- [Host] North Carolina achieves a milestone in criminal justice, and we gauge the temperature of election 2024's hottest races.

This is "State Lines".

- [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[upbeat music] - Hello again.

Welcome to "State Lines".

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today on the panel is WUNC, political reporter, Colin Campbell, to his right political strategist, Morgan Jackson, Carolina Journal's Editor-in-Chief, Donna King, and Cardinal & Pine, a political correspondent, Michael McElroy.

Hello everyone.

Hope you're off to a good weekend.

- Hey, how's it going?

- Well, it's going pretty well actually.

I have a bet with you on Twitter about the ending of the legislative session July 1st.

- Yeah, my bet's for August 1st.

- It's gonna happen.

Or you owe me a margarita, my friend.

Let's start the week by checking some polling data.

Donna, this is your team doing this work.

So we'll start with you.

The new polling, as I read it, has a near 4% margin of error.

It shows a near tie in the governor's race between Democrat, Josh Stein, and Republican, Mark Robinson.

At the very top of our ticket, Donald Trump barely leads Joe Biden by less than one percentage point if you include the margin of error.

And here comes Robert Kennedy Jr. With 7% of the April poll.

And from what I saw, Donna, RFK Jr actually took some support from Donald Trump and brought him closer to Mr. Biden.

- You know, it kind of looks like that, but when you look down at it, it took from Trump, Biden, but mostly the unsure and the undecided.

That was one of the things that we took away from this poll.

So we put polls in the field once a month.

This one was this past weekend.

And what we found was that Donald Trump is around 44.

Joe Biden's around 39, but RFK, this is the first time we've added him.

Last month we did not have him in there.

We just did head to head and unsure, was 7%.

So when you add in RFK, it changes the dynamics a lot, but it went from 9% unsure to 5.5.

So I think what we're really seeing is that I think that in 2024, in November, this is gonna be a battle of those who really aren't sure where they want to go or they want that third party candidate.

When we look at the governor's race, it's the same, once you factor in Green Party and Libertarian, it shifts the lead.

If you just do a head to head, Josh Stein is ahead a little bit.

But when you really look at the four-way race, which is what we're gonna see in November with Libertarian and Green on the ballot, it shifts with Mark Robinson ahead.

- Michael, polls are so much fun to watch.

It's a cheap analytical segment because polls change every week.

However, what do you make of it?

We have a three-way presidential race and up to a four-way gubernatorial race right now, - I don't know if I would call it a three-way presidential race, but I will say even if Kennedy takes away from the undecided, because this thing is so close, that 5% remaining undecided, that's still going to be the difference maker.

And so it's gonna be super tight.

This poll is very interesting 'cause this is where we get right up to the lead up of people starting to pay attention.

But I think this poll tells us what we kind of already knew.

This is gonna be super, super tight, both the governor's race and the presidential race, and I think it's very likely that whoever wins the governor's race is going to do so by a smaller margin than Cooper won in 2020.

But I think that the thing that I took away from this is this 18%, we talked about, this 18% undecided in the governor's race, still between two candidates who the difference between them is clear and it's still 18% undecided.

But it's like 44%, I think gave Governor Cooper a positive approval.

- Yes.

It's down about four points from March.

- Yeah.

But it's hard for me to see how 44% approves Cooper of this and still goes to Robinson, only because they're just so different in approach and policy and everything.

So it's gonna be tight.

- Well, your thoughts.

- Yeah, so this is an interesting one.

I mean obviously it's too early to see.

The RFK thing, I think we should point out he still needs to get on the ballot in North Carolina.

He's doing it by forming a new third party called, I think, "We the People" party, they've submitted their signatures that they have to get several thousand signatures to get on the ballot.

That still has to be certified by the State Board of Elections.

That process has been pretty cumbersome and there have been some other hurdles when like the Green Party got on the ballot.

So that's something to watch in the coming months.

The other thing that was interesting to me was we had another pullout this week that showed a pretty big lead for Josh Stein in the governor's race.

This Carolina Journal poll was a lot more tight.

