[upbeat orchestra music] - [Kelly] Could the Democratic Party debate over President Biden's reelection campaign affect races down the state ballot?

And multimillion dollar advertising buys are coming to three key state senate races.

This is State Lines.

- [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.

[upbeat orchestra music] ♪ - Hello again, welcome back to State Lines.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, a great crew, political consultant, Brad Crone, Representative Chris Humphrey of Green Jones in Lenoir County's debut.

Sir, welcome to the show.

- Thank you for inviting me.

- Seasoned veteran, Sydney Batch, Senator of Wake County, and another seasoned veteran keeping the media chair down, Nick Craig, host of Wilmington's Morning News Radio.

Welp, lot to talk about, legislature's died down a bit.

Brad, I know you're off camera, and I'm looking at you, but we're gonna go to you first, because I don't wanna revisit this, but national media outlets have us well informed of the Democratic Party's internal debate over President Joe Biden's reelection effort.

The president says he's pressing ahead.

Some of his core leaders might suggest he retire after one term.

Given that President Biden sits at the top of our 2024 ballot in North Carolina, what does this internal party debate mean for North Carolina Democrats, Brad?

- Well, the Democrats have to be worried about a Thelma and a Louise moment in the campaign with Biden at the top of the ticket.

Does the car fall off the cliff?

There are two really critical elements that the Democrats will be looking at, Democratic performance and then Trump performance.

Will the Democrats turn out if Biden's on the ballot or will you have unaffiliated voters suppressed say, I don't like either candidate.

So I'm not gonna go to vote.

Then the other component to it is where is Trump in his performance level if he wins North Carolina?

All the private data and all the public polling is showing Trump anywhere from six points all the way up to 11.9% in advantage right now.

Politico was reporting last night that the insiders within the Biden campaign had written off Nevada and North Carolina.

So if Trump performs higher than 5%, it becomes very problematic for Democrats at the state level.

If Trump performs at six or 7%, you have Governor Robinson, Lieutenant Governor Hal Weatherman, and Attorney General Dan Bishop, and you say, well, why do you say that?

Well, look at the data.

In 2016, Trump won the state by just over 3.2%.

Cooper beat McCrory by 10,000 votes.

2020, Trump wins by 1.5%.

Cooper wins by a hundred thousand votes.

So the threshold really is a 5% margin there, where if Trump wins five points or greater, there is a coattail effect, and it could be very damaging.

If it goes six or 7%, Elaine Marshall will be the only Democrat standing in the Council of State.

- Representative Humphrey, it does affect the ballot if people don't show up.

You may have some crossover voters there, but what does it say to you if this debate continues and people stay distracted at the top of that ticket over this instead of looking down ballot just a bit where you and Senator Batch will sit?

- Well, it's interesting to watch the debate the other week, and then you watch President Biden's press conference yesterday.

He continues to make gaffes, and the choices are challenging for a lot of voters.

My question is who do you want answering the phone at 3:00 AM, the old political ad that ran several years ago.

They say President Biden is only cognitive during normal business hours.

So to me, there's a lot of questions.

We got a long way to go till November.

So we'll see what happens.

- Do you see it affecting the state ballot?

Because this is State Lines, and we have other shows on PBS North Carolina.

How do you see it trickling down ballot?

Because MSNBC and Fox will keep us well informed about what they think of Trump and Biden.

- Yeah, I think you will see it affect down ballot.

I think the governor's race will be one of the most affected should the voters turn out to vote.

Some are gonna sit home.

So I think it's gonna be real important.

- Senator Batch, to your point, Wake County's got a lot of votes, and there'll be a lot of Trump and Biden votes in there.

Do you look at the top of the ticket, any sort of turmoil or any sort of news event?

Do you think about it as a senator running in that other spot?

- Yeah, I mean, I think to what Chris said.

