- Hi, I'm Marc Rotterman.

Coming up on "Front Row", we'll preview Tuesday's midterm elections.

Analysts predict diesel fuel shortages in the Southeast, and U.S. Supreme Court considers the fate of affirmative action in college admissions, next.

- [Narrator] Major funding for "Front Row" with Marc Rotterman is provided by Robert L. Luddy.

Additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And by Funding for the Lightning Round provided by, Nicholas B. and Lucy Mayo Boddie Foundation, A.E.

Finley Foundation, NC Realtors, Rifenburg Construction, Stefan Gleason.

A complete list of funders can be found at PBSNC.org/Frontrow.

[dramatic music] ♪ - Welcome back.

Joining the conversation, Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Foundation, Political Analyst Joe Stewart, Colin Campbell, Editor of the North Carolina Tribune and Public Relations Consultant, Pat Ryan.

Joe, why don't we begin with the battle for control of the U.S. House and Senate.

- Yeah, very interestingly, you know, we know the U.S. Senate is held now 50/50 with the Vice President being the deciding tie-breaking vote in the election of 2022.

The idea was that the Republicans as a result of the dynamic of a midterm election, might have the opportunity to pick up enough seats to have an actual majority in the U.S. Senate.

What that necessitates, of course, is that the Republicans hold all the states where they currently have a Republican senator and then turn a particular state where there was a Democrat.

Well, it looked like a really difficult lift three months ago.

- August.

- But not so much now [laughing].

- Right.

- Not so much now.

States like Pennsylvania that look like there could even possibly be a Democratic pickup are now starting to trend for the Republican candidate.

Now, here in North Carolina our U.S. Senate race Richard Bird decided not to run for elections.

So this a Republican held U.S. Senate seat.

So, in effect, the Republicans need to hold North Carolina if their strategy to take the majority of the U.S. Senate is to work.

Ted Budd pulling away in the polling that's come out most recently showing him on average, the real clear politics average, of publicly available polls show him up about five percentage points on average.

And they make the point on their website that going back to 2016 to this current election, Republican performance in U.S. Senate races in North Carolina has generally been about two and a half percentage points greater than whatever the polling showed in the final week.

So I think we will see a Republican U.S.

Senator in North Carolina.

- [Host] Okay.

- They'll hold theirs.

In the U.S. House, again, Republicans need to pick up five seats in the U.S. Congress to take the majority in the House of Representatives.

It didn't look like North Carolina would add to that.

- [Host] Right.

- But now one race down in the northeastern corner of the state, Don Davis.

- [Host] Okay.

- A Democrat running against Sandy Smith in a district that leans Democrat, it might ultimately end up as a result of the red wave being a net gain for Republicans in terms of our congressional delegation aiding to their efforts.

- [Host] Right.

- In the U.S. House.

- You know what struck me, Mitch, was a massive shift of of independent women to their GOP.

- Yeah.

We've really seen that in recent months and I think that shows that some of the strategy that the Democrats had employed ever since that Dobbs' decision may not have been the best way to go.

People are focusing much more it seems on the economic issues, inflation, the fact that the economy doesn't seem to be performing as well as people would like, that hits people in the pocketbooks.

There's also still concern about violent crime, immigration issues and abortion is an important issue but it doesn't seem to be the driver that Democrats have been painting it out to be.

- What are the closing messages by each each party, my friend?

- Well, you still see the abortion message going hard on the Democratic side.

You see the, you know, democracy at stake sort of issues sort of trying to tie to proponents to Trump, that sort of thing.

Republicans are really going hard, particularly on the crime issue, but obviously inflation has been what they've been hitting them from day one and they're hitting even harder now.

- [Host] Those are quality of life issues, though, right?

- Yeah.

Those are issues that people think about and experience every single day when they buy gas or go to the grocery store.

You know, I think I read an article a couple weeks ago where a prominent Democrat said that we peaked early on the abortion issue, right?

You see that going down in voter salience and recent polls show that the top issues by far are inflation, crime, and the economy.

