- [Anna] Coming up on "State Lines," we'll discuss what to expect in the upcoming elections, how fundraising is impacting candidates, and what we can expect in the primaries.

This is "State Lines."

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[driving music] ♪ - Welcome to "State Lines."

I'm Anna Bevan Gravely.

Joining me today is political strategist, Brad Crone, public relations consultant, Pat Ryan, and Jim Sterling of the John Locke Foundation.

Welcome to the show, guys.

- [Both] Thanks.

- Thanks for having us on.

- A recent analysis projected the cost per vote in the 2024 gubernatorial race to be between $20 and $25, but with all eyes on North Carolina's races up and down the ballot, the cost per vote could certainly be more than that by the time the election is all said and done.

Pat, this is already anticipated to be one of the most expensive elections in the country.

What comes to your mind when you hear that?

- Well, the first thing that comes to mind is I bet there's gonna be a lot of presents under the Christmas tree at the homes of political consultants this year and next year.

I mean, Josh Stein has a little over $8 million on hand.

Mark Robinson, who's considered the front runner on the Republican side, has over $3 million on hand.

And that's not even counting the $5 million that Bill Graham, a new entrant, has promised to spend of his own money.

Plus, you have the Republican Governor's Association, the Democratic Governor's Association, likely going to be involved in one of the few extraordinarily competitive gubernatorial races in the country.

I mean, it's, you combine a fairly large state with a really competitive election environment, and that's a recipe for just really expensive campaigns.

- Brad, do you anticipate there being way more outside money coming in for this race than even the candidates are raising themselves?

- Well, the fact that we don't have a United States Senate race answers that question.

Yes, you're gonna have a lot of outside money coming into the state.

Your cost per vote will be going up.

It'll probably be $35, $40 per vote, maybe even higher afterwards.

Clearly, both sides, the Democrats and Republicans, are going to put everything on the table, simply because North Carolina is purple state, and the Democrats have a whole lot of, whole lot to lose, because they've held the governor's mansion for such a long period of time.

And the fact is the Republicans actually more than likely will nominate the lieutenant governor.

He's gonna be a very credible candidate.

- Jim, with so much anticipation and so much energy around this race, do you think that the primaries are sort of gonna be just a blow through to get to the general, or do you think there's gonna be anticipation and hype around those as well?

- I think there's a lot of name ID going into this.

Obviously, Robinson is well known, and even though a lot of these candidates are putting money forth, Bill Graham, as you said, is putting up $5 million in.

I believe a large of amount of that is his own money to be expected on it.

It's gonna be a race, but people know who Stein is, people know who Robinson is, and to a lesser degree, people have an idea of who Mike Morgan is.

But Stein took up a lot of the capital within the state, raising about, I believe, $5 million within, with $4 million of it coming from in-state donations.

So it's gonna be a bit of a struggle for many people to get any air in this.

- Yeah, I think if you're Stein and Robinson, your goal is to not really spend all that much money at all in a primary.

We'll see if that ends up being the case.

I think even spending, you know, $4 or $5 million, as Bill Graham has promised to do, still makes him a pretty big long shot.

I mean, I've seen congressional races, which are of course much smaller, where a sort of an outside newcomer has dumped millions of dollars into, again, a smaller electorate, and they still lost by a lot of points.

So money, I think, is necessary to win an election, but certainly money doesn't buy an election.

- Well, for full disclosure, I'm working on with Mike Morgan and his campaign, but you're absolutely right.

Money's gonna be a huge issue in the primary.

It's still an open door.

42% of Democrats are undecided in the race right now, according to the Meredith Poll.

But money's gonna be the key question, and buying the access to television, you know, 65% of the Democratic primaries, 50 years old or older, and they watch television.

So the key for Mike's success is to build grassroots and to be competitive in the fundraising department.

- Jim, if these primary candidates can force the candidates that we've been talking about for so long, being Josh Stein and Mark Robinson, to spend more of their own money, is that a win?

- Well, I don't know if that's gonna be the case.

Stein got in very early towards like February.

He's raised up a lot of money, got his name ID out there, and is well known as an AG.

Mike Morgan, unfortunately, as a Supreme Court justice, doesn't get a lot of attention.

A lot of these Supreme Court justices couldn't be picked out of a hat by most North Carolinians, but they at least have an idea of who Josh Stein is, who Mark Robinson is.