I mean, there's some back and forth with regards to what's gonna happen at the top of the ticket, but at the end of the day, what I think most North Carolinians will hear is that Biden has actually contributed 400,000 new jobs to North Carolina, 2 million actual constituents and citizens here in North Carolina, have decreased prescription drug costs, and when you talk about what Brad mentioned is, at the end of the day, there is a huge delta between what happens at the top of the ticket and what happens on legislative races.

We have a gubernatorial race that will be the most expensive in history, and that is going to draw a ridiculous amount of attention, and so it's not just that people aren't gonna come out because they may or may not be excited about either candidate.

They're still gonna come out because of the gubernatorial here in North Carolina, and so we as legislators, especially at the state legislature, always have to, of course, keep our foot on the pedal, because at the end of the day, we're usually the forgotten race, but I do think that we have the ability to go ahead and break through.

- Not forgotten here, Nick, but to the point, you know, - No, [laughs] never.

- Voters, you know, I give voters a lot of credit.

They go in there, they look at the top of the ticket.

So what about Joe Biden and Donald Trump?

If you like a Democrat down-ballot, why in the world would whatever Joe Biden and Jill Biden decide to do, why should that affect Sydney Batch's race in Wake County or Elaine Marshall, or any of the other Democrats that are seeking reelection, by the fear?

- It's funny, even in the primary, you look and you can see the ballot drop-off even from primary voters are very different than general election voters.

And when you see that drop-off in the primary, Kelly, versus, you know, who votes at the top for the president and governor and then all the way down, that's even exacerbated more when you open it up to a likely general election voter, which in most cases is very different than a primary election voter.

One of the interesting things I'll note is unlike any other presidential election in history, everybody already has their minds made up on Trump or Biden.

There's not many people that are gonna be swayed either way.

And back to your point, it's gonna matter who turns out, and who can turn out the largest voting block in this state, which is the unaffiliated voter.

Whose candidates have wind behind their sails and can turn out their voters?

And that's going to decide whether Trump wins by three, five or 10.

- And what the enthusiasm gap is with your voters.

For example, if you have suppressed turnout in Wake County, Wake County typically turns out 75% in a presidential election year, you could have a situation where you have 68, 69% turnout, and that is significant for Democratic vote.

- A 7% vote.

RFK Jr's getting 7% of the vote, and he's not on the ballot.

Is that it?

- Well, you're gonna have pillage from both.

You're gonna have spillover from both parties.

Cornel West will be on the ballot - That's true.

- Here in the state too.

- They gotta let him on.

- So, it's going to be significant.

- Alright, well I want to talk about one other wrinkle, Brad, about this whole thing with President Joe Biden is the attention it's bringing to North Carolina.

Vice President Harris was in town this week, Roy Cooper right by her side.

He's wrapping up his second term, we know that, but it's now being reported she might will consider him on a short list of vice presidential contenders if President Biden steps aside.

Tell us about Roy Cooper.

All of a sudden, one of three or four top contenders if this thing falls apart and Democrats reshuffle the deck.

- Well, there's no doubt they have a close working relationship.

I think the vice president respects Roy Cooper, and all that he would bring for North Carolina.

It would be a game changer to have Cooper on the ballot because Cooper has proven time and time again that he can win votes here in North Carolina.

- Representative Humphrey, it's no fact that he's pushed through into Trump years into heavy Republican victory years of 16 and, what?

16 and 20.

Let me do my math.

What do you make of Roy Cooper as the Southern Democratic governor all of a sudden receiving sudden elevation, in a theoretical sense?

- Look, I won't dive into the internal challenges of Democrats, but I will say that Governor Cooper has been a leader, and he's had help from a conservative general assembly that has given him legislation that has helped businesses thrive in North Carolina.

So it's good to see North Carolina on a national stage.

Cooper is popular in rural areas and urban areas, obviously, but, you know, I think it's good for North Carolina to have the spotlight on it, even if Governor Cooper is named.

- Senator Baxter, there is a source of state pride with that, just the sheer mention.

If you found the right article, you would've seen his name mentioned.

But if this continues, North Carolina could be on the national stage very quickly, more than it already is.

- Yeah, I mean, I completely agree.