- Are you watching the Arizona race?

- I am.

So what I do a bit is I look at three different websites.

One is 538 which is sort of amalgamation- - [Host] Right.

- The complex algorithm.

One is real clear politics which we discussed earlier and the other is predicted, which is the betting markets.

[group laughing] Okay.

And I find it interesting that 538, which I respect, they have a good methodology.

They give Republicans a 35% shot of winning in Arizona but the betting markets give them a better than 50% chance.

- Okay.

I wanna go around the horn predictions.

Will the Republicans gain and win seats and control the House and Senate?

- Definitely the House.

I think the Senate looks pretty likely too.

- Joe?

- I absolutely agree.

I do think the Republicans get at least 51, probably 52 seats in the U.S. Senate.

- Colin?

- Definitely the House.

The Senate I think most likely maybe get one seat to get to 51.

- Predictions?

- Both House and Senate.

- I do too.

And I think it's gonna be about 53 Senate seats.

I wanna move on and talk to Colin about the races for control of in the General Assembly, the House and Senate races.

- Yeah.

And so it's almost not really a race for control given the dynamics nationally that we just talked about.

The districts are such- - [Host] Super majorities.

- Yeah.

Super majorities is really what we're talking about.

- [Host] Right.

- So this is the ability of the Republicans to have a veto proof majority.

So if Cooper veto's their bills, there's really no way he can get enough Democrats, enough votes behind him to block an override vote.

And so where we're at with that, the House, they need to pick up three seats beyond what they've got now.

On the Republican side, the Senate's only two seats so the Senate seems a little bit more likely to get to that dynamic.

The challenge is it doesn't, those numbers might make it seem easier than it actually is because you did have redistricting.

So it's not necessarily knock off two vulnerable Democrats who are incumbents.

You've got districts that there's some new districts that are heavily weighted towards the Democrats in some of the urban areas.

So it's really sort of the overall picture statewide.

And you've got competitive races that are getting even more than a $1,000,0000 of spending in a single race in the Raleigh suburbs, Charlotte suburbs, Wilmington and Wilson areas are sort of the key areas of the state to watch where the districts are really close to 50/50 and could determine, you know, where we end up on this.

- Joe, the governor's been very involved in fundraising and advertising.

- Yeah.

In fact, a significant portion of the money that's come through the Democratic party to state legislative candidates has come through the efforts of the governor.

And so, of course, I think as Colin points out, the governor's motivated interest here is he would prefer not to serve out the final two years of his second term unable to stop anything that the legislature does.

- Essentially a lame duck if it gets super majority.

- Absolutely.

And it seems as though the governor's strategy is to focus on house races.

Because of this common wisdom now that the Republicans are likely to get a super majority in the Senate, it's less certain on the House side.

So a lot of the emphasis in these final few weeks has been on House races.

Some of the dynamics that are hard to see, like in Wake County, you have a very strong Republican candidate for sheriff, and that's undoubtedly gonna help Republican candidates running in legislative races in Wake County just because that's not an up-ballot dynamic.

But the down-ballot significance is, Donny Harrison, the Republican candidate, has a great field team who's out there getting people to vote Republican.

- Mitch, sheriffs do have a lot to do with these races, don't they?

- Yeah, they certainly do because people look at sheriffs, and this is a crime issue once again, that's something that's very important.

So if people are looking at the sheriff, and deciding one way or the other, which party to go, that might reflect how they're going to vote in other races.

I think another important thing, we've already touched on it, but Governor Cooper, of course, is focusing so much on these legislative races because in his first two years in office, when Republicans still had a super majority, he vetoed 28 bills, 23 of those vetoes were overridden.

Since Republicans have lost the super majority, he's vetoed 47 bills, all of those vetoes have been sustained.

- My friend.

- So I'm looking at two races on election night, and those are the two Wake County state Senate races.

If Republicans win both of those races - - Who you think?

- So E.C.

Sykes in Northern Wake County, and then in Southern Wake County, you have Sydney Batch, the incumbent, and they're both very competitive races.