So it'll be interesting to see if we see any long-term trends.

The more these constant hits about Mark Robinson, different things he's said, different things he's done, financial challenges he's had, does that continue to give Josh Stein more of a lead?

Or does it stay neck and neck all the way up to the end?

- You've got Republicans going after Mark Robinson right now on some issues and what does that play and do the Democrats just lay back and keep their powder dry you think?

- You know, I think that's the challenge when you have, I mean, Democrats in particular have done a ton of opposition research on Mark Robinson, Facebook post of his from 10 years ago, things he said in church speeches.

And the question is, how much do you try to get out there in the media now?

Or is it, how much do you hold your powder dry until it's September, October?

And you really wanna make that final impression on voters before they go to the polls.

- Well, if you turn your head to the right just about 45 degrees, the man with the plan is there.

[laughter] Morgan, that's true.

There's a lot going on out there.

I've seen a lot of mud thrown between these two campaigns and it's still about 1% depending on, well take Donna's poll, one percent's all the difference is right now, for all of that going on.

- Well, I think the two really important things, and I think some of it's been covered by others, but I'll reinforce it, is first, North Carolina's a 50/50 state, it's incredibly polarized.

These races are gonna be really tight.

Not only the governor's race, the presidential race can be tight.

A lot of the council state races will be very tight.

Mike mentioned sort of, Cooper's win in 2020, that was three a half points.

That's a blowout in North Carolina.

Most races are one, 2%.

And I think you're gonna see a lot of these races.

The other point I would like to make is these races are all gonna be static until candidates start really spending money, talking to voters, broadcast television, digital buys, massive digital buys, direct mail, things, and starting to educate voters about the race.

There's a lot of earned media that's going on right now, and that is helping inform a certain population that pays attention.

But a lot of voters don't clue into races, frankly, until we get to Labor Day or even after.

But certainly not until you are spending money communicating with them about the issue.

And I think the same thing's true in the presidential race.

One of the things we always see at third parties is they start out really high.

And they start out at seven or 8%.

We've seen that with libertarians or constitutional parties or Green over the years, and then by the time you get to election day, it's like 1% or 2% because voters just don't wanna throw their vote away.

Not a lot of voters actually wanna go in there and make a protest vote that doesn't really count.

- If your candidate doesn't have a chance to win.

And I think, I think we'll see that over time on all of these third parties that, that, and again, I think once you see the Biden and Trump campaigns really start communicating to voters, you'll see that undecided and that third party off.

- You don't see a Perot effect on this administration?

- I really, and I think he makes a really important point.

Everybody wants a third party.

People say they want a third party, another option, and then when it comes down to election day, they don't vote for what's there.

And that's part of the challenge.

But I think in the end, it's gonna be really hard to make the case that Joe Biden and Josh Stein, and Josh Stein and Roy Cooper being very close, we still have in this poll, 64% of people say that the country's going in the wrong direction.

That's gonna be a really difficult case to make as we head into November.

- When was the last time people thought the country was in the right direction?

I cannot remember.

So- - I'll find out and let you know.

- There you go.

North Carolina's backlog of untested sexual assault kits is now cleared.

At one time, about 16,000 kits were stored across North Carolina law enforcement agencies and labs.

They all carried some form of evidence.

Well, a bipartisan effort led to funding so those kits could all be processed.

We have a state law now on the books that will require sexual assault kits be sent to law enforcement within two days of being administered.

Law enforcement has the task of getting that kit to a real lab for forensics work within 45 days.

Mike, it's a heavy topic.

I don't know if we can celebrate this, but it's a milestone in criminal justice.

- Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a really big deal, and it's a really big deal for a lot of reasons.

Let's just start with the actual facts of the thing.

I mean, it was something like 16,000 untested kits.

After the law, they said, "Okay, which of these can we test?"

It was about 12,000.

99% of 12,000 are basically done.

I think it was like 40 or whatever that haven't gotten done yet.

And what brought this about?

It was absolutely a bipartisan effort.

Which, and we don't get to say that very often in this 50/50 state.

