- [Kelly] We review and analyze the results from Super Tuesday in North Carolina.

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.

[dynamic music] ♪ - Welcome back to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today a very distinguished panel.

Representative Jason Saine of Lincoln County.

Beside him, Senator Paul Lowe of Forsyth County.

And WUNC's Capitol Bureau Chief, Colin Campbell.

Gentlemen, thank you.

- Thanks for having us on.

- Thank you, glad to be here.

- You and I have one job today.

Talk about all the primary results.

Congratulations, you both are at least willing to put up with it for two more years in the legislature if you can win the general.

- Also, congratulations.

- Well, we'll leave it to your colleagues to decide that.

This show is gonna focus on the state ticket tonight, folks, because to be honest with you, don't you already know enough about Trump and Biden from watching the cable news?

Let's just be honest about it.

So we'll start with Josh Stein.

He's gonna represent the Democrats in the 2024 governor's race.

He defeated former State Supreme Court Justice, Mike Morgan, with 69% of the Democratic primary vote.

Over on the GOP side, Lieutenant Governor, Mark Robinson, won the GOP nomination for governor.

He defeated State Treasurer, Dale Folwell, and Salisbury Attorney, Bill Graham.

There you see the numbers.

64% for Mr. Robinson, and then Treasurer Folwell at 19, and Bill Graham at 16% support.

Colin Campbell, here's what I say, the polls did not lie, but the poll we covered on this show last week showed Bill Graham and Dale Folwell at 9% and some where at 8%.

That's a full 10 percentage points off.

Do we read into this as we go through the summer that we may think we know who's leading, but do we know?

- I think some of that's the challenge 'cause I talk to voters who a lot of times they go down the ballot, they're making up their minds the last night.

They're Googling these guys.

I mean, we see an increase in our search traffic to our website for campaign stories, like, hours before the polls open because people are just, like, procrastinators.

So it's really hard as a pollster when you cold-call somebody and they haven't been paying attention, and they're trying to be like, well, I think I've heard about Mark Robinson.

No, I haven't looked into these other guys yet.

So that may have been the reason that they did perhaps a little bit better, but I think overall, Robinson with two-thirds of the vote, Stein with 70% of the vote, it's a pretty big blowout.

And the money that was spent to advantage some of those other candidates just didn't seem to go very far at all.

- Senator, what is a good blowout in a primary?

You want a hundred percent of the vote if you get all the support of your party, but what's a good showing?

- I had a primary, so I've come ahead, good showing.

- [Kelly] Feel good about it though.

- You know, but, you know, the thing that I look at is in all seriousness, 50% plus one is 50% plus one, it really doesn't matter.

It just doesn't matter.

50% plus one you won.

And I think that's what, at the end of the day that we really look at.

Now, I know that some of us that are the political types, we wanna really analyze those numbers, whether it's 65% or 69%, but the fact of the matter is 50% plus one you won.

- Remember that elections and polls are just snapshots in time.

It's who showed up that day, what's happening that day, what's the mood.

I think you saw in the Republican primary, still enthusiasm for Trump, even though he was running away with it because of the national news that was talking about it so that factored into it, but it also meant that, you know, look, there was some negative campaigning going on against Robinson in that last week in my mailbox for sure.

And my wife is a Republican primary voter, too, so we were seeing it.

So that could lead to an explanation as to why the polling wasn't exactly accurate, because it got poured on right there at the end and they're not taking a poll a day before.

So you've got some lead time there.

There's a lot of ways to explain it.

You could also look at the numbers until you just go blind and you can read too much into it.

- I saw a huge push for Dale Folwell, Colin.

I think state employees weren't really supporting Dale Folwell for his work with them as state treasurer, but why a week before?

If the polls are showing 70% for Robinson, why not not start six months ago and whittle away?

- I think that was the challenge is Folwell just didn't have that much money in his campaign initially.

Bill Graham was spending several million dollars of his own money, but then he was sort of splitting the anti Robinson vote a little bit, and it made it harder to get momentum behind anybody opposed to Robinson.

And then you just had low turnout.

So you had very committed Republican primary voters, probably fewer moderates, and, therefore, people who saw some of the criticism of Mark Robinson, of some of the things he said about very controversial issues, and thought that's not a disqualifying thing as it might be for someone more in the political middle.

- All right.

Senator Lowe, what do you make of Mike Morgan?

He got in a little late, I think around September 1st.

State Supreme Court, he's a good candidate.

I thought Democrats thought he was a good candidate, but was it the wrong time?