I think it's gonna be an uphill fight for all of them to be able to get any kind of name ID, and frankly, with Supreme Court candidates in mind, they have a hard time transitioning from going from a position that can't talk much about policy to having to talk almost all about policy.

- Mm, that's a great point.

- And we saw that with Cheri Beasley as well during the debates.

- Yeah.

And so Pat, coming back to you.

What does this mean for people at home?

We've talked a lot about money and we will for the rest of the show, but what does this mean for voters really?

- Well, it means they'll probably see a lot of ads for Bill Graham.

It means that the Morgan campaign probably wants them to see a lot of ads for Mike Morgan at some point if they can raise the funds.

But, you know, it's a, there is a primary here, right?

There are a number of credible candidates on both sides, but there are still clear front runners on both sides.

You know, whether people like that or not.

So if you're the front runner, you want really there to be not a whole lot of attention paid to this primary, and people'll go to the polls and they mark Stein or they mark Robinson, and that's it.

If you're one of the challengers, you wanna sort of create some chaos and some energy around what that person wants to be perceived as a competitive race.

I mean, it's just a question of who can do that.

- Yeah.

The lieutenant governor's race seems to be one of the most popular races on the ballot.

The Republican primary for the race is crowded with upwards of nine candidates running.

Some familiar names include former State Senator Deanna Ballard, State Representative Jeffrey Elmore, and former Lieutenant Governor Chief of Staff, Hal Weatherman.

The Democratic primary has two candidates, State Senator Rachel Hunt and former State Senator Ben Clark.

Brad, are any of these pulling ahead in your mind?

- Well, Rachel Hunt is going to be extremely difficult to beat in the Democratic primary.

Clearly the front runner there.

Simply based on her name, the job that she's done in the State House and the State Senate, and the organization that Jim Hunt has had over the state remains very active.

So I think Ben Clark has an excellent record, has a voice to put out on the campaign trail, but Rachel Hunt's gonna be extremely difficult to beat.

- Who's standing out on the Republican side, Jim?

- Well, there's a couple people that are standing out.

A lot of that is just like people, like you said, Hal Weatherman's standing out quite a bit, as well as a couple other notable cases, like Deanna Ballard.

Those candidates have a bit of name ID, but the lieutenant governor's race is not really as well watched.

Once we get past the gubernatorial races, name ID drops drastically.

So it's kind of a bit of a free for all right now, especially with Robinson going over to the gubernatorial race.

Kind of takes a lot of air out of the room.

- Right.

Pat, do you think that there is something to be said for the number of candidates that are running for lieutenant governor?

Why do you think that is?

- Yeah, lemme just disclose.

I'm helping Deanna Ballard out in her campaign.

Look, it's a statewide contest.

People see it sometimes as sort of a stepping stone perhaps to running for governor or running for attorney general or something of that sort.

There's a whole lot of statewide races in North Carolina, unlike some other states.

And it's just one more that folks can throw their hat into the ring on.

I think the number of candidates poses a challenge.

Also, just fundraising for a race like that poses a challenge.

I don't think probably any of the candidates are gonna have the actual amount necessary to run a proper statewide campaign, and so they're of course having to decide and strategize on how to deploy their limited resources.

So it's just, it's a challenge, especially in a primary for a race like this.

- Brad, do you... What do you view as the greatest uphill battle for these lieutenant governor candidates?

- Well, money and organization, simply because all the money statewide, it's going into the governor's race and into attorney general.

The problem the lieutenant governor has is that he or she really doesn't have any major power.

So other than the fact that it's a stepping stone and it's a limited stepping stone to the governor's mansion.

We've only had Beverly Perdue and Jim Hunt ascend from the lieutenant governor's position in the last 50 years to the governorship.

Organization's the other key, you know, and the elements within each party, Democrats and Republicans, getting your grassroots energized and building a base, and the tribalism that you're seeing in both parties.

Each of 'em have constituency, and those constituencies have lanes in which they're engaging and performing in.

So you are gonna have your conservatives, you're gonna have your main street Chamber of Commerce Republicans, you're gonna have your Trumpers.

On the Democrat side, you're gonna have the liberals, and then you're going to have your Jim Hunt, you know, your moderate to centrist Democrats both seeking to build organization and support within those tribes of each party.

- Yeah.

And they'll try to differentiate themselves in that way.

The question is, with limited resources, how many people can they actually even tell about their brand identity?