A bipartisan thing where it's actually not very much friction at all in that, yeah, yes, let's do it.

The money was like $6 million.

So to me, $6 million helped, as one sexual assault victim said the last time they had talked about it, these testing kits, it, it frees the voice of, of the sexual assault victims.

It has led to over a hundred arrests.

And so what did this $6 million buy?

It bought huge progress that everybody agrees on, that has both a practical effect, and a personal effect on the victims, and it shows what, what people can do when they actually cooperate, and it shows what, in my mind that the idea that spending money is throwing money away, I think is sometimes can be a false notion because this $6 million did something really big.

And if everybody did this for everything else, maybe we'd have a lot more progress to talk about.

- Colin, how do people get assaulted, or allegedly assaulted, and their kit wind up on a shelf somewhere untested for decades?

How does that happen?

- You know, there was a lot of finger pointing for a lot of years about this.

You know, the Republicans sort of pointed their finger at the attorney general's office, which recently obviously as Josh Stein, but prior to that was Roy Cooper, the current governor for a number of years.

So they've argued that, well, there should have been more of a push within that agency to get this stuff done.

But there are also issues about having the right funding to do it.

The issues of who does it.

You know, is it the local sheriffs?

Is it the police departments?

Is it the state?

The crime lab have had a lot of issues at the state level over the years until a lot of stuff had to be straightened out to get to this point.

And I think finally we're seeing the amount of funding needed going into this so that it doesn't become this sort of partisan political football.

Everyone's kind of gotten together on the same page and said, "You know what?

As much as it's fun to, you know, throw stones at each other over this issue, the people who are actually victims wanting their cases resolved, don't care who's responsible.

They just want to get it done.

- Morgan, I remember a few years ago this was sort of a mild issue in the AG's race, and no one knew quite what to do.

It didn't stick to the Attorney General then.

Was it a systemic review that said, "Hey, there's a problem."

The DOJ in Washington had us, the state, do an inventory, and then the state went to work.

Is that the way it's supposed to be?

Or should the state stay on it going forward, and not need DC's intervention?

- Well, the state is gonna stay on it now, now it is law that is gonna, as Mike walked through, sort of the process to happen.

I think this was an issue when Josh Stein ran for AG in 2016, and he said he was gonna make it a priority.

He started working on 2017.

Colin's right, there's a lot of bureaucracy with a lot of different, when you're talking about law enforcement, whether sheriff's office, police chiefs, DA's, et cetera, from all across the state, and all different jurisdictions, that, frankly, some of them handled things very differently.

Some of, some of them were aggressively testing and some of them were not.

If they didn't have a suspect, they didn't test.

And I think one of the things that Stein was focused on is, "Okay, this is something that everybody cares about, so let's get everybody in the room, try to break down some of these silos between law enforcement, and sit down with the Republican leadership and the General assembly, and find a deal, and to get the funding."

And, it has been a huge bipartisan effort.

And, but Stein has been his top priority.

And this is a big deal.

I mean, you know, Mike talked about it in the lead-in.

You've got 2,700 of the kits that were tested, matched in the CODIS database.

And you're talking about gettin' serial rapists off the street.

You're talking about gettin' justice for victims decades old, sexual assault, violence, and it's, it's a really big deal from North Carolina.

And frankly, the good news is moving forward, there won't be a backlog.

This is, this is now fixed.

And as long as the funding continues from the state, they will continue to test these things within just a few days.

- Donna, you did notice Republicans and Democrats on this one issue, it could be a hot potato, or hot button issue.

- Sure.

- Everyone's put their sword down for this one, and achieved victory, claimed it.

Now, do we move forward, or does this need to stay in the public discourse as we head to election 2024?

- I mean, I can see it staying in as an example of an out of control, poorly organized bureaucracy, really fumbling.

I mean, this has been a political hot potato for a long time.

These cases date, these, these kits date back to when, of course, like we were just saying, Governor Cooper was attorney general for 16 years, overseeing how this happened.

How did it happen in the first place?