- I think that in any race, you gotta give yourself some time, you know, time to plan, time to raise money, time to strategize, and time to be before the voters.

And I just think that time was not necessarily on his side.

- 180 days or so.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And to the Republican side representatives saying as you deal with potential candidates, are there candidates you do go to and say, you'd make a great candidate for this and it'd be sincere, I think you could win, versus when do you get out of a person's way to say, I'm gonna run for governor and I know what I'm up against, win or lose.

- Well, you know, we sit in some of the House races.

We recruit, I'm the conference leader.

Part of my job is protecting our incumbents.

Part of it is identifying future talent too, right?

It's a fine line.

You can't ask somebody not to run.

They've got a right to do so.

It's a free country.

Anybody can go file, but to what Senator Lowe said, folks usually need a little time to marinate, if nothing else.

When you've got such a short window, you might be a great candidate, but it might be in the next election because a lot of that is building relationships and just understanding the political ground game.

I mean, there is a science to it.

So you don't just file and people just clamor to you.

They don't pay enough attention.

They start paying attention to Colin's point, right before the election, but if you've built that longer term relationship with voters, it becomes a lot easier.

And you saw that advantage with Robinson.

I mean, he's been out in front for better, for worse, whether it's a comment offhand or whatever.

He's on television, he's in the newspaper, he's on radio.

So you see him more.

Bill Graham jumped in, had a lot of money, but didn't have that long-term benefit of being out in the public eye, so.

And then you could end up in a race where there's two unknowns, right?

And then you just see who does the ground game, who does the spending, who does whatever.

- But people who liked Folwell, when he was the second place finisher, they liked him because he was the treasurer of North Carolina.

Well, if you supported Dale Folwell and you support his efforts, now you don't have him running for governor and you've just lost a state treasurer who you liked his work.

- Right.

- What do you make of that?

I mean, that's, okay, gone.

Now we're starting over in the treasurer's race and it's a wide open governor's race.

- Yeah, yeah, well, you know, you got a guy that, I mean, to your point that's obviously electable statewide.

He was well-liked among the loyal party folks when he'd show up, but also, it's kinda like being cast in the wrong role maybe, right?

If you talk to Dale, he's very serious about the people's money, and he's very good at managing that money.

And people saw him in that role.

They maybe didn't see him as a governor, right?

That could have been as much of their decision-making as anything else.

I mean, it's just like Robinson, so.

A different day, a different snapshot in time, it could have been different.

- I think the funny thing about this is what resonates with people.

I met, you know, I had somebody tell me, they said they looked at a mailer and they said, "Your wife, that's why I'm voting for you."

They didn't know my wife, but whatever they got out of that picture, they said they were gonna- - [Colin] You seemed trustworthy by comparison, yeah.

- Right, you know, I mean.

So I think that in one sense, there is a science to this I guess, and then in another sense, it's kind of like, no pun intended, a crapshoot, you know, because people, you know, we're dealing with people and their very unique reasons why they may choose one candidate over another.

- And you had some races with, like, 14 candidates and policy wise, they were all the same.

I mean, watch the ads on some of the congressional races on the Republican side.

It was just immigration, border security, ad after ad after ad, and there was no distinctive, what is this guy gonna do different about this issue?

So it really was, people were voting on different attributes.

- That's statement six, Colin Campbell.

You're jumping ahead.

I've got a half hour show to tell.

Let's talk about attorney general.

That race across North Carolina, no surprise.

Again, Republican Dan Bishop will face Democrat Jeff Jackson in the general election.

Representative Jackson took nearly 55% of the Democratic vote holding off the challenge of the Durham County District Attorney, Satana Deberry.

The DA entered the race well after Jeff Jackson, once again, Senator Lowe, and still received 33% of the vote.

Dan Bishop ran unopposed in the GOP primary.

Both of the primary nominees are leaving the U.S. House.

Senator Lowe, to be a statewide office holder, hopefully, one of 'em is gonna go home, or at least go back to work in the private sector.

So here we go.

Attorney general's race.

Pretty interesting on the Democratic side.

- It's pretty interesting both ways.

I've served with both.

Certainly with Jeff Jackson, and I also served with Dan Bishop.

I don't know Satana at all.

I don't know her other than what I read, but I think that it's gonna be a very fun race to watch, I think.

I think it's gonna be a fun race to watch, and I think there's gonna be some real action there.

And I think that we're gonna see a startling difference between policy and how both of them approach policy and the kinds of things that an attorney general would do.

