- [Kelly] North Carolina voters split their ticket in backing both Democrats and Republicans on election night, and the GOP loses part of its super majority in the legislature.

This is "State Lines".

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[triumphant music] ♪ - Welcome to "State Lines", I'm Kelly McCullen.

Have a great panel for us today to discuss the election returns.

Dawn Vaughan of the News & Observer to my right campaign consultant.

Brad Crone, public relations consultant, Pat Ryan, and Jeff Moore represented the Carolina Journal back for his second appearance.

Good to see you again, Jeff.

- Good to see you.

- Glad you came back.

We have a half hour and about a dozen races we have to talk about.

I would love to gab more, panel, but let's talk business.

North Carolina voters, you actually might be changing your collective voting habits after an early voting boom yielded a slower than usual election day.

Over half of our state's ballots were already filed during the early voting period.

Very few North Carolina counties reported higher election day turnout than in 2020.

But here's the catch Dawn, multiple hurricane Helene-affected counties actually had higher election day participation.

Now, very quickly, and before we run the numbers, how smooth was North Carolina's election in your opinion as a journalist?

- Pretty smooth.

There wasn't anything major, turnout wasn't as high as 2020, but it was higher than the years past.

A lot of people liked early voting for the convenience of it.

There was some change between counties and turnout, but overall, concerning everyone was maybe prepared for the worst, it turned out fine.

- Brad, what does it say about an election and the climate politically when folks can be literally flooded out of their homes and still elevate turnout in those western counties?

- Clearly there was a lot of interest and I think the most interesting compelling story coming out of the election is the crisscross that you saw and how discerning the voters were in North Carolina.

And you see that difference between the Trump margin, 15 points with the Governor's margin and then Rachel Hunt comes back with barely a point margin.

So that's clearly showing some crisscross, some crossover vote from both parties, but a whole lot of crossover vote from the unaffiliated voters.

And the most important thing was the fact that they were discerning when it came to extreme rightest candidates and they clearly said they did not want that.

- Pat, the election, there's some rhetoric, Twitter, most part online, social media, those who say it may not be fair, a little bit of the left now for this election, but that is all temped down.

President Biden comes out, no one in the state is crying foul with the elections that I have seen, anyone of any influence.

What do you make of the election 2024 in the process?

Was this what we needed after '22 and '20?

- Yeah, for sure, I mean, no complaints, no lawsuits that changed rules at the 11th hour after voting had already begun.

No controversies that I've seen.

To me the biggest takeaway from at least the early voting and the turnout question was for the first time ever, Republicans out-paced Democrats in the early vote.

And that in future elections is really going to, I think, impact how people strategize and think about the early vote versus election day dynamic in the state.

- Jeff, I have a question because you previously worked as high up in the North Carolina GOP party, if I'm not mistaken.

Why was early voting and the concept of that so uncool with Republican leaders just two and four or six years ago and then it becomes embraced in 2024 to great success for conservatives?

- Yeah, I think that the impetus for the expanded early voting, the absentee voting was always a strategy as Republicans saw it from Democrats to expand their ability to actually soak up some votes.

And so Republicans were naturally defined against that, and the base had a traditional respect for the election day vote.

But you saw an intentional effort starting in '22 really to bank your vote, to get out in the early voting, even at the very top, he had President Trump encouraging his supporters actually get out there and vote early.

Whereas in past elections, they were really focused on election day and focused on tamping down on some of the expanded early votes and the absentee ballots.

So this is a strategy that came from the top and the voters really responded there.

And once that released there, I think the seal's broken.

And so I think Pat's exactly right.

Going forward now, the early vote is gonna be something that Democrats don't necessarily bank on.

It'll be interesting to see next time around when you don't have the personalities at the top of the ticket like you do to really drive that enthusiasm.

- So you see election day being just the last day you could vote, as opposed to early voting being truly early.

It's the voting period.

- Yes.

- I think there's an argument over the length of early voting still, but Republicans saw that Democrats liked it and they thought, well, you know, maybe like Republican voters will like it too.

And obviously they do, everybody likes having that option of not going just on one day.