And a lot of it truly is poor communication, poor management between local law enforcement and DOJ.

And like we were just saying in 2017, the North Carolina General Assembly passed what they called the Survivors Act.

And in that was the funding to do this.

But before that, they wanted DOJ to get all law enforcement and say, "Alright, tell us what you have.

Give us an inventory."

DOJ presented it to the lawmakers.

They passed the Survivors Act in the 2019 budget, which was actually vetoed.

And then, but that money, you know, of course it appears through different vehicles.

So I think what we're really seeing is it will stand up, not as an issue itself, but as an example of the dangers of out of control, poorly organized bureaucracy.

- You said that budget was vetoed in 2019.

Was the- Was the backlog sexual assault kit funding part of the reason it was vetoed?

- No, no it was not.

- [Kelly] Or was it other reasons it was just backed in?

- There were other reasons.

We didn't have a budget for years - I want to be very clear that, because people might put a link - Oh for sure.

- That somehow the government, that did not happen.

- Sure, no, there were other reasons.

You know, mainly at that time was Medicaid expansion.

- Well, let's go to something a little more partisan.

State House Speaker Tim Moore says budget writers could be boosting those opportunity scholarships or school vouchers this coming fiscal year.

That funding was quickly depleted this spring due to high demand from applications.

The scholarships do prioritize lower income families, but there's technically, or legally, no family income limit.

Speaker told reporters, they tell you Colin, $300 million would fund every application this school year?

- Yeah, that's the estimate they're working off of and it sounds like that's gonna be a priority going into this year's budget cycle to fund that because there was such a demand that essentially what happened was once they started issuing the money that they had, it really only went to people in the lowest income tier, the people with the lowest wealth in their household, and then people in the higher tiers are left out for now.

If there's more funding put into the budget, there's as you mentioned, no income limit on this.

So if you fully fund this program to where everybody who applied gets one, then there's, you know, wealthy families can benefit from this, low income families benefit from this, but it's a huge chunk of change to get there.

$300 million can do a lot of other things, and so there's a lot of competing budget pressures this year particularly as it relates to education.

- Morgan, Democrats do like school vouchers it appears.

They've applied.

So how do you balance that politically?

Because we know the rhetoric is your team needs, they need to support public education hardly and sometimes the debate can be, we don't need vouchers, we just need more public funding for traditional education.

- Listen, it's very clear.

Listen, this Republican majority has exactly the wrong priority when it comes to public education.

Over 85% of kids in North Carolina go to public schools and we're talking about a time that we have the highest teacher vacancies that we've seen in public schools.

School nurses, bus drivers, things.

And those vacancies are occurring because of chronically low funding of public schools.

And so what the Republicans are saying we wanna do is ;et's take 300 million more dollars of taxpayer funds and send them to private schools.

And as Colin just said, a lot of that money's gonna go to wealthy families that are already in private school.

It's not, these are not opportunity scholarships.

This is a reimbursement for putting your kid in private school when at the same time you're starving the public schools when you drastically need teachers, bus drivers, school counselor, school nurses.

It makes no sense.

And these are, again, I wanna reinforce, these are taxpayer funds going to families to send their kids to private school when we have a state constitution that says we have to, fully fund public education and provide a sound basic education for every student in this state.

And it doesn't make sense.

We should be funding public schools not starving them.

And that's why you see the governor's called for moratorium on any additional funding for taxpayer funded vouchers until we fully fund the public schools.

- Donna, there's a lot of facts about public education depending on which facts I would choose to look at might paint a picture for me one way or the other on this issue.

How should we view school vouchers and opportunity scholarships in your opinion?

- I think in this case it's definitely about parents having individual choice on how to educate their children.

And that's why I think it's popular.

This poll that we were just talking about earlier, 60% of North Carolinians, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Undecided, 60% support the concept of an opportunity scholarship.

And this is awarded on a sliding scale.

So the more money you make, the less you would get.

If you were to get one, which is why it's primarily going, right now we're in tier one, people with the highest need.

Not not counting those who are reapplying from already having gotten one the previous year.