And we shouldn't be surprised with a southern governor who is moderate.

For whatever people want to make him to be, he is a moderate governor who is also going to be able to speak to multiple constituents across this country.

So I think it's a really smart choice, and frankly, he'd be on anybody's shortlist for a vice president, and he's already been talked about with regards to running for president at some point in the future.

So I don't think any of us should be surprised by that.

And as we move forward, it'll be really interesting to see, you know, he's made it very clear that he's supporting President Biden and he's supporting Vice President Harris, and he's doing everything to turn out the vote.

Even though he can just go ahead and retire and not do anything else, he's spending a lot of his time trying to make sure that Biden and the Harris ticket are well represented here.

- I could ask each of you this question, but I'll ask you, when you're in a party and you're under a structure with leadership structure, how risky is it to look at the top, at your leadership, in this case, the state or the national, and suggest that the person just quit or walk away from a career in politics when, in some part, they have helped you come along?

- Yeah, I mean, I think that you've heard some of that.

What I would say though is that we're a big... And the Democrats, they always say we're the big ten, you know, party.

And there are a lot of opinions, a whole lot of opinions.

And at the end of the day, I think that what you have seen is that Biden has invested both in field and in operations.

And while Brad said there's some talk about him pulling out of North Carolina, that does not seem to be true.

He's been spending millions of dollars here, and is really invested.

And so I think that at the end of the day, when you have the opportunity, you have two candidates there.

And I think it's hilarious that anyone thinks that they care about what we feel.

I'm like, "We have no control over what is actually going to happen."

But what I will say is that what Biden has delivered in the three-and-a-half years that he's been president is very clear, and that that's what we actually need to focus on.

I can't control anything else.

- Nick, back to Roy Cooper.

Republicans voted for Roy Cooper two times, and they voted for Donald Trump two times.

So Cooper as a Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, certainly interesting for the state, how do you think it, does it swing a few points here or there towards the Democrat side?

- Yeah, I think so.

I often call him Teflon Roy.

I mean if you look at political polling across the state, you look at Joe Biden's approval rating, it's in the mid-30s.

Then you look at Roy Cooper who would be the next person down besides the president outside of Congress and Senate.

He's in the mid-40s, and he's able to hold off what is going on at the national level, hold that kind of wall here in North Carolina.

He's very popular, to the Senator's point, he plays a good moderate.

I think if you look at some of his policies and the things that he demands, you would say that he's further to the left than moderates might want to describe him as.

But, Kelly, he has done a phenomenal job of staying above the fray of politics.

And it's why you look at a Democrat governor in, I think we could all say, a state that is controlled by Republicans, super majority in the General Assembly, majority of the Council of State, the courts.

He is a Democrat governor in a mid-40s to close to 50% approval rating in a Republican state.

That's pretty remarkable.

- How would he compare to Gavin Newsom?

And Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, he looks absolutely Hollywood, I mean is just a objective fact.

How does a moderate, soft-spoken gentleman compare against that, if we go to the national stage and we have to rally, or the people have to rally around their governor, maybe being at the top of any ticket?

- I think it's what we were discussing with the Joe Biden race in the previous segment.

Who's gonna win over that moderate voter?

People's minds are already made up on the top of the ticket.

The question is going to be, which candidates speak to those voters?

I call them ping pong voters.

They go down the ballot, they vote for some Republicans, some Democrats, who can speak to them, to me, Roy Cooper's is, can speak to them better than somebody like a Gavin Newsom or a Gretchen Whitmer that have a lot more negative press.

When was the last time you heard a bad story about Roy Cooper?

It just doesn't exist.

He stays below the fray.

He's very, very good at it, Kelly.

Brad, I wanna get your take on.

Oh, go ahead.

- Oh, and, I was just gonna say, so the other thing that's interesting when you look at polling is that it actually says that even when you take Gavin Newsom and even when you take, you know, Governor Whitmer, they're still polling lower against Trump than President Biden, right?

So at the end of the day, people are going ahead and saying, "Okay, you had a bad day.