So I think it's gonna be very, very interesting.

- Whoever had to say, set aside Democrat, Republican, Jeff Jackson has a really cool idea of social media and he comes across very well with the Tom Cruise look kind of thing.

Can Dan Bishop replicate that, or should he take a different approach?

- Well, Dan's interesting in his own right, right?

I mean, he's very philosophical.

I've known him since he ran for local office the first time.

I was a UNC Charlotte College Republican putting out signs out in the city of Charlotte when he was running.

He is very, one, very knowledgeable of the law, which when you're selecting an attorney general, that's probably something good to have.

He's very plain-spoken in what he says.

You never have to wonder where he's at.

He has some media prowess, much different from Jeff Jackson, but it is going to be an interesting race because of that, because they are two very different people philosophically.

And I think it's gonna be one of the most interesting races, and there's a lot of money gonna come in on both sides from outside of the state because of who's running.

And this will be a race to watch for sure.

It's not gonna be a sleeper by no means.

- Set aside that governor's race with super majorities on the GOP side, Colin and I could be governor and it'd make about as much difference probably, but the AG is a different matter, that's legal representation of the state.

Is this a big race for legislative Republicans to watch?

I mean, they're all big, but what is it about this compared to the governor?

- Well, no, it is because, you know, you're basically looking for who's gonna be the enforcer of some of the laws that we pass, right?

And a partner or no partner, right?

Who could gum up the works a bit on the things that we intend to do.

And when we pass laws, what we want to see happen, the attorney general can play a very pivotal role there as much as a governor can.

And to your point, when we've got super majorities not as much for the governor, but the AG can have a big impact.

And so yeah, it's gonna be something that our rank and file members in House and Senate on the Republican side are gonna be looking at.

And I'm sure the same on the Democrat side, because it is important.

- Colin, I'm gonna say it.

The Republicans have to keep that super majority.

There's no guarantees with anything this election cycle.

- Yeah, I mean that's also been more of a priority for them than the governor's office because if they keep the super majority, Josh Stein as the governor, they can still pass what they want.

- But the AG, but the AG's office it seems to be important.

I've seen more hackles between Phil Berger and Tim Moore and the AG now.

- 'Cause the challenge is that so many of these laws that get passed in the legislature get a lawsuit the next day.

And it's the AG's job typically to defend those.

In the past, Stein has decided because he views the laws as unconstitutional, that he's not gonna defend them.

When I talk to Jeff Jackson, he's got the same philosophy about it.

So I think that's part of the equation here, right?

- Will statewide voters look further down the ballot than the governor?

And will they see attorney general as I would say, as important of a race as insiders would see this race?

- I think that this race, from where I sit, I think it's gonna be extremely partisan, period.

- Like partisan partisan on issues, or partisan mean, like personal?

- Well, I don't necessarily see those two individuals as personal mean, but what I do see is, you know, there's stark differences in both of them.

You make no mistake, you know that Jeff Jackson is a Democrat.

You will not falter there.

You know that Dan Bishop is a Conservative Republican.

You will not falter there.

And people are gonna draw the line.

They're just gonna draw the line.

And I think that's where the fight is gonna be, because philosophically, they're just so diametrically opposed.

- I totally agree, I mean, I think, it almost becomes like when we made judge races partisan.

People go to their corners.

And it's what kind of legal philosophy do you want?

Do you want what I think what voters will perceive as law and order, and what voters will see as being soft on crime.

I think that plays into it.

And so that's the challenge for Jeff Jackson, but it's also the challenge for Dan Bishop to make sure that he's owning that side of it.

I think that gives him maybe a slight advantage, but there's also gonna be so much money, and so a lot can be compensated there as far as kinda name ID and who folks like.

Jeff Jackson, to your point earlier, I mean, he's done very well with social media and seems likable in that format.

- Does Jeff Jackson have a challenge because DA Deberry ran on a progressive criminal justice and reform platform and earned a third of the vote with about two months of campaigning.

How does he go after Dan Bishop tough on crime, if tough on crime means traditional methods of attacking crime?

- When I talked to Jeff Jackson for a story I did a couple weeks ago, he talked a lot about the fentanyl issue, which I think sort of focusing on a crackdown on drugs, I think can sort of get him in that lane.

Deberry's success perhaps was less about what her platform was and the fact that the Republican Attorney General's Association spent a million dollars on ads promoting her candidacy to Democrats.

And people didn't realize who they were getting texts and commercials from, but that was because the Republicans thought that she might be a weaker candidate, they could beat her more easily than Jackson.

