Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Can Sean Haugh make Senate candidates play nice?

Sean Haugh watched this week's U.S. Senate debate in a bar with the sound down, just the way he liked it.

“I have absolutely no interest whatsoever," he said shortly before Tuesday's debate. "One of the reasons I don't watch it it I already know what they re going to say."

But Thursday night the Durham Libertarian and pizza delivery man will join Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan and Republican Thom Tillis on the set of Wilmington's WECT studio for the third and probably last Senate debate.

Haugh doesn't plan to get into the personal attacks each of the main party candidates leveled on each other during their first two debates.

"I don’t feel any great need to talk about them" he said. "I think people are already familiar with all the reasons not to vote for them. They've done a good job of that."

In fact he thinks he might help change the tone.

"I hope my presence might help them play nice with each other,” he said.

Haugh has lingered in the single digits in most Senate polls. A USA Today/Suffolk University Poll released Wednesday had him at 4 percent. He had 7 percent in an NBC poll released Sunday.

So he could be a spoiler in what's expected to be a close race. But a spoiler for whom?

Conventional wisdom has been that he would take votes from Tillis. But an Elon University survey suggested just the opposite.

The online survey gave 763 voters a choice of a ballot with all three candidates and one with just Hagan and Tillis. It found that Haugh would siphon twice as many votes from Hagan as from Tillis.

Tillis, the survey directors concluded, "should be thankful that Haugh is on the ballot."
   
 
 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hope that he is sober. Ever photo I have ever seen of him he has a drink in his hand. He will pull votes from Kay. That write in candidate with the overbite (Rhodes) might take a few dozen votes from Tillis

Anonymous said...

if you actually see his videos, he makes a lot of sense - too much sense to get elected of course. regarding the drinking it's just a gimmick - he said that the beer you see him drinking is about half his weekly alcohol consumption.

Anonymous said...

he is a pizza delivery man and he is still the best option on the ballot. that is a scary thought.

Garth Vader said...

Leave it to Morrill to trivialize one of the equally-qualified candidates on the ballot.

Here's a primer for voters:

1. Do you want the president to have unilateral, unconstitutional authority to control the military without Congressional oversight? If not, vote Haugh. If yes, choose Hagan or Tillis - there is no difference.

2. Do you want the government to saddle future generations with trillions of dollars in additional debt? If not, vote Haugh. If yes, choose Hagan or Tillis - there is no difference.

3. Do you want NSA goons reading your emails, poring over your travel plans, and monitoring your Facebook posts? If not, vote Haugh. If yes, choose Hagan or Tillis - there is difference.

War, deficits, privacy. It's YOUR choice.

Unknown said...

I would like to read some in depth reporting on how Sen Hagan's family benefited from the federal stimulus. It's important for voters to know all the facts on how candidates benefit financially while supposedly serving our best interests.