There are these moments.

We have a clear decision."

You have four years that you can see of what Trump did.

You can have three-and-a-half years of what Biden has done.

That's a rarity that we have with regards to trying to compare things.

And you can decide whether or not you very clearly like the government that was run by one of the other individuals.

And what I would also just say is that at the end of the day, people could say what they want, but he's still polling greater.

The only person that's polling higher than him is Michelle Obama.

And guess what?

She's not running for President.

- Brad, you've worked with all kinds of Democrats, all kinds of people, different flavors and philosophies, 'cause it's not just Democrat/Republican anymore.

Roy Cooper and President Harris running, or Vice President Harris running together is a very interesting concept, whether you like that or not.

- Well, it'll be an interesting dynamic, too.

And I think the key point, if Biden ends up stepping out and that became a reality, it would clearly put North Carolina in play because Cooper has the formula to win here in North Carolina.

He's proven it time and time again, all the way from the State Senate, from the State House, and as Attorney General for 16 years, and then as governor for the last 8 years.

So clearly, I also say it foreshadows what could be a race in 2028 where you have Whitmer, where you have Raphael Warnock, where you have Roy Cooper and Gavin Newsom, all running for president.

- But do any of those other governors have a Republican super majority in the house that can say, "It was our policies that made you governor, not your leadership"?

- No, they don't.

No, they don't.

Three state senate races could decide whether Republicans hold a super majority in the North Carolina Senate.

Republicans announced they're launching a $5-plus million digital advertising purchase for just those three races.

Credit to Axios Raleigh reporting these three races will see up to $10 million in campaign spending by fall 2024.

The districts are in Granville and Wake County.

That's our friend Mary Wills Bode's district.

I'm almost certain, Brad, help me out.

Franklin, Nash, and Vance Counties is another race.

That third seat is down in New Hanover County, Nick.

Senator Michael Lee is in the Wilmington area.

If everyone's made their mind up, Nick, why do we need $5.5 million in about five counties?

- Well, you look at State Senator Michael Lee's race and the other three races that the NCGOP is really highlighting.

And I think it goes to show you how close really the governor's race is going to be in this state.

Obviously if there was a Republican governor in the state, yes, the majority in the General Assembly is important.

The super majority for the Republicans is not important.

We know how close the governor's race is going to be.

And to the credit of the North Carolina Republican Party, they don't want to take any chances with that.

And they need to make sure that they can withhold their super majority.

If Mark Robinson is unsuccessful in winning the governor's race, and it goes to show you how important that veto override is, dozens of veto overrides since the long session started in early 2023, that's very important to North Carolina Republicans.

And they're investing big time to make sure that they can hold onto those swing seats like New Hanover where the largest voting block is unaffiliated.

It's not Democrats.

It's not Republicans.

- Senator Bash, if someone handed any of us $5 million in exchange for a seat in the General Assembly, we could retire and make more money in salary off just the residuals of $5 million.

Why is a race worth multiples of millions of dollars in the State Senate, you guys make about $18,000 a year in some gas money.

Right?

- Yeah, I was gonna say, you're being nice.

You just gave us a raise.

It's 13,000 some dollars - 13?

- And some per annum that at least I get taxed on 'cause I'm in Wake County.

I can just say that, you know, given the fact that we have seen record numbers, especially with regards to television, it's still king in politics and they're still gonna go ahead and do that.

The TV buys right now are outrageous because of how much money's gonna come in for the presidential and the gubernatorial races.

What the indicator for me is, and having been the person who has been in the seat for the last and one of the most competitive state and house seats, Senate seats in the last three cycles, is that a lot of the money will come in and they will spend millions of dollars against our Democratic candidates like myself, except for it usually is only later on in the year, August, September.

What this is an indication to me is that they actually are fearful of the democratic candidates that are actually running against these members, and the growing trends in those districts are actually are trending away from the Republicans and they have to go ahead and invest heavily if they plan to go ahead and keep those seats.

- Alright, representative.

Your take?