It's probably pretty limited, so you have to decide who to contact and then what to say, right?

- And so the big rumor in Raleigh this week's been Sam Page, the sheriff of Rockingham County, possibly looking at changing from lieutenant governor's race and challenging the president pro tem in his home, in his home county.

So because of the pressures that you face on raising money and organization, you see candidates looking at other options.

Now, whether or not Sam does that, but it's definitely been a topic of conversation around the general assembly this week.

- Absolutely.

Jim, if you were a lieutenant governor candidate, what would be the, what would you do to stand out?

- Run some kind of contentious ad.

As much as it would be, we saw this with Robinson.

He was being very boisterous in the 2020 election.

He got a lot of his name brand and ID based on him being such a loud and very vocal individual about his personal beliefs.

A lot of these candidates don't really stand out right now, because they aren't as boisterous as Mark Robinson.

And that can be a good thing and a bad thing going into the general election, but to differentiate yourself on something like the lieutenant governor race, you need something to get your name out there as a household name.

- Yeah.

And ideally, some sort of compelling story to tell.

I mean, a lot of candidates go back to their upbringing.

I mean, Mike Morgan has a very compelling upbringing that he featured in his ad, right?

So, and Mark Robinson, of course, has a very compelling background coming from poverty, you know, so if you have that story to tell as a candidate, it's a great asset.

Of course, you still need the resources to tell it.

If you're just, you know, like a boring guy like me, and Jim, you're more exciting than me.

But if you're boring like us, it makes it a lot more challenging to break through.

- I think the key thing for both parties, Democrats and Republicans, is the fact that the voices within the party have candidates that they're willing to support.

So as you come out of the primary, it's gonna be critical for both parties to build bridges back to those constituencies.

So it's going to be the post-primary March is going to be absolutely important, because, for example, if Robinson wins, he's gotta reach out to Graham and to Dale Folwell and build a bridge to bring back all the Republicans in a cohesive manner, so that they can do the general campaign.

Same thing for the Democrats.

- Yeah, excellent point.

The race for 2024 attorney general is one of the most anticipated races, due to the presumed matchup between republican Congressman Dan Bishop and democrat Congressman Jeff Jackson.

Both of these candidates are battle tested with campaign experience at the state and federal level.

Jim, what are you looking for in these races, whether it's inside money, campaign spending, or campaign fundraising, outside money, ads?

- Well, I'm curious on how much outside money is gonna come into this.

Both of these candidates are federal candidates now, now moving back towards the state.

So one, they have to transfer all of their funds from the FEC to state board now.

There's two different sets of rules, so they have to re-solicit those donors and get that money back.

They can't just take their bank, their war chest from the FEC and move it over.

So... - But you can move your money from a federal committee to the Democratic party.

- You can't.

It's Attorney General's Association, or the Republican, so I think you'll see Jeff Jackson and Bishop doing that with the party apparatuses.

- Oh, very much so, but they lose a lot of control over their own funds, so they have to re-solicit these donors, be able to get these money, this money back.

Both candidates raised over $2 million.

Jeff Jackson obviously raised a bit more in the Mecklenburg area, as well as more out-of-state funds.

That's very common.

We see through things like ActBlue, Democrats just have a lot more access to out-of-state money.

$5.7 million versus $1.9 million in fundraising in 2022.

It's gonna be a lot of money going into that AG race if they can keep up those same numbers.

- So Pat, it looks like these candidates are pretty evenly matched when it comes to fundraising, and they sort of seem to represent their parties pretty well.

Jeff Jackson representing the Democrat Party, Republican being with Dan Bishop.

What's gonna be a key differentiator?

- Well, this is the one I'm most excited about.

- Yeah.

- From the sport of politics perspective.

- Yeah.

- It's like the Chiefs and the Eagles on Monday night.

You have two- - [Anna] Just like that.

- Just like that.

You have two aggressive candidates who are not afraid of speaking publicly and on occasion brashly.

They're both smart, they're both sophisticated and savvy political operators.

I mean, this to me is gonna be the most fun race to watch.

And, you know, what differentiates them?

I don't think their personalities differentiate them as much as their visions for the role.

They're very philosophically different, right?

And I don't, I do question whether you can say that Jeff Jackson represents the North Carolina Democratic Party, particularly well.

I don't believe he's gotten any endorsements from anybody in the party as of yet.

At least he didn't, I don't think, in his congressional run, but I could be wrong about that.