- All right.

Donald Trump carried North Carolina, but voters also split their state ticket to give Democrat Josh Stein a 15 percentage point win over Republican Mark Robinson.

- Now, I'm proud to stand in front of so many supporters and have so many votes cast for me by people who have confidence in me.

It's not about the lies, it's not about the half truths, it's about the people who believe in you and it's about the state that you love.

The state that I fully intend to continue to serve for the next two months.

And who knows, maybe in the future, once again.

- And if I didn't earn your vote in this election, I hope to earn your trust by working hard for you as your governor.

I pledge to listen and work across party lines to do what's right for North Carolina because no person or party has a monopoly on good ideas.

- No person or party has that monopoly.

Is Josh Stein gonna present a platform out there Republicans can deal with?

Or was he elected just to be the guy who isn't a Republican that might stop Republican legislation?

- Remains to be seen.

I mean, the dynamics of the campaign, at least in my opinion, allowed him to just be a very generic, quite centrist, boring democratic candidate who could say I'm for what?

Like stopping the Fentanyl crisis and certain just very generic things because let's be honest, he lost by 15 points, the Robinson campaign, which was an unmitigated disaster.

There's no way around that.

- Why is that?

It's easy to say that, but what is it that from a Republican standpoint made that, in your words, a disastrous campaign?

He had a consultant, he had money.

- The outcome was disastrous.

I think Stein and his camp did what any good campaign would do, especially one with a ton of money.

They found some of the worst things that Robinson has said in the past.

And they just spent tens of millions of dollars replaying those things.

And it turned a lot of voters, including some Republican voters who voted for Donald Trump really turned them off.

It's no more complicated than that.

- Well, Senate Leader, you know, Phil Berger at a press conference at NC GOP headquarters, the day after the election, they said it was money, but then that seemed like to how they wanna frame it, that Stein had more money and he did.

But also people will give more money to candidates, you know, they wanna help win and Robinson didn't get a lot of donations.

But Berger also said, and I think this was, you know, clearly intentional the way he said it, that good Republican candidates can win in North Carolina.

Now, he didn't say Robinson was bad, but that's the insinuation.

- Well, I think the interesting thing in the governor's race is that Stein's roots really run deep in the liberal wing of the Democratic party and his family roots run deep.

So he had to tack to the center to be appealing to those unaffiliated voters.

- Brad, does he stay in the center?

- That's gonna be a real question.

I think he's gonna have to stay in the center to be able to negotiate with the legislature.

- He just had to come off as the adult in the room in that campaign.

He didn't have to take any real particular or controversial stances on anything.

I mean, back to the point on the math, in a year when Donald Trump won North Carolina by 3 1/2 points, you would expect, or at least hope, that just about every Council of State race would break Republican in that sort of environment, maybe except for Elaine Marshall.

And the fact that it didn't, you know, again, the simplest explanation is often the right explanation.

You had a gubernatorial candidate that lost by 15 points.

- And the Democrats tied Robinson to Hal Weatherman and to Dan Bishop, and it was effective.

- Jeff, Donald Trump, plus three, Mark Robinson, minus 15, that is an 18-point swing that is Republican.

That would be Republicans crossing over.

Many Republicans are frustrated that there was not more GOP support from the base for Mark Robinson.

What do you say to those voters if you had anything to say to 'em as you debrief a triumphant Trump year in North Carolina and a disastrous Robinson?

- Yeah, the things that the GOP or a party can control are all within a very small circle.

And there's a much larger circle of complaint that people have about the level of support or non-support.

But to the points made earlier, North Carolinian voters are really, and you hear it all the time from retail voters, "I vote for the person, not the party."

And you can see it in this ballot result here, that they are working down that ballot and voting for the people that they supported, not necessarily the party they supported, so.

- And I don't know who that complaint would be lodged against other than every single Republican elected official in the United States of America because from the top all the way to the bottom, everybody was distancing themselves from Mark Robinson.

And so I don't think it's reasonable to say, well, this state party or this particular state candidate should have done more when, from top to bottom, it was fairly universal.

