FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – Democrat Beverly Perdue spent Friday talking to those undecided on their choice for governor at early-voting locations, benefiting from a money advantage over
Republican Pat McCrory in the campaign’s final days. With $1.6 million pouring in to her campaign alone during the past 11 days, according to campaign finance reports, Perdue had more leeway to choose her schedule and worry less about paying for television and radio commercials.
“I told my whole team I was going to leave two weeks ago and do nothing but grassroots. But this is my favorite part,” Perdue, the lieutenant governor, said after shaking hands with dozens of people waiting to vote outside Fayetteville’s Cliffdale Recreation Center.
She later did the same thing in Wilmington. “It helps you remember why you’re doing it all.”
McCrory’s campaign said the Charlotte mayor was going full-throttle this week, too, appearing on 15 radio stations and holding a handful of public campaign events. He visited GOP “victory” headquarters Friday afternoon in High Point.
“We’re getting incredible positive feedback and momentum from literally hundreds of thousands of citizens,” McCrory said in a phone interview. His schedule also listed eight fundraisers this week.
McCrory acknowledged that Perdue had more money to spend in the final weeks. Perdue’s last formal fundraiser was Oct. 24, her campaign said.
“I’m not planning on going into debt,” McCrory said, referring to Perdue’s campaign borrowing more than $900,000 from herself or her husband during this election cycle. “I will not spend money I don’t have.”
Both candidates scheduled several campaign events Saturday. An Associated Press-GfK poll released earlier in the week said Perdue and McCrory were knotted at 44 percent of those surveyed, but 8 percent were undecided or named a candidate not on the ballot.
Libertarian candidate Mike Munger, who received 4 percent in the poll, also began a three-day trip across the state Friday. Perdue’s campaign raised $4.6 million from July 1 through mid-October, compared with $2.8 million for McCrory. She spent $5.7 million to McCrory’s $3.3 million during the period and had more cash on hand.
Perdue’s additional contributions included $875,000 in cash from the state Democratic Party. The party previously received $600,000 from the Service Employees International Union, whose North Carolina’s affiliate for state employees endorsed Perdue.
McCrory has received more than $425,000 during the last two weeks thanks in part to the fundraisers, including an additional $73,500 from the state Republican Party, disclosure reports said.
Political parties can give unlimited amounts of money to candidates, while a union’s political action committee is limited to $4,000 per election. A donor can’t direct how party money is to be spent.
McCrory said the donations show that Perdue will be beholden to labor unions if she’s elected. The State Employees Association of North Carolina, the SEIU affiliate, wants the Legislature to remove a ban on state and local governments from formally bargaining with workers.
“The unions are pushing collective bargaining,” McCrory said. “She’s made the unions a lot of promises.”
But Perdue said an endorsement by an outside group doesn’t mean she’ll show favoritism.
“I’m really not for changing the labor laws of this state,” Perdue said, adding that she’s opposed to collective bargaining for state workers.
Also Friday, McCrory’s campaign urged radio stations to pull a Perdue radio commercial that McCrory called “a total lie.”
The ad has two men talking about McCrory’s record. One said McCrory “questioned whether we should pave roads in small towns and rural areas” while another said the mayor “wants to let New Jersey and New York ship their garbage down here to North Carolina.”
McCrory has criticized the state’s road-funding formula, but he said he’s never said the state should stop spending on less-congested areas.
Perdue ran a television ad this fall that said McCrory opposed a 2007 law that proponents said prevented large landfills from being built in eastern North Carolina to take in other states’ trash. But
McCrory said he opposed the bill because it included a $2-per-ton surcharge on trash collected at landfills that cities will have to pay.
McCrory campaign attorney Alan Pugh wrote the ad was untruthful and rose to “the level of libel and slander” needed for a public official to file a lawsuit.
Perdue campaign spokesman David Kochman said McCrory “is pulling a desperate stunt to hide the truth from voters” with the letter.
