Republican expert: Dems better off without Perdue

Gov. Bev Perdue’s decision not to seek re-election actually helps Democrats – which may be why she did it. Perdue’s “negatives,” meaning the percent of people who disapprove of the job she is doing, are very high and she was going to lose to Republican Pat McCrory unless a lot changed.

McCrory will still be ahead of just about any other Democrat who emerges. But that candidate will have a chance of catching up, whereas Perdue wouldn’t have, says longtime Republican strategist Carter Wrenn.

Perdue is just too unpopular, Wrenn said. Other potential Democratic candidates would trail McCrory initially not because the public doesn’t like them so much as the public doesn’t know them. And that’s a big difference, Wrenn says.

“There’s being behind and being behind,” says Wrenn, a strategist for Sen. Jesse Helms and other Republicans the past few decades. “Perdue’s behind because people disapprove of her policies and to some extent they question her ability. That’s a hard thing to overcome politically. Being behind just because you’re not as well known, a lot of people have overcome that. It’s a mountain, it takes money, but a lot of people have done it." He added: "Having a candidate without those negatives has to be a move in the right direction.”

Perdue’s withdrawal changes everything for McCrory, Wrenn says. McCrory vs. Perdue was going to provide a clear choice for voters. “Now,” Wrenn says, “he’s liable to be in a race where the differences between him and the Democrat are not so clear. That changes everything.”

Erskine Bowles, Wrenn added, “would be an incredibly strong candidate.”

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm in Raleigh, said Perdue has been one of the nation's most unpopular governors. "Democrats' chances of holding on are still less than 50 percent," PPP director Tom Jensen said. "But they're better than they were with Perdue."

-- Taylor Batten