- Yeah, well, speaking of money coming in for Democrats, Catherine Truitt could have used some of that money, I think, for state superintendent of public instruction.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

There's gonna be a new superintendent of public instruction, I got it wrong.

Catherine Truitt, our sitting superintendent lost the GOP primary to Michele Morrow, 52% to 48% this week.

Ms. Morrow will face off against Democrat, Mo Green, in the general.

Mr. Green is a former Guilford County School superintendent, attorney for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

He was also the former chairman of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation until last year when he retired.

Michele Morrow is a citizen candidate.

She's very proud of that.

She tells her grassroots work, Representative Saine, to pass legislation supporting parental rights and religious freedoms.

And her outline of her website says she's proud of her 16 years as a homeschool parent and has experienced creating curricula across topics like civics, history, science, and English.

And I went right to her website and got that.

I get what Twitter's doing with this race and everybody's attacking.

This seems very personal, but there's a policy here between both of these candidates.

Morrow wins Truitt who ran a university is out.

Take it from there if you're a GOP leader, such as yourself, who recruits candidates.

- Well, I didn't recruit in this one.

I had endorsed Catherine Truitt, and believe that she has done a great job, but politics are politics, like I say, snapshot in time.

And voters don't always know when they go to the polls the qualifications of who they're supporting.

Sometimes it's advertising.

Sometimes it's who hands them that last piece of paper at the polls and says, here, vote for my candidate, please consider him.

And if you're nice enough and the person was pleasant, they might go get that vote if they hadn't made up their mind.

That was still a very close race.

We don't think about superintendent of public instruction.

It's not top-of-mind of every voter when they go into the polls, but I think that the grassroots campaign that Morrow ran was very effective at picking up those last couple of weeks, and finding those voters, and getting them to go cast a vote in a race that they normally don't pay attention to.

That being said, moving into the general, that's a much different race.

It's a race that if you're gonna run statewide, and when there's a presidential race on the ballot, we're gonna have a big turnout.

It may not be as much as 2020, maybe more, who knows?

But that is a much different campaign.

Grassroots work really well in a smaller setting.

When you've gotta run statewide, you've gotta compete.

You've got party mechanisms that are trying to put their whole ticket forward, trying to stand out.

And we know that voters split tickets in North Carolina.

We've seen it many, many times.

That's gonna be the difficulty for Morrow.

- Colin, what do you make of this race?

It's interesting.

- This was arguably the biggest surprise of the night, I think.

None of us were really paying that close attention to Morrow's candidacy, in part because Truitt had so much more money.

She had endorsements from pretty much everybody on Republican leadership side, worked with the legislature on a lot of these curriculum issues, but I think voters didn't necessarily understand, like, where she was at in terms of, like, Parents' Bill of Rights, and things.

Morrow was able to tap into sort of this kind of moms for liberty homeschool crowd who are very concerned about educational curriculum and want somebody doing more and more fiery advocacy against, like, LGBTQ type material in schools, things like that.

And they'd gravitated towards her, even though Truitt probably was similar in her stance on some of those issues.

- The interesting dynamic for me watching this as a citizen of North Carolina first, host second, is this is a populous candidate against how else would you describe Mo Green as an establishment candidate?

He's a former superintendent, my goodness.

- Well, I don't wanna be guilty of saying too much on this show 'cause Mo is a dear friend.

- Go for it, we're amongst friends here.

- And I'm promo Green, so I'll just tell you I'm promo Green.

I'm one of the people that talked to him very early on.

Establishment because he has worked in this venue, you know.

He's worked in education at a high-level for a long time.

And I think for public instruction, I think to me that's important.

Somebody that's actually done it.

On the other hand, there's a firebrand here, you know, that's homeschooling.

They've really been able to push that whole narrative and the things that go along with that.

So I think it's gonna be very, very interesting to see what happens there.

You know where my vote's going, my vote's going to Mo, but it's gonna be very interesting to watch.

- Well, as a Democratic senator, I would expect you to be loyal to the party.

We got about five minutes left and we're not halfway through what I wanna talk about.

We may not get there, so are you up for some fast talk?

All right, lieutenant governor's race, wide open.

Mark Robinson running for governor.

He's leading the lieutenant governor's office.

Democrat Senator Lowe had no problem choosing their nominee.

Republicans will need a runoff.

State Senator, Rachel Hunt received 70% of the vote over Ben Clark is in the legislature for years.

Hal Weatherman and Jim O'Neill will enter the Republican runoff.