Mark Cavaliero's running in the Southern Wake County district.

And if Republicans win both of those seats, then I think they have comfortable super majorities in the Senate, they can still get there by winning the Lee seat in New Hanover County, and the Hannah race in no northeastern North Carolina.

But if they win those two Wake seats they'll have I think, very comfortable super majorities.

- Carl, wrap this up in about 40 seconds, my friend.

- Yeah, so I think those are definitely the ones to watch on the house side.

It'll be fascinating to see if some of the last minute personal attack ads move the needle in any of these.

There's a house race in Cabarrus County where the Democrats are running ads with a fake mugshot of the Republican candidate.

So we'll see if any of these sort of get beyond the the overall trend that we're seeing at a national level.

- Mitch, just quickly, how impactful are the national races on these house races?

- Well, I think they could be- - National atmosphere.

- Yeah, they definitely could be because a lot of people don't really follow the local elections all that closely, and so they say, "Hey, I'm gonna vote for a Republican this time, "or I'm gonna vote for a Democrat."

And although you can't anymore have that straight ticket voting that we used to have, a lot of people will actually do that as they fill out the bubbles.

- Okay, we gotta roll on, I wanna talk to you there, Pat, about the potential diesel fuel shortage.

It's winter in the southeast?

- Yeah, so last week Mansfield Energy, which is a major fuel supply and logistics company, issued a warning saying that they're predicting a diesel fuel shortage.

So the country usually has about 35 to 40 days of diesel fuel supply working its way through the system, right now it's down to about 25 days worth of supply.

White House economic advisor Brian Deese said that, that's quote, "Unacceptably low."

So the question is why and what are the impacts, right?

The why seems to be not just one single shock that's causing this, it seems to be a lot of smaller issues.

First and foremost is that since 2019 there's been a reduction in American refining capacity because there have been some accidents, some refineries are down because of maintenance.

Again, there's not one sort of simple explanation here.

And simultaneous to that, there's been of course, an increase in demand for diesel fuel as the economy has moved out of the COVID recession, and demand has continued to increase despite record high or historically high interest rates.

At the same time, Russian sanctions and looming EU import ban on Russian fuel products is constricting supplies and causing futures markets increase, so all this means that- - We need more pipelines, do you think?

- So we saw what happened when really, the largest liquid fuel pipeline, the Colonial Pipeline went down for a few days a year and a half ago, there were immediate gas shortages.

So certainly having more pipelines would create redundancies in the system.

But right now the biggest issue, it doesn't seem to be that we're going to run out of diesel fuel, it seems to be that the constricted supply and rising demand are forcing prices up, and that means that we're paying more for everything because though you may not drive a diesel fuel car, diesel is used for commercial operations, truckers, et cetera.

- I need to go to Mitch.

Mitch, home heating oil probably way up this winter, right?

- Yeah, that's gonna be bad news.

This is the exact worst time to have these fuel issues as right, as we're getting closer and closer to winter.

And I think, you mentioned the pipeline word, I think that is something that's significant because one of the reasons that we're not seeing enough pipelines is that there is an active effort against all types of pipelines on the environmental left.

And at least one party has been less inclined to fight back against that, and that's the party that's in control right now.

- This could really cause inflation to go up, price of groceries, price of goods because you know, these trucks deliver to goods.

- Significantly, it will impact consumer optimism about the economy.

If you start to go to the grocery store and see large swaths of the shelves empty of goods because trucks are not available to deliver them, you begin to have less confidence in the overall economy of the country.

I think all of these are factors that will lead to the greater probability of a recession next year, not just the economic impact, but the psychological impact on American consumers.

- You know what I'm hearing also?

Is that there could be a railroad strike after the election, are you hearing that?

- Potentially, you know, they've narrowly averted one with the Biden Administration and others sort of doing some last minute negotiations a few months back, if that comes up again, you know, you don't have necessarily the pressure to avoid one right before the election, so it might not get resolved quite as quickly as the previous one.

And if you couple that with the issues in diesel fuel I mean, the railroads go on strike, there's much more demand for trucking.