- Well, it just shows a commitment of the Senate to keep these seats.

I think you take nothing, nothing for granted.

This is a big, big election year and anything can happen and you know, by looking at the top of the ticket as we discussed earlier, I think the Senate is putting their money where their mouth is and not taking any chances.

- As someone who runs and you see money spent for you and against you, do you really feel the effect of that much money coming at you, 'cause I know you see an ad that talks bad about you and that must make you feel bad, but do you really feel it as a candidate or is it just something that happens and you look at a poll and go, it worked, it didn't?

- I think in a presidential year there's so much advertisement coming at you, so many direct mailers, it's hard to really tell.

I mean, you feel good when you see it, but you really don't know how to feel about it, honestly.

- I see more signs for the state senate and rep when I go down home down in, down in Samson County.

Lot of, you know, Brent Jackson and- - Yeah, - Different candidates.

- And signs, you know, historically they just, they don't work right, they can't vote.

People spend a lot of money, they feel good about it.

People would always get frustrated with me that you don't have enough signs.

I was like, okay, well you can buy your own sign if you want, but at the end of the day, what actually matters is television.

So I would not, I did not like going to the grocery store during an, like, during the time that you're always on television 'cause you don't know why people are looking at you.

I'm like, how do I know you and how is this conversation gonna go?

Especially when I'm out with my kids.

But at the end of the day, I think what has been very clear is that I've had so many people come up to me to say, hey, I really liked your commercial, or hey, did you see this about you, et cetera.

And so I do think that it's extremely impactful and unfortunately it's the most expensive way that we have to communicate with voters.

- Well, and one interesting point to note, you mentioned about the Republicans getting ahead of this, which is abnormal, to the credit of the Democrats, they've done a really good job.

They've been running digital billboards against representatives Ted Davis and State Senator Michael Lee since the long session last year, hammering them over some of their votes.

So it is an interesting trend to see Republicans get in on this way earlier.

It's normally after Labor Day until the election.

- The interesting thing that I see is that since 2010, Jim Blaine has been really a strategic master chef on making sure that he gets in early and defines the race, and that's what early money does in a campaign.

What you're not hearing about are the investments they're putting into Lisa Stone Barnes' campaign into your race down in Southern Wake County and to Terrence Everett's race up in Northern or the Rachel Hunt seat down in Mecklenburg.

These aren't the only races that they're playing in.

Yeah, they put out the press release saying, hey, look at our TV spots.

But they, the Senate Republicans have the ability to play in every single district across the state if they had to.

- Is it incumbent on Democrats in this case to run good, good quality candidates who might lose just to keep the money from concentrating in three or four key areas?

- Absolutely, but here's the key thing that the Democrats have never recovered from since 2010, is support from the business community and broad base support.

For example, from the Chamber, from Duke Energy, and from from the major players within the business community.

Dan Blue has not been able to capture enough revenue to be able to run the type campaigns that he needs to to be competitive.

- No, except for the fact that I would also say is that there has been a very heavy hand in punishments when you act accordingly and you decide to go ahead and align.

You saw that frankly with Medical Society when they came out with regards to SB 20 and the abortion, they got hit over the head by both leaders and the chambers.

And so there are a number of businesses, there's a number of business leaders that quietly give to us but are not gonna be in a position where they want it reported.

And the reason why is because frankly the leadership by the Republicans and the General Assembly has been very punitive when they have actually gone against them.

- Alright, well the 2024 legislative action has featured a high amount statistically of gubernatorial vetoes.

North Carolina governors have only been holding veto power since the mid nineties.

So when you set a record, you're not saying much in terms of state history, but a journalist Brian Anderson, he writes a substack called Anderson Alerts, has been counting the vetoes.

He says 27 vetoes have been issued, this year's the second most ever.

And those 27 vetoes have all been overridden by Republican super majorities in the House and Senator Batch.

So we talk about a $5 million, three Senate race campaign.