- Well, and the big question I see is, when do the Republicans figure out you've got to have a credible candidate who is fully vetted through the primary process who can win a gubernatorial election?

I would assume you're getting pretty tired of losing elections.

And after Stein's term, it will be intriguing to me to watch what the Republicans do on going through the primary process with a gubernatorial candidate who can win.

- Well, it's the primary, right?

The voters chose Robinson, not the party.

So that's what...

The party can do whatever they want with candidates, but the voters are still gonna decide who makes it through.

- Brad, it's interesting you say that because at the federal level, Democrats having that same conversation about candidates, "Let the mud be slung."

- Absolutely.

- And it's just inverted here in North Carolina, it does appear for now.

It'll to straighten itself out.

That's why we're here every week.

Senate Republicans will be retaining a 60% majority heading into 2025 legislative session.

That makes it veto-proof and a super majority.

House Republicans appear to be about a vote short of that super majority, meaning the new Republican House Speaker, whoever that might be, will need just one Democratic crossover to override future gubernatorial vetoes, Brad.

Earlier this decade, Democrats broke the super majority in the House, and they were able to hold firm on some Cooper vetoes.

How does legislative deal-making change now if the Democratic caucus can stop?

- The fact that you don't have a super majority in the House is going to give leverage to the new governor, and it will enable him to have some negotiating.

Now, there's gonna be a lot of pressure.

There'll be three Democrat legislators you have to watch, and that's gonna be Cecil Brockman, Garland Pierce, first and foremost.

And I'm blanking on- - Shelly Willingham.

- And Shelly Willingham.

- [Kelly] So you got Guilford County.

- Guilford County.

- Scotland County.

- Nash County.

- And Nash County, okay.

- And those are the legislators you're gonna have to watch, and they'll be feeling pressure from with the caucus to stay with the Democrats.

But, clearly, if there'd been a super majority in both chambers, I continue to say Stein would end up with a pencil, a desk, and a beat-up highway patrol car.

- Pat, if you're the three Democratic Senators, would you allow yourself to, or representatives in this case, excuse me, state representatives.

Why should they be the three that are targeted for, "Watch them, they'll betray the Democrats."

Is it a betrayal if you get what you want in a piece of legislation?

- Yeah, I mean, maybe they should take it as a compliment, people who sort of think for themselves, and perhaps value their loyalty to their district more than their loyalty to a party, yeah, probably just be reputation, that sort of thing would put a mark on certain folks to perhaps vote with Republicans on occasion.

- Well, I think Representative Cecil Brockman, you know, the swing Democrat, really liked being attacked by his own caucus, he made that pretty clear, you know, in our publication and a lot of others.

So, you know, Cotham switched and we're kind of where we are two years ago, where it's the one vote short in the super majority and if a Democrat switches over, Dustin Hall said the other day during that press conference that, "Oh, we'll accept any Democrats that come over."

So does the wheeling and dealing start or not?

What I've seen especially from Willingham is that a lot of these, maybe swing voters, these more moderate Democrats, are voting, yes their district, but also what they believe, and they've managed to maintain their spots in the House, most of them, Michael Ray did not, whereas the Senate, they ended up getting primaryed or ran for something else and lost, so there's not that same like center move, as far as the democrats are concerned.

- And I do wonder if there ever had been a more competitive group editorial election, would that have precluded the Stein camp from ascending millions of dollars into some of these key legislative races and might we have actually ended up with Republican super majorities.

- Well, the big problem that I see with Stein is that he's not going to have any money.

He's coming in like Beverly Perdue in 2009 already facing severe budget pressure for western North Carolina, the state health plan, and the state retirement plan all needing cash pretty quick.

- Well he doesn't control the money, right, the legislature does, so.

- Well, who has he got to negotiate with at the moment?

- The governor's team knows and has said, he's the leading governor at least for this first term, I mean that's what the expectation is.

Jeff, set aside the three democratic votes, there's a right wing of the house Republican caucus that stopped some key legislation that were priorities of then house GOP leadership like casinos.

Anybody on the right that could pose a problem for veto overrides?

