On April 11, North Carolina Speaker of the House Rep. Tim Moore, made an appearance at the Jackson County Republicans’ meeting held at Summit Charter School.
Moore took the opportunity to address the Highlands and Cashiers voters in attendance about the upcoming local elections, encouraging them to vote and volunteer to help get out the vote.
“We got to make sure we win those two seats on the state Supreme Court, it’s critical,” Moore said. “You all saw what they did, what a mess they made of redistricting and right now there is a case before the state Supreme Court on voter ID. I’m telling you right now, we gotta win those state supreme court races. So I say let’s get through the primaries, primaries are never fun, those are uncomfortable, get on the other side of those and let all be rolling in the same direction and let’s make sure we get super majorities in state house, state senate and get those seats on the supreme court.”
He emphasized the importance of getting out the vote, saying that he is confident that Republicans have the potential to win the state majority.
“It wasn’t that long ago that our region of the state was not Republican and we had Democrats representing this area, and now we’re pretty much solidly red and that’s something that every single one of us should be proud of,” Moore said. “We have had a real challenge ever since we lost our super majority and getting things done has been a real challenge, and enough is enough. We’re probably going to see the biggest Republican year we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes.”
Despite the continued increase in unaffiliated voters in North Carolina, and specifically Jackson County where unaffiliated voters make up the majority of registered voters, Moore expressed no concerns about the Republican party’s chances of winning a majority this year.
“I would say it’s been mostly Democrats that are losing ground to unaffiliates more so than Republicans, but you never know when those trends can change,” Moore said. “And by all accounts, everything that I’m seeing right now tells me this is going to be one of the strongest republican years that any of us have seen in our lifetimes.”
“There’s a lot of polling data out there and you can do a snapshot and say in 2010, which was the last really huge wave year for Republicans when you didn’t have a presidential race that was kind of controlling things, and we’re about five points better compared to that and that was a huge year,” Moore said. “That was the year Republicans took the majority in the state house and state senate for the first time since reconstruction, so you’re talking a huge red tidal wave for a lack of better way to describe it.”
Moore was joined at the meeting by state Rep. Mike Clampett, who earlier that day alongside Moore had given two check presentations to Swain and Jackson counties. Jackson received a check for $6,334,270 that Moore described as an example of the county’s tax dollars being funneled back into the region.
“This is an example of where some of your hard earned tax dollars actually came back to this region” Moore said. “And I don’t know about you, but I’ve been tired of years and years of seeing Western North Carolina send our money to Raleigh but a lot of times it didn’t seem like it made its way back in, but those days are over.”