Well, today, I’m back to writing about George Holding’s election – which now may or may not be in November and, may or may not be in a new district. I guess we may know sometime next week.

All that said, assuming wiser (legal) heads prevail and George Holding will be running in the current 2^nd District, his race is a microcosm of elections across the state.

Years ago, Arthur Finklestein, polling for Jesse Helms in his race against Jim Hunt, told me, There’re three types of elections. First, there’s the election where voters like both candidates – and they vote for the one they like most. Then there’s the race where voters like one candidate and dislike the other – that one’s easy. And, finally, there’s the rare race where voters dislike both candidates – and, then, they vote for the candidate they dislike least.

We’ve watched a lot of those ‘which candidate do I dislike least’ elections lately and we have another one on our hands this year. The undecided voters, and the swing voters, dislike both the Washington Republicans and the Washington Democrats and the question is: Who do they dislike least?

In his last poll, in July, George Holding trailed by 3 points (Holding 40%, Coleman 43%, Matemu, the Libertarian, 2%, Undecided 15%). And the undecided voters see Washington politics as a mess and they blame both parties for the mess. In 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016, when Obama was President, those same voters ‘disliked Republicans least’ and they voted for Republicans.

But now that Obama’s gone and Trump’s in the White House and Republicans have majorities in Congress the same voters ‘dislike Democrats least’ – so they’re voting for Democrats (or undecided and leaning towards Democrats).

So what can George Holding do? He needs to give swing voters a good reason to dislike Linda Coleman more than they dislike both Washington Republicans and Washington Democrats.