And if trucking is significantly more expensive than it was a year ago, then that sort of compounds all the problems we're talking about.

- Pat put this to bed in about 30 seconds.

- Yeah, so we discussed earlier, there's no real major shock that has caused these issues in the diesel supply chain.

A railroad strike would be just that shock, and it would take what's turning into something of a discomforting situation into an immediate crisis because there would be chaos in the delivery and transportation of diesel fuel in, just the whole supply chain would really have it hard- - Great wrap, I wanna talk to Mitch about the affirmative action case in college admissions in front of the Supreme Court that was heard this week.

- That's right, there's a group called Students for Fair Admissions, it's tied to this conservative activist named Edward Bloom back in 2014.

The group filed suit against both Harvard and UNC Chapel Hill about the use of race in the admissions policies.

And basically both of these suits took direct aim at a 2003 president in the US Supreme Court in a case called Grutter v. Bollinger.

And in that case the US Supreme Court said that colleges could use race as a factor in admissions.

But even at that time, the majority opinion from then Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said, look, this is something that we are approving for now, but we don't think this is a permanent thing.

Within 25 years, these race-based admissions should be gone forever.

Well, by the time this court ruling comes out, it's gonna be 20 years after Grutter.

And there are a number of people saying that maybe it's time now to get rid of them.

Now, there's been a lot of support from the universities across the country for both the UNC case and the Harvard case, which were both in front of the US Supreme Court for oral arguments this week.

Even the US government is on the side of the universities, the Solicitor General participating in those oral arguments.

But there are also a lot of people who say that the conservative justices seem to be less inclined to go along with this.

They didn't need to take up either of these cases.

They decided to take up both, including the UNC case, which had not even gone through the court of appeals yet.

So there's a lot of suggestion that perhaps the US Supreme Court justices, the conservative majority, think that it's time now to put these race-based admissions to bed.

- Nine states don't have race-based admissions.

California doesn't since 1996, correct?

- That's true, and there's, I think, a really informative L.A. Times article last week that looked at the racial composition and diversity of both UC and California State University systems schools.

And the article concluded that first of all, UC schools are more diverse today, 25 years after California banned affirmative action, than they were under affirmative action.

And the California State University system's 23 campuses almost exactly mirror the state's racial makeup.

So I was surprised to see an op-ed in the NNO last week from UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, arguing that the only way to achieve racial diversity is through race-based admissions.

'Cause I just don't think the data supports that.

It may be easier, and it's a more crude method.

But I think other states show that there are race-neutral ways to bring about racial diversity.

- Let me ask you this, Colin.

Is it unfair to minorities not to consider race in admissions?

- Well, you know, there's two ways you can try to make up for someone's disadvantage in life, right?

And if this case goes through, you can still consider socioeconomic data.

Did someone grow up in poverty?

Did they have a lot of disadvantages that made it harder for them to get through high school and get to college in the first place?

And that inherently is going to help a lot of folks in minority groups.

I mean, there's the argument to be made that if you're African American and you grow up in a wealthy household, perhaps you have some of the same advantages as a white person in the same tax bracket.

And so that's sort of likely gonna be the direction you see colleges go in, depending on how the Supreme Court rules.

- Joe, how do you think the Supreme Court will rule, from what you've read?

- Yeah, I think from what Mitch said, it seems like the conservative justice have a very definitive opinion that perhaps this isn't the way forward for this country to make sure that we are an inclusive, pluralistic society.

We do strive to be a more perfect union.

And we are a more diverse culture and society now than we were at the time of the Civil Rights Act back in the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson famously said at the bill signing ceremony, "Now people equally have the opportunity to run the race."

But some people have been restrained so long there may be a need for some accommodation for the race to be fair.

And so at some point we will have to look seriously at our culture and our society and our laws and say, have we done everything necessary to make sure there is a fairness, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, all of the considerations we wanna make sure are included as considerations.

And these sorts of constructs may no longer be necessary.

Let's hope at some point that's true for our nation.

