NC FREE Executive Director John Davis, like a lot of prognosticators, says this will be a Democratic year. HHHe also raises hopes there will be many more Democratic years.

I heard Davis give a presentation in Wilmington this week, and I got some ideas and information from him I haven’t heard anyplace else.

About this year, he said:

• The War is The Issue. And Republicans can’t escape it.

• The U.S. House will go Democratic.

• The N.C. House will stay Democratic despite Speaker Black’s troubles (as Carter quoted him in an earlier post) and so will the Senate.

• Heath Shuler will beat Charles Taylor, but Robin Hayes will hang on against Larry Kissel.

• The next legislature will be more progressive and less business-friendly.

No great surprises there. But his observations about the future were intriguing:

• As North Carolina continues to urbanize (and eventually become the 7^th-biggest state), it will become a battleground state in Presidential races. We’ll be bigger than Ohio.

• The state’s population is exploding because Republicans are moving here.

• But they’re moderate, “pro-government” Republicans – not Jesse Helms Republicans.

• That will put North Carolina in play again for a Democratic presidential candidate – and presumably break the Republican lock on U.S. Senate races here.

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