- Yeah, well with the three democrats, they may have more leverage because they're gonna be in high demand for crossing over.

You'll also have that wing of the Republicans that's gonna have more leverage to get some of the things that they like in some of the legislations.

So we've seen challenges to the leadership in the past from that wing, I expect if they glean any chance to shape legislation or block legislation they don't like, or push something that they really view as a priority, then they're gonna lean into that.

- Brad, if you're one of those three, or anyone that could potentially block or let a veto go through, do you cut the best deal for your constituents and really rake in the gravy, the schools, the ball fields, the highways and bridges in exchange for that vote.

Is that fair game?

- Absolutely, especially if you have the consideration that you can win your own primary and I think that plays in all factors with Shelly, with Cecil Brockman in particular.

And you know, I think that they have shown they can win their primaries.

- So they buck the Democratic party?

- Garland may be living in barred country though, because the dynamics of the state is shifting so much.

- All right, let's go down to the North Carolina ballot, lots of races, some we haven't covered as in depth as we could on "State Lines."

Because of sheer statistics.

But Republicans and Democrats both won key races.

In the Lieutenant Governor's race, Rachel Hunt, the Democrat, following her father, Jim's footsteps.

She'll fill that open seat in the Lieutenant Governor's office created when Mark Robinson ran for Governor.

Democrat Jeff Jackson turned back the challenge of Republican Dan Bishop for Attorney General.

The last Republican elected as Attorney General was in 1896.

And that's just historical fact, Brett, and for superintendent of public instruction, the Democrat Mo Green in a close race defeated Republican Michele Morrow, Brett.

Those three races were very interesting.

They were high profile if you are a state political watch or maybe not as much on the retail political level.

- And that's why I say it's interesting to look at how discerning our voters were.

Because clearly they were also lightning rods.

Howe not so much, but Michele Morrow and Dan Bishop, very extreme, conservative Republicans who got a lot of attacks for their extremism.

- But extremism, Dawn, in this case, resulted a very close race for superintendent.

- Yeah, I think that may have been, you know, people's ballots were really long.

There were two sides, you know, at least in Wake County.

And they may not have been paying a lot of attention to Superintendent of Public Instruction.

But those that did saw that Michele Morrow is not Catherine Truett by, you know, any long shot.

And Mo Green is more of a establishment education, you know, background.

So clearly what Morrow, everything that she said before and when she's running was a big turnoff to a lot of people the same way that the Stein campaign used Robinson's quotes before the CNN report, but the things about the way he talked about women, abortion, and everything else against him.

- Jeff, which of these three races down ballot caught your attention the most?

- I think, well, the Lieutenant Governor's race really, just because Weatherman has been campaigning and working, like, all 100 counties in this state for a long time.

And with other campaigns before that.

So with all the legwork there, I was a little bit surprised that he wasn't able to get over that hump.

Kind of the negative coattails in the gubernatorial race.

But it really defines that kind of split ticket mentality.

I think.

- Why blame Mark Robinson's coattails when other Republicans so clearly won in spite of Mark Robinson?

It seems convenient when you lose to blame Mr. Robinson.

But is that fair?

- Well, I think you have a couple of different buckets and you see the boring candidates, for lack of a better word, win out versus the more electric candidates.

And so it seems that the more electric candidates were more shocking to a lot of people and maybe distasteful to a lot of people so they elected to go with the more boring candidates or skip those races.

And with President Trump at the top of the ticket, obviously a more electric candidate, but the shock value of Trump is kind of worn off, I think.

And so people, he's a known quantity.

- I would argue to you too, that the Hunt name in Eastern North Carolina still carries some gravitas.

It may not be a lot, but is it 25,000 50,000 votes?

Jim Hunt is an institution in our state's history and our political system.

And Rachel, I think, benefited from that tremendously.

- I think some of the other, you said, like, you know, the work is more serious and, you know, can be boring if someone's not into audits, that sort of thing.

But State Auditor Dave Bullock winning, he talked about wanting to audit the DMV and solve problems.

And the way people talk in a primary is different than when they talk in the general.

And I think that's, you know, a factor in why he may have won.

