NC lawmaker leaves Democratic Party after winning re-election with help from GOP-leaning groups

North Carolina State Rep. Paul Tine, who won re-election in Eastern North Carolina’s District 6, recently announced he’s leaving the Democratic Party, registering as unaffiliated and planning to caucus with Republicans. While the move was unexpected, there may have been signs pointing to Tine’s shift based on which groups were spending to get him elected.
 
In the 2014 elections, more than $30,000 in outside money, or political spending by groups not affiliated with a candidate, was spent to benefit Tine. And all of it came from groups that typically support Republican candidates.
 
N.C. Chamber IE, the fifth-highest outside spender in 2014, spent close to $19,000 on mailers supporting Tine. While officially nonpartisan, only 10 percent of the $682,000 that N.C. Chamber IE spent in 2014 went to Democrats, including the future ex-Democrat Tine.
 
The N.C. Homeowners Alliance, a conservative-leaning 527 political advocacy organization based in Greensboro, spent $7,500 on mailers in favor of Tine. The group, which is backed by the state and national Associations of Realtors, made 61 percent of its $243,000 of independent expenditures in favor of Republicans last year.
 
Mainstreet Merchants for a Better North Carolina, another 527 group, spent $4,000 benefiting Tine. It spent $132,000, or 81 percent, of its nearly $164,000 of independent expenditures supporting the GOP. Mainstreet Merchants is funded largely by the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association, a trade group with three full-time lobbyists on staff.
 
Nearly $12,000, or 28 percent of the race’s $42,000 of total outside money, went towards Tine’s challenger, Republican Mattie Lawson, from the N.C. Republican Party and a new political spending group, Liberty Torch PAC. Tine won the race by seven percentage points in November.
 
Tine wasn’t the only Democrat to benefit from spending by GOP-leaning independent groups in 2014.  Former Sens. Clark Jenkins and Gene McLaurin lost their re-election bids last year despite conservative groups spending in their favor. Sen. Ben Clark, who benefited from nearly $60,000 in outside spending by conservative groups in his primary election in Senate District 21, went on to win the general election unopposed and is now the Senate Democratic Caucus secretary. Michael Wray, a state House member from District 27 and another Democrat who won re-election last year, benefited from approximately $10,500 from conservative groups in 2014, and $19,000 in 2012.
 
As for Tine, he says he will be able to represent his constituents better this session in the GOP’s closed-door meetings, which he hopes to attend.