But in the end, I think what we're really seeing is that parents are tired of their child.

They have a very limited window to educate their individual children and they want choice in how that works.

Particularly as we look at the general public, chronically low performing schools in many cases, as we handle how to fund public education, really examine the structure of our pub funding of public education.

- Mike, do opportunity scholarships and school vouchers, do they, deposit a chance that we redefine what it means to publicly fund a child's education in North Carolina?

- Well, I think that is what is happening.

[chuckles] This is about changing how that works.

But I think that the concept of choice and the reality in a lot of ways, I don't think they meet up because a lot of kids, a lot of parents who want to send their kids to a different school in rural areas have zero choice because there aren't any private schools there.

Or the only private school there is a fundamentalist religious school or even if it's not fundamentalist, is a religious school that that isn't their religion and so the choice, I don't know that is actually there for a lot of North Carolinians.

And I really think this debate that's been going on forever really is about two competing things.

Do we solve the school crisis by putting more money into private schools?

And where is that money coming from?

It's not coming from the wealthy families who are going to be benefiting mostly, eventually.

So why don't we raise taxes on the wealthy, pay for those scholarships, and then take that money and put it into public schools because if a chronically underperforming school, there's a lot of reasons for it and it's not just because the teachers hate kids or they don't know what they're doing or inept.

It's because there's no money to pay for repairs or roofs like we had in Alamance County with mold and things.

And so it's, I think it's, I don't know?

I think the debates, the debate sometimes forgets that if we're solving this by giving these parents a choice, what are we actually doing though to solve the schools with 85% of kids still there?

- Well keep in mind that's just the House Speaker.

There's a guy named Senator Phil Berger who runs the Senate and a Governor over there that says, no.

- He didn't come talk to the press this week.

So we don't know what he thinks.

[Kelly sighs] - Again, it's just.

[Kelly sighs] - Yeah, Moore loves us more I guess than the media.

- They.

You guys are having a tough time getting interviews.

- [Mike] Yeah.

- I sympathize with you.

Migrant children crossed the Southern border alone soon could be housed in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Federal officials announced in March that the Greensboro Children's Center could serve as an overflow location for unaccompanied migrant children.

The children would stay there until a sponsor could be found.

State Republicans and Democrats say the Federal Government has not answered questions to their satisfaction including inquiries from our Senators, Tom Tillis and Ted Budd.

But the Department of Health and Human Services, Donna, says the information about contractors and services at that facility is in fact a public record.

- It is, but anybody at this table who's tried to get public records knows that that is.

- Especially, if it's Federal.

- Right.

That is really not a clear answer and I think that's one of the challenges that they've had.

So this place was called the American Hebrew Academy.

It was, at risk of going bankrupt and it was closing its doors.

DHHS.

- Leased it to house, what could be up to 800 unaccompanied minors, meaning, folks who came across illegally and are 17 years and younger.

Part of the way this happened is that the community around this facility kind of got wind of who had leased it, and were contacting, you know, Kathy Manning and you know, the congresswoman that represents the area, their local officials, they're not getting any answers.

So they elevated it to the senators, and Congressman Richard Hudson has taken it on, the entire Republican delegation, sent letter, after letter, after letter to DHHS to say, what is going on, we want details.

How many people are gonna be there?

What access or impact will it have on the community?

How old will they be?

You know, all these kind of things and they just literally were not getting answers.

None of our answers or calls were returned.

None of theirs were.

So these letters continued, and then it was supposed to open last August, and then last month they said, okay, it's operational.

So there was no real answer or communication with the community about what the impact of this would be and who would be there until the announcement came that it was operational.

- Morgan, what do you think?

These are constituents, North Carolinians.

How much should they know or need to know about a facility like this?

Even if the feds decide they don't need to know everything.

- You know, I think they should know enough.

I think they should know enough to know what's going on.

But I also think it's one of those issues where we wanna be clear about it.

We're talking about children here.

Like, let's, don't demonize kids, okay?

Whether they cross the border from wherever they came from, looking for new opportunities, especially those that came, either lost their parent on the way or don't have an adult who is their guardian, or supervisor or things like that.

