines has no voting record and few political statements from his past.

“In some ways, it’s even easier for him to shift or to highlight different issues than for a Wiley Nickel, who has a voting record, or Cheri Beasley or Ted Budd, who have a voting record,” Cooper said, referring to North Carolina’s candidates for U.S. Senate.

Abortion platform

Rob Burgess, Hines’ campaign manager, said the candidate’s views on abortion haven’t shifted, pointing to a CBS 17 interview with Hines aired on May 5 in which he said he would allow an exception if a woman’s life is in danger.

“Bo Hines has said on the record multiple times throughout this campaign he supports an exception for the life of the mother,” Burgess said. “This remains his position.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee disagrees.

“Bo Hines saw the polling and suddenly realized that taking away the rights of half the population isn’t a winning campaign issue,” Monica Robinson, spokeswoman for the DCCC, said in a statement. “Hines’s agenda is dangerous and puts the lives of women on the line — he told us in his own words he wants abortion banned with no exceptions, not even to save the life of the mother. No amount of frantic backpedaling will make North Carolinians forget that.”

Abortion became a key issue this election cycle in June when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision from the 1970s that determined a constitutional right to have an abortion. This year’s decision left abortion laws up to individual states. In North Carolina, abortion is banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Just two months before the Supreme Court’s ruling, Hines posted a video on Twitter in which he said, “Abortion certainly has been the greatest moral atrocity. I think we will look back in generations to come and say we had a mass genocide that occurred in our country. Abortion is absolutely murder and any Republican politician who is not willing to say that certainly should not be in office.

“Life begins at conception. God tells us this. The science tells us this. We have to abide by that moral truth. Every life on earth is a gift from God and we have to respect that, and we have to make sure we value the sanctity of life.”

Last month, Hines deleted a section about abortion from his website. “Life and Family” had been listed as a priority, with a statement reading: “I am pro-life. I believe that life begins at conception and that we must protect the rights of the unborn. I also believe in traditional marriage. We must fight to protect our core family values that are rooted in biblical principles.”

From there, readers were asked to donate to his campaign.

Cooper said Hines isn’t turning into a supporter of abortion rights.

“He is just graying the edges and focusing on other issues,” Cooper said, “and I think that’s the other time-tested strategy, is to focus on issues where you’re closer to the average voter than your opponent and ignore the ones where you’re further away.”

Bouncing into Congress?

Like Hines, Nickel is seeking middle ground. But unlike Hines, he does have a voting record.

Republicans have used his votes on law enforcement-related bills against him, with Republican National Committee spokeswoman Taylor Mazock saying in a recent news release, “Wiley Nickel and his soft on crime agenda are a nightmare pair. He is dangerous for North Carolinians.”

Among the GOP’s complaints are Nickel’s votes against bills requiring local law enforcement and jails to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement; establishing new criminal offenses for giving drugs to someone who then dies in an overdose; and new offenses related to rioting if a person is injured or property is damaged.

But in Nickel’s commercial, as the Democratic and Republican children mingle in an American flag-themed bounce house, Nickel promises to work with both parties to get things done in Congress, including increasing funding for police. He also says he’ll cut taxes for the middle class and lower health care and prescription costs.

Cooper said the commercial not only humanizes Nickel, showing his daughter talking about her dad running for office, but it’s classic moderation for a swing district.

“He’s not going to lose the people in NC 13 who view AOC and Bernie Sanders favorably, so why not cast yourself as the moderate politician running in a moderate district?” Cooper said.

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at https://campsite.bio/underthedome or wherever you get your podcasts.