Traditionally, you needed to look just below Maryland to see votes for President start to turn pink and then, as you traveled farther south, reliably deep red. But if the current polls are to be believed, the arc from below Maryland to Florida is a rainbow of blue, purple and a spot of red for the 2020 election for President.
According to polls updated a couple of days ago, Virginia is a solid blue, with likely voters for former Vice President Biden at 56% and for President Trump 42%. The spread is a bit larger – 58% to 42% -- among registered voters. Moving south into North Carolina, Biden maintains a lead comfortably outside the typical margin of error (3.5% or so) with totals of 52 to 46 among likely voters and 53 to 45 among registered voters.
Things change significantly in South Carolina where President Trump holds leads of 52 to 46 and 50 to 47, respectively. But the race in Georgia is uncharacteristically close; since 1972, only native son Jimmy Carter and Arkansan Bill Clinton won the state’s electoral votes. Currently Biden is ahead of Trump among likely voters by a slim 50% to 49% margin while his lead among registered voters is a more comfortable 52 to 46.
Finally, Florida, always a pivotal state, could not be closer, with the two candidates tied at 49% among likely voters and with a 1% lead for Biden among registered voters. Polling from Sumter County, home to the enormous Villages community in north central Florida, is getting a lot of media attention and indicates a surge in support for the former Vice President.
The pandemic has caused more intense migration from cities to the Southeast bringing with it, generally, more progressive voters from the Northern states. The Sunbelt’s attractive cost of living is not only attractive to retirees, but also to the millions of employees working from home during the pandemic. Their companies are learning these workers are even more productive working from home, and they just might let many of them stay there even after a vaccine. They will be able to work from anywhere, and that low cost of living and balmy winter climates will prove attractive to many of them. Many will target golf communities as safe and attractive havens.
The bluing of the South might very well continue in future elections.
John McConnell has an undeniably good eye for excellent golf courses, especially those in need of some financial help. The golf course management organization he leads recently scored another ace with its purchase of the Tom Fazio designed Porters Neck in Wilmington, NC. The club, which has bounced between private and semi-private status since it opened in the early 1990s, had recently re-tried a member’s only model. Apparently, it didn’t work and McConnell swooped in with a reported $4 million purchase price and made it a baker’s dozen courses in his portfolio, almost all in the Carolinas with one in Tennessee.
I have played Porter’s Neck a couple of times over the years, the most recent on a September 11 a few years back with the club’s men’s group to honor first responders. The course is Fazio classic, threading its way between live oaks and other flora, the well-tended homes kept at a respectable distance from the field of play.
A McConnell golf membership, especially for those who like to drive a car a few hours to play iconic courses, is one of the best deals in the South. He has shrewdly purchased mostly golf community private courses, mindful that residents understand that a quality golf course props up real estate values – and one in financial trouble sends a troubling signal to the real estate market. Thus, his portfolio is replete with such excellent clubs as Treyburn in Durham, NC, and The Reserve in Litchfield Beach, SC. Musgrove Mill in Clinton, SC, stands out for having no surrounding real estate – and is possibly the toughest layout of all 13 courses. And for fans of classically designed layouts, McConnell has added four courses designed by the famous Donald Ross – Raleigh Country Club, Country Club of Asheville, Sedgfield Country Club in Greensboro, NC, and Holston Hills Country Club in Knoxville, TN, the only McConnell course outside the Carolinas (at least so far).
As with most great multi-course memberships that span significant distances, members tend to stick to their home courses. (That is true, for example, at The Cliffs communities and its seven layouts spread across South Carolina, plus one near Asheville.). Members of Old North State Club at Uwharrie Point, one the best layouts in the state of North Carolina but a couple of hours or more from other McConnell courses, probably don’t wander too often from their golf community to play the other McConnell tracks. In recent years, though, McConnell has been filling in the geography in the Carolinas, bringing his courses ever closer together and making a club membership, which provides reciprocal play at all dozen courses, an obviously better deal than before. With the purchase of Porters Neck, members at the fairly isolated Reserve at Litchfield Beach are now inside two hours of the Wilmington course. (McConnell doesn’t own but manages the Grande Dunes Members Course in Myrtle Beach, also available to members of all his courses.)
Golf has been undergoing something of a renaissance during the pandemic, but given the Porters Neck purchase, there will always be fine private clubs for the keen-eyed McConnell to snap up.
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