But, you know, Dan Bishop has been in the state for a number of years.

He's been a pretty impactful policymaker at the state and federal level.

He'll likely talk a little bit about that, but certainly, I think focusing on what I think is a passion of his in terms of administering the law, right?

It's something, he's a lawyer, and he's, I think, a very technically savvy and proficient policy mind.

- Well, there's a big kink for Jeff Jackson, and that's Santana Deberry, the district attorney from Durham County.

She's entering the race.

She's got a base, you know, African American and voters of color within the Democratic Party represent 42 to 44% of the primary vote.

So Jeff Jackson does not have a clear highway to run, and wave the flag for the Democrats yet.

He's got to get through March.

And I will tell you, there is great grassroots organization going on among the voters of color to make sure that their voice is heard within the Democratic Party.

So you're seeing that.

And then secondly, the Democrats are absolutely scared to death of Dan Bishop, because they see him as the author of HB2, which was highly inflammatory and discriminatory and hateful to select universe of our society.

And they're gonna make that a driving point in the campaign to show that he is not very friendly to the LGBTQ community.

- Yeah.

Jim, you mentioned contentious ads a moment ago.

Do you think that we're likely to see a lot of HB2 ads?

- I think we're likely to see a lot of HB2 ads and a lot of abortion ads coming from Democrats.

And a lot of ads are going to be very targeted on these kind of specific things.

Abortion was a number one thing that they ran on going into 2022, and it was something that was throughout the municipal elections this November.

But I don't know if that's gonna have as much impact as they think they do.

It will in North Carolina.

We didn't really see that much impact in 2022 on the abortion issue here, as much as other states.

And while it'll be a good narrative for them on this and probably their best opportunity on it, it leaves Republicans the ability to explain, and it's difficult to explain the difference between an abortion ban and the 15 week policy they currently have, but it'll be a hard topic to talk about.

- Well, you're going to go from a 50% turnout in a midterm election to a 75 or 76% turnout in a general.

And the key demographic's going to be your white women in the suburban counties around our major television markets, whether it's Charlotte, Greensboro, High Point, Winston, and Raleigh markets, because that's where the votes are in the top form in metro areas.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

That's a brutal issue.

It is.

- Yeah, the General Assembly recently drew new congressional maps, and Republicans look to be picking up three or four more congressional seats.

Announcements have been pouring in.

Speaker Tim Moore announced his candidacy for the 14th district.

Former gubernatorial candidate Mark Walker has declared his intention to run in the sixth, and State Representative Erin Pare has announced for the 13th.

Pat, are we likely to see some more names jump into this before filing?

- Probably, but there's already a whole lot of names there already, and sort of a feeding frenzy here.

Just looking at the list of names.

I mean, you have the sixth district, which is moving to a safe Republican district.

I think Kathy Manning is the incumbent there now.

I mean, you have, you have Bo Hines giving it another try after coming up short in 2022 against Wiley Nickel.

You have Mark Walker running, for now, I think the third office in the last 18 months.

That's one, right?

You have the 13th district with the Devan Barber, who came in close second last time around to Bo Hines.

Erin Pare, of course, a well-known and respected figure in Republican politics.

Fred Von Canon, who's run before.

I think there was a super PAC announcement just this week about Brad Knott with an ad buy there.

I mean, everybody's off to the races in these competitive, not only the competitive seats, but also the open and/or competitive Republican primary seats.

- Yeah.

Brad, I'm very interested about the Bo Hines and Mark Walker dynamic.

Do you, they've already come out against one another on Twitter.

That was like a couple, a week ago or so.

How do you think that's playing out?

- Bo Hines needs to go get a job.

He needs to go to work.

He needs to prove something.

All the man has done is use his trust fund to run for public office.

And, you know, you ought to go out and try and accomplish something other than being a perennial candidate.

I think it's gonna be extremely difficult for him to defeat Mark Walker.

Walker has a grassroots organization in there.

He has a donor base.

He's held the seat before.

I think it's going to be, it'll take a stick of dynamite to beat him.

- Hm.

Wow.

Jim, what are your thoughts?

Do you think that that's gonna, Bo Hines' continual running for office is gonna play a negative role?

- I think the last time I checked, he had about $20,000 in his bank account right now, which is not much, but obviously he is financially pretty well off.

I think you might have a good point on that, Brad, but with Walker, he's got high name ID, even though he hasn't really run in, he's been running recently, but he was a congressman out of the Greensboro area for a good while.