- Great wrap.

I wanna go to Mitch and talk about the most under-reported story of the week, my friend.

- Without any fanfare, the Cooper Administration has decided to drop its two year old lawsuit up against the Rules Review Commission.

And that sounds like something that people really could snooze about.

But the Rules Review Commission is an important group.

It's set up, appointed by members of the General Assembly.

And it looks at rules that state agencies come up with, and decide whether those rules comply with the law.

Now, Governor Cooper had some problems with this group a couple of years ago during the height of the pandemic when a couple of his agencies wanted to come up with rules and the commission said no, they aren't complying with what the law says they could do, so he filed suit.

We really hadn't heard a whole lot about this suit over the past couple of years.

But a hearing was scheduled before a three-judge panel on November 9th, the day after the election.

But then late last week, without really notifying anyone or saying much of anything, the governor's office filed a voluntary dismissal.

Now, they filed it without prejudice, which for the lawyers out there, means that they could file a suit again.

And there is perhaps a suggestion that if the Rules Review Commission does something again that the governor doesn't like, they might file suit.

But for now it's off.

- [Marc] Why do you think they withdrew?

- They probably looked at the tea leaves.

This is a case that would likely go to the North Carolina Supreme Court at some point.

And a lot of people think that North Carolina Supreme Court is gonna flip to Republican Control, might be less inclined to going along with Cooper.

- Joe.

- Well one of the most significant things in the final weeks leading up to election day, of course, is Halloween.

And what did we experience this year?

National survey, 13% increase in the cost of candy for Halloween as part of the inflationary problems we're facing now.

I hope that Americans will not go back to the bite-size Snickers bars they were using once.

Full-size Snickers really matter for the young people of this country.

And I'm afraid that inflation made it harder for them to get that.

But in all seriousness, a vivid reminder of that economic issue, as people are thinking about how they're gonna cast their vote.

- You know, I saw the other day that peanut butter was $11 per jar, under-reported.

- Yeah, so we didn't talk a ton about the North Carolina Supreme Court races.

But that's sort of an under-reported one, that the amount of money that's gone into that.

We got data this week that some of the dark money groups that are buying all the ads you see on TV about these races- - What are dark money groups?

- These are where we don't know who is contributing to them 'cause they're able to donate anonymously.

The groups backing Democrats have spent $5 million in that race.

The groups backing Republicans have spent about four million.

And that's not including the candidates themselves, who have raised close to a million dollars each.

So you're seeing a lot of money going into this, probably more so than any past race because it's so important to determine who's in charge of the Supreme Court going forward.

- How do you see those shaping up?

- I think they tend to track the overall trends.

So I think Republicans have the advantage from that front.

But you know, it's a sort of a low-information race.

So sometimes you get surprises in those races.

- What are the stakes?

- Well, it's gonna be control of the Supreme Court through I think 2027, 2028, if Republicans are able to pick up a seat or two.

So that means when a law gets challenged and goes up to the state Supreme Court, if Republicans have the majority for the next four or five years, that's bad news for Democrats.

- Pat under-reported, my friend.

- Sure, so this might be a little controversial.

But Hillary Clinton said last week that there is a plot afoot by quote, "Far-right extremists" to literally steal the 2024 presidential election.

Those were her words, the purported extremist- - She's forecasting - Yes, she's questioned the legitimacy of the next election.

The reported extremists that she's referring to are North Carolina Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, who are backing a case that the US Supreme Court will soon hear that has absolutely nothing to do with presidential elections.

Days after Clinton cast out on the legitimacy of the 2024 election, President Joe Biden delivered a primetime political address basically saying that people who deny the outcome of elections are threats to democracy.

This after his own staff said that the 2016 presidential election quote, "was stolen".

The 2018 Georgia election quote, "was stolen".

I agree that rhetoric about stolen elections especially without evidence is dangerous and destructive.

But I did find the President's address somewhat bizarre because I think one wonders whether he's aware that his own staff, his press secretary, has done the very thing he is decrying.

- Okay, let's go to Lightning Round.