They're the top two finishers, but you need 30%, Colin, to claim victory.

Weatherman is an election integrity advocate.

He is worked in this space.

Former chief of staff under former Lieutenant Governor, Dan Forest.

Jim O'Neill's up in Forsyth County to the DA there.

And he ran a couple of really close races for state attorney general.

So statewide experience in this runoff coming up.

And Rachel Hunt.

Rachel Hunt, that's Jim Hunt's daughter.

And we won't go further there.

We'll wait for her this fall.

- Yeah, for sure, and the runoff is in mid-May probably lower turnout 'cause all you're gonna have is lieutenant governor, state auditor and a couple Republican congressional races.

Nothing on the Democratic side.

- Size it up, Senator Lowe, that lieutenant governor's race.

People always kinda look down on the lieutenant governor for the weakness of it, but you're there every day presiding over the Senate.

- Well, I don't know if you're there every day.

- [Colin] The attendance record has not been there for quite a while.

- I don't know if they're there every day.

I think that system has kind of shifted where you see them from time to time.

Jim O'Neill, I know Jim.

I know Deanna Ballard, we served together.

And I know Rachel, we served together, and I'm certainly once again, for Rachel.

- Well, the action is on the GOP ticket for this race.

- Well, looking at that primary, and again what Colin said, it's gonna be low turnout.

There's not a lot driving people out, so, when you look statewide.

So, Hal Weatherman's been in the trenches.

I met Hal when we were working together on Sue Myrick's campaign back in 1994.

He understands kind of the hand to hand combat of grassroots.

I think that probably gives him an advantage here.

No disrespect, but he knows the state and he's traveled the state.

Yes, he's run for attorney general before, that's great, but in a low turnout, the person that connects with those voters that are actually going to the polls that day, probably gives him a slight advantage.

- All right.

Colin, we'll come back to you.

Let's talk about a couple U.S. House races very quickly.

About 20 seconds for each of you.

We're gonna need a runoff in the 6th Congressional District, which covers the triad area.

Former U.S. Representative, Mark Walker, and Addison McDowell will be in the GOP runoff.

McDowell credits Donald Trump's endorsement for his primary success.

There is no Democrat in this race.

Representative Kathy Manning, the Democrat is retiring because of the way the district was drawn.

Colin, she didn't think she could win.

So a very low turnout in that district is gonna put a congressman in Washington, D.C. - Yeah, and I think that Trump endorsement for McDowell, even though he's a lobbyist who nobody really heard of outside of the legislative building until December, that I think can make a difference.

A lot of outside groups were spending money to attack Mark Walker and his record.

So I think they'll continue to spend money against him in the runoff.

- Senator Lowe, 20 seconds.

Are you following all these House races?

There's only 14 of them.

- No, I'm not following.

Well, I know both of them, I know both of them.

And I have worked with one of them as a lobbyist, so we'll see.

- Representative Saine.

- I think with the Trump endorsement, the negative campaigning, I think Addison McDowell probably the odds are for a win.

- Does Addison McDowell lean into that Trump endorsement?

- He does.

- That's a given there.

- I don't say there's no Democrat.

There is no general election.

- I think he's gonna win, but, you know.

- All right, let's go to the 13th District.

I got one minute left.

Covers all around Raleigh, but not Raleigh.

Needs a runoff to select a Republican nominee to be Kelly Daughtry and Brad Knott.

Kelly Daughtry, Leo Daughtry's daughter got almost there.

Both are attorneys and are running against Frank Pierce, who won the uncontested Democratic primary.

Representative Saine, very quickly on this, 20 seconds.

That could be a fun race, and I've heard a lot of names in this.

- It's gonna be a fun race.

And you're gonna see whoever the other opponents that lost lineup behind could be the advantage there.

They've got their own forces.

They'll be out there in force.

Whoever they get behind is probably gonna be the winner.

- Senator Lowe, 10 seconds.

- We'll see.

- There you go.

- Colin, interesting race.

Local race for radio, reporters, and news, and the bubble of the triangle.

- Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see if we get some high profile endorsements.

Trump and Mark Robinson didn't endorse in that race initially with the 14 candidates.

Now that it's down to two do they jump in?

We'll see.

- You know, I gotta have you guys back on because we got through everything on the rundown that we put together.

Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being on the show.

Thank you for watching.

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

We will read every email and share them.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

We appreciate you watching here at PBS NC.

And I hope to see you next time here on the show.

Bye-bye.

[dynamic 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.