And so, you know, yes there need to be answers and people need to understand what's going on, but we also need to think about this in a humanitarian way.

These are kids who have walked thousands of miles to try to find a better life.

And they need to, you know, as the system which is set up to do, to figure out how to process them, we need to respect that.

And again, these are kids, y'all.

- Very quick, Colin.

I wanna ask you about this issue.

I don't wanna miss the Japanese Prime Minister coming to North Carolina, but on this issue, anything, any quick thoughts on this?

- Yeah, I mean the challenges with transparency is what are the conditions like here?

I mean, there's been some reports that the kids are not, this is not, you know, hotel level accommodations, that they may not have great conditions and that's something we need to be watching going forward.

- Alright, I got about two and a half minutes, but Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, visited North Carolina this week.

The stop included a tour of the Triad's Toyota plant, over at the Honda Jet plant, he toured that.

Japanese industries, Morgan, invested over $6.6 billion in our state the past six years.

And Governor Cooper announced that new $1.6 billion expansion in Holly Springs for Fujifilm's facility.

That's 680 new jobs, paying an average $109,000 a year in case you didn't know that.

- It's not a bad thing.

Listen, it's a really cool thing, first of all, is to have a head of state, a foreign head of state, visit North Carolina.

It's the first time in 70 or 80 years we've seen that happen, and states were competing all across the country to get this visit.

As you know, the Prime Minister and the delegation traveled to DC and did a White House State dinner.

And they came to one state and they came to North Carolina.

Japan is North Carolina's largest foreign trading partner.

And not only you talked about Toyota, Honda, Fujifilm, there are tons of other companies that invested real money in real jobs here.

And the good news is Japan sees North Carolina as a place they want to invest more.

- Michael, it's a big visit.

The top of Japan is here and multi-billion dollars in cash flowing from their corporations into us and creating jobs.

Your thoughts?

- Well, my first thought is I wish I were qualified for one of those new jobs 'cause I would totally apply.

- Six figure salaries, right, yeah.

- 'Cause those are rare in our business, but I think it's great.

Listen, I think North Carolina, I moved here, like, I wasn't born here.

And the more I'm here, the more it's amazing, and it's amazing for a lot of reasons.

And the financial opportunities are great and I, you know, I think it's important to show that North Carolina is very versatile in what it can do and the things it can do.

And I mean, but there's gonna be some disagreement, like, the more the EV is a part of that, there's disagreements on electric vehicles and things.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I think, I wish that not everything had to arrive at a contentious place.

- Donna, when we were kids, you know, Japan was gonna take over US industry.

They were very dominant, economically, - Movies.

- and now they're a great partner, and we're welcoming them with open arms, and they're bringing jobs and billions of dollars.

- Absolutely.

I mean, actually that's the first thing I thought.

Do you remember the Michael Keaton movie.

- Yeah, "Gung Ho."

- Right, right, right, right, "Gung Ho," yeah.

- I know, I mean, I think in the end, what I think we're also talking about are incentives.

That's what a lot of folks are concerned about.

What kind of incentives are we providing?

Picking winners and losers in this case, clearly contributing to the community, you know, generating income, generating revenue for the state.

We wanna know what all the details are.

- All right, radio man, you got 30 seconds and a hard 30 seconds.

Your floss on Fuji coming in and the Japanese prime minister's visit.

- Yeah, Fuji's interesting 'cause it's expansion of a plant that they were already building, but they're now doubling the number of jobs there.

but to get there, did take $70 million in incentives from local government for a county that's already doing pretty well economically, and jobs wise.

- Alright, well thank you panelists for being on this show.

We got through a lot of topics and thank you as always for watching us here at "State Lines."

It's great to hear from you as well.

I hear from you, not from time to time, but at least once a week.

So if you ever thought about writing us, I'll let this crowd know what you're thinking.

statelines@pbsnc.org is our email.

I'll read every email, and thank you viewers for watching us.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

We'll see you next time.

[dramatic music] - [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.