Mitch, who's up and who's down this week, my friend?

- My up and down are linked.

My up is Josh Stein's legal team.

The Attorney General has lined up for oral arguments at the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond next month.

A really high profile lawyer, a fellow named Michael Dreeben who is a former US Deputy Solicitor General.

He's argued more than a hundred cases before the US Supreme Court.

He's going to be arguing on Josh Stein's behalf as he challenges this campaign law against campaign lies.

My down related to this, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman, she's running for reelection.

I don't think she's gonna have trouble there but she's getting really hard hits from the Democratic Party for her role in this case against Stein.

- Joe, who's up and who's down this week, my friend?

- Well, up is my respect for tuna.

Some researchers studying-- - Levity, levity.

I can always count on that from you.

- Aquatic life in the Pacific, Atlantic, and India Ocean discovered that yellow fin to were willing to rub up against sharks to get the parasites off of their own skin.

Apparently if you rub against a shark one direction, it's rough.

- Okay.

- Sort of like Marc.

[Marc laughs] What I find amazing about this is the sharks were allowing it, not eating the tuna.

So these tunas are really willing to go at it, get rid of these parasites.

Down, Americans' perspective on whether or not they feel future generations will do better.

Only 42% of Americans responded to the question favorably, "Do you think your own children will do better than you?"

This is down 19 percentage points since 2019 and is at the lowest level since 2011.

- Colin?

- Up this week, I'd say polling workers.

People are sort of having a newfound respect for them when they see that the elections are being run well and these people are working long hours to make that happen.

They even got pumped up this week with a pep talk from Arnold Schwarzenegger and his pet donkey who went on a-- - Pump it up.

- Yeah, exactly.

And went on a video call with election workers to sort of thank them for their work.

Down this week, the proposal for North Carolina's newest town of Winnabow just outside of Wilmington.

the State Treasurer Dale Folwell and the local government commission said this week they don't think that's financially viable, they don't want a new town created.

- Hank, quickly, who's up, who's down this week?

- Yep, up is the Republican's share of early voting compared to 2018.

The first few minutes after nine o'clock on election night might well say whether or not we're gonna have super majorities 'cause that's when the early vote totals are released.

- When do you think that'll come in?

- So usually it's a few minutes after 9:00 PM is the early vote totals are released and you can know it's gonna be close or a blowout at that time.

And down is the Democratic party share of early voting compared to 2018.

Now, 2020 is a different story.

They're much closer, much more closely aligned.

- Well, have you noticed that Florida, I think is a completely red state and it's off the table for 2024 right now, don't you think?

- In terms of a Democrat winning 2024 in Florida?

I think so.

I mean, Governor DeSantis is going to win handily.

Senator Rubio is going to win handily.

There's been a massive surge in Republican voter registration in the state.

Yeah, it's no longer that sort of 2000 swing state.

- Headline next week?

- Polls close, election lawyers start filing lawsuits.

- Good to be a lawyer.

Headline next week?

- Polls close, conversation starts about gubernatorial candidates in North Carolina for 2024.

Do we have all the Democrats and Republicans yet known that wanna run?

I think the answer to that is not yet.

- Headline next week?

- Trouble race is probably the Bo Hines, Wiley Nickel congressional race go into overtime with the likelihood of a recount.

- Headline next week?

- Going out on a limb here, Republicans win 53 US Senate seats.

- Okay, my prediction next week, Trump will announce prior to Thanksgiving.

Great job Jets.

That's it for us.

Thanks for watching.

Hope to see you next week on "Front Row".

Have a great weekend.

[dramatic music] ♪ - [Announcer] Major funding for "Front Row with Marc Rotterman" is provided by Robert L. Luddy.

Additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And by: Funding for the Lightning Round provided by: Nicholas B. and Lucy Mayo Boddie Foundation, A.E.

Finley Foundation, NC Realtors, Rifenburg Construction, Stefan Gleason.

A complete list of funders can be found at pbsnc.org/frontrow.

[dramatic music] ♪