There you go, that's 27 vetoes, just a couple more democratic votes and the governor has a real bargaining chip.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that that's the reason why you see so much investment in the Senate and I assume that you'll see it in the house to go Keep the super majorities because you can try and do what you want and lower the power the way that you wanna do.

What you can see is the distinction between the first two years of Governor Cooper not having, you had a super majority, and then the four years during the time that he was there, where he was able to go ahead and veto a lot of bills and that we were able to, as the Democratic party, in both chambers sustain all of those, which is about 48 vetoes.

Now you just find people, now you just find that, because there's a super majority in both chambers, that he doesn't have the ability to, obviously, sustain them.

I wish that my Republican colleagues would spend as much fervor as they have on the super majority as they would actually legislating, especially for a budget, when we know that there are a lot of state employees and teachers that need raises.

- Representative Humphrey, with a super majority, you can pass any bill you want, pretty much, provided as you can get it by Phil Berger in the Senate, and you don't worry about a Democratic governor to negotiate with.

How does that affect bill writing and how would it change things if you all of a sudden have to sit down with a Democrat and deal with one?

- Well, it would make things a little bit different, for sure.

You know, fortunately that's not the way it is, though.

So, you know, voters elected us from our districts and across the state and, you know, they expect us to pass the agendas that they sent us to Raleigh to complete.

And, you know, it's kind of fun being a super majority, when you can override vetoes.

It can't be fun being in the minority.

I've been a minority member as a county commissioner, so I-- - My gray hair, I can remember when Democrats had super majorities, all the way back to the '72, all the way back to 2008, so the shoe fits on both feet.

- And it'll change, ain't it?

I mean, election cycles and, I mean, they change every time, so-- - Brad, when it comes to the vetoes, though, when you know your veto can be overridden, when is it a bargaining tool to really get a good deal and when can I play, if I'm governor, political theater, knowing that I can do any veto I want and they're gonna override it?

- That's gotta be the rallying cry for Democrats because you have to break the super majority so that you've got bargaining power to go to the leadership, to bring everybody to the table, and hammer out a bill that's going to be best for the people in North Carolina.

- All right, I wanna, one last topic, I only have two minutes.

Representative Humphrey, to you, Aetna Health Insurance scored a big court victory this week.

A judge says the State Health Plan Board did, in fact, have a valid vote.

Blue Cross Blue Shield has been managing the state health plan for decades.

It lost a contract due to that vote.

The state, it says the state changed how it scored bidding so that Aetna could win the contract over them.

The insurance company, in this case, manages the state health plan, but state funding covers the medical cost.

This is the confusing issue.

But Blue Cross will be gone from state health plan and you represent a ton of state health plan policy holders.

What do you make of this, Aetna coming in, Blue Cross going out with a court fight and promises that your constituents will not see one hiccup in healthcare coverage?

- Well, I've been in the insurance business for over 25 years, so I understand.

There's 700,000 state employees and retirees and what concerns me is healthcare in rural areas.

Blue Cross, their mission is to grant access to medical care in all 100 counties.

I don't know that Aetna has a network in Lenoir, Greene, and Jones County.

I've never seen them, I don't know much about 'em, and that concerns me.

I'm afraid that rural healthcare access is gonna be stymied, but we'll see.

I mean, the proof's in the pudding.

- You've got, I've got a new show format for future weeks to ask that question to Mr. Pat Ryan.

Sydney Batch, your, 45 seconds, last word.

- Yeah, I would just go ahead and say that, at the end of the day, if we want to really believe in a competitive market and capitalism, there's an RFP that was put out.

And so a number of people, actually, a number of the companies bid and Aetna received the plan.

I agree, I think that we need to make sure that there's going to be coverage, et cetera.

I'm on the state health plan.

I want my doctors to actually be with Aetna as well.

We'll find out soon enough.

But I do believe that the leadership with the state health plan will ensure that there's enough coverage across the state for everyone.

- All right, I'm outta time.

Thank you for being on the show, good to see you.

Good debut, Representative.

Thank you for watching.

Email your thoughts, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'll read every email.

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

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