News

The unofficial 2020 general election returns are in and NCHBA’s advocacy program enjoyed unprecedented success. While all precincts have reported statewide, the results are unofficial because of absentee and provisional ballots. Absentee ballots which are postmarked no later than election day and received by the November 12 deadline by local boards of elections are yet to be counted. Provisional ballots voted on election day are also still to be tabulated So, the results of several close races could change.

NCHBA’s state election advocacy program consists of two complementary initiatives—NC BUILD-PAC and the Home Builders Education Fund, Inc. (HBEF). The former is a political action committee governed by its own Board of Trustees and it is funded by the personal contributions of our members. The latter is an entity created by NCHBA in 2015 which is able to spend funds received from the association and is governed by its own Board of Directors. NAHB BUILD-PAC contributions to federal candidates are the third component of our advocacy program. Those contributions are initiated by our NC trustees and approved by our national PAC Board of Trustees.

NC BUILD-PAC

During this cycle, NC BUILD-PAC contributed a total of $241,602.55 to candidates in 141 races for the General Assembly.

In the Senate, 39 of the 50 Senators to be seated in January received BUILD-PAC support. In the House, 120 members of the NC House of Representatives to be seated in January received BUILD-PAC support.   We participated in 141 legislative races and our candidate won in 134 of them (95%).

We also contributed to 10 candidates in 9 statewide Council of State and appellate judicial races where 8 of these candidates won for an 80% winning percentage.

HBEF, Inc.

During this cycle, the HBEF contributed a total of $599,432.19 to candidates in 90 races ($114,864,39 to 20 primary election candidates and $484,667.80 to 70 general election candidates).  A total of 19 of our 20 primary candidates (95%) won and 68 of our 70 general election candidates won (97%) for cycle winning percentage of (96.6%). Of the 90 races, we participated in 75 by mailer support of the candidate and in 15 by a prominent billboard in their district. Specifically, we generated a total of 1,068,418 mailers in these 75 races.

General Election Highlights

We successfully supported three new home builder members of NCHBA who were elected to the House—Steve Tyson (HD 3—New Bern); Matt Winslow (HD 7—Youngsville); and Jeff Zenger (HD 74—Lewisville). These three join two incumbent home builder members of the House—Mark Brody (HD 55–Monroe) and Larry Potts (HD 81—Lexington) who won re-election. These five home builders plus newly elected home builder Senator Steve Jarvis (SD 29—Lexington; who we strongly supported in a primary win against an incumbent senator) form a strong “home builder caucus” for our legislative agenda. All of these member received both BUILD-PAC and HBEF mailer support.

In the general election, Zenger was our top priority in the House. We sent 5 separate mailers to a broad universe of voters in his district. The HBEF was the only outside group (apart from the Republican House Caucus) to participate on Zenger’s behalf. We firmly believe that our support pulled him across the finish line in an extremely close vote.

In fact, Zenger’s race was thought by most to represent the district which would assure GOP control of the House. As it turned out, the GOP gained a net 4 seats to push its present majority from 65-55 to 69-51.  Despite the loss of two seats due to redistricting litigation, the GOP maintained its majority in the Senate by a margin of 28-22.

The HBEF participated in several key legislative races in both the House and Senate and continued its longstanding record of bipartisan support for pro-housing candidates.

Our entire membership of 14,500 received a mailer from the HBEF which highlighted our BUILD-PAC support of several candidates for statewide and appellate judicial races. As noted earlier, 8 of these candidates in 9 races won. As close as these races were, we believe this mailer may have made a significant difference in the outcome in each of these races.

NAHB BUILD-PAC

We are delighted to report that all of the candidates supported by NAHB BUILD-PAC, at our request, were elected. A total of $75,500 was distributed to these winning candidates by our national PAC during the 2019-2020 election cycle.

Final Observations

Our grand total advocacy spending for all of our efforts including NAHB and NC BUILD-PAC and our HBEF was $959,034.74.

As our advocacy outreach expands, our influence grows. Through the HBEF, we have demonstrated that we can make a real difference in the outcome of races (e.g., Jeff Zenger, Steve Jarvis, etc.). We are delighted with the results our advocacy efforts are producing and we thank you for your support!

This post was written by NC HBA.