There's still a number of people that remember him and think well of him out in that area.

I think between that and there being multiple people running for that race, other than him and Hines, I think Castelli is an example on there.

I think he's still signed up for the sixth district.

It's gonna be hard to beat out and get new voices in there with those high name ID candidates.

Bo Hines obviously is well known, just because he moved districts so much in 2022.

And Mark Walker is, well, he's been running for several races this last couple years, so I think his name ID is somewhat high at this point.

- Pat, with these candidates running in seemingly multiple ways in multiple places, how do you think that that's gonna impact their fundraising?

If they're moving around and saying, declaring for one thing and declaring for another?

Do you think donors are gonna get a little fatigued?

- Yeah, it's also a challenge, because just by nature of North Carolina redistricting being what it is for the last, you know, 25 years, they're basically new districts every couple of years.

- [Anna] Yeah.

- Every time somebody runs.

And so it's, I think, it's probably hard to get set, established, build a network in your own community, without knowing what the district's gonna look like or if you can even run there, right?

So yeah, that's a challenge.

Fundraising in a really crowded primary is a challenge.

People don't wanna pick the wrong horse.

So yeah, for all those reasons, you know, it's just hard to raise money in a primary in North Carolina, I think.

- Again, you're seeing the tribes within each party look at the lanes that they're in and picking candidates, and then moving the 13th district, the Wiley Nickel district, that's leaning Republican now.

It's just a perfect example of that.

You've got Leo Daughtry's daughter looking at it.

You've got Devan Barber looking at it.

You've got Brad Knott looking at it.

Knott's, you know, royalty within Wake County republicanism.

So clearly the constituencies are going to have a chance to choose their candidates.

The questions will be will the candidates have enough money to do voter engagement and voter contact and media and messaging?

- Yeah, absolutely.

The state legislative districts were redrawn this year, too.

Analysis projects the cost per vote in competitive legislative districts will likely be between $55 to $60.

To add to that, a competitive race in the 2022 cycle raised just shy of $3 million.

Brad, do you think we're gonna see a $3 million race this cycle?

- Look, when I started in 1992, the high end of a state house race was about $35,000, and the high end of a state senate race, $150,000.

So over 30 years, - Wow.

we've seen a lot of competitiveness in our political system.

Yeah, I think you could see a $3 million senate race, and I think you could see it in North Carolina Senate District 11, which is Lisa Stone Barnes.

- Yeah.

You could see it in Senate District three.

You could see it in Mary Bode's seat in North and Wake County and Granville County.

Those will probably be the hotbeds.

Rachel Hunt's open seat in Southern Mecklenburg leans Democratic, so I don't think that'll be super competitive, but the two hotbeds will be Nash, Franklin County, all the way up to Vance County and Senate District 11.

That is a half a point Biden favor.

Democrats, if they get a candidate who can compete, it will be a very hotly contested race.

- Yeah.

Jim, what do you think is to really account for this shift?

I mean, Brad did an excellent example of how much things have changed, but what do you attribute to that?

I mean, these positions pay less than $14,000 a year.

- I think a lot of it has been just how much politics is now embedded into our lives.

Getting any information out there to people and changing anybody's mind is not so much what we focus on anymore.

It's more about getting your base out to vote.

There's, I used to talk about that we had 20% of the people in the middle that we were trying to convince.

Now that it's shrinking down to about 10%.

- [Anna] Yeah.

- So it's no longer about convincing people in the middle there.

It's more about getting your base out for the general election.

So, and with that comes a lot of money you have to spend to try to convince them more and more to go out and vote.

It's why we'll probably see a lot of money dropped into the seventh as well out in Wilmington.

I think that's gonna be a pretty expensive race, even though it's the cheapest media market we've got.

- Even with the African Americans moved out into the next door district over in Columbus County that were gerrymandered out of the district, it's still gonna be super competitive in New Hanover County.

- Well, it doesn't move the district too much.

So what we do over at John Locke, we do a calculation for legislative districts.

It moved it from a tossup district at a D+0, R+0, however you wanna say it, over to an R+2, - Right.

so that's a very close district.

- Thank you guys so much.

That's all the time we have.

Thanks to our panelists for joining us today.

Email your thoughts and opinions to statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'm Anna Bevan Gravely.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.

[driving music] ♪ [driving music continues] ♪ - [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.