And then with Treasurer too.

You know, Falwell's leaving, that's a big gap of people still wanting a Republican in that role.

And maybe partisanship doesn't matter when it's about being essentially a state employee.

- Pat, let's wrap up this second.

We're gonna go further down ballot talk about the Auditor race and Treasurer race.

But Dan Bishop was the guy you worked with, worked for.

You worked on his campaign momentarily in this campaign.

Where did he come short?

I saw an ad where they really tied him to Mark Robinson.

Is that still a fair thing to say?

The coattails took him away as well?

But where do you think, he came up, what, 3% short against Jeff Jackson, they were both very compelling and very different candidates.

- Yeah, for sure.

I think going in, political observers thought that the Bishop race was always one of the longer putts of the group.

There's no question that there was tens of millions of dollars spent on the A.G.'s race and a lot of that was spent just tying Bishop to Robinson over and over and over again, and then on the other side, you have to give credit to Congressman Jackson.

He's a compelling candidate and he ran a good race and I just sort of add it all up and that's what you end up with, - Jeff, is the era of the populist, every person Republican candidate that might've done some tweets in the past or might have internet posts, is that day over?

Do you think GOP voters will go back more establishment or further refine the idea of, quote, civilians running for statewide office?

- I think some of the emotionality is kinda drained out of it.

So, there's not as much of a kinda knee jerk reaction to supporting those kinda candidates and you've seen the voters become more discerning, and on the state level, I think that they look at it as more of an operational kind of job that they're taking, especially as some of these Council of State races.

- All right, let's breeze through other races.

Some popular incumbents were reelected this way.

Agricultural commissioner Steve Troxler received the second most votes on the North Carolina ballot behind Josh Stein, in defeating Dr. Sarah Taber, who, by bipartisan consensus, worked her butt off in that campaign.

Elaine Marshall was reelected with about 51% of the vote in a close race.

She pulled ahead late.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey wins another four-year term over Natasha Marcus.

Republican Dave Boliek won the state auditor's race and that will be a GOP pickup, Dawn, and Republican Luke Farley will be our next labor commissioner.

The Republican turned back Braxton Winston and Brad Briner will be our treasurer following Dale Folwell.

These are not expensive races, but we'll start with- - Well, one interesting thing, historical dynamic.

We've never had a Democratic governor and a Republican state auditor and I think Boliek's smart enough, he comes from the business community attorney.

I think that Boliek's gonna be able to make a whole lot of inroads and really take a spotlight for the Republican party as State Auditor.

- [Kelly] Dawn.

- I think it's less, I mean, not everybody elects their auditor or knows about them in the partisan role.

Beth Wood, before her scandal, had supportive Democrats.

She had supportive Republicans and nobody cared about the partisanship as much, because they thought, at the time anyway, that she did a good job.

So that's really what I think people's expectations are for that.

- Generic Republicans won and they won big in North Carolina.

Four of the five Republican Council of State winners outperformed Donald Trump's margin.

You can find any lesson you like in there, but that, to me, is one of the most plain and obvious takeaways of this election.

- Jeff, what's to say about Steve Troxler?

He gets 2.9 million votes.

Josh Stein spends $50 million to get 3 million, 100,000 more.

I guarantee you Steve Troxler didn't spend $50 million to win reelection.

- Nah.

No, that's the power of name ID and staying power and in an office where people view it as maybe the least political office of all the Council of State positions.

- And the state fair.

If people still like the state fair, the Ag Commissioner's in charge of it, then that, I mean, that's really like the big campaign issue.

- He talks about at every outing.

So, yeah.

- He does.

Yeah.

- We have a couple of minutes left.

I wanna bring up how state voters did favor the GOP and the Court of Appeal seats with the State Supreme Court now remaining too close to call, but the Republican is leading in that race, Jefferson Griffin, I mean, barely ahead.

Look how close that is.

Back to the other graphic, where Republicans Valerie Zachary, Chris Freeman, and Tom Murry, all Republicans, swept the Court of Appeals races for the GOP, and then Alison Riggs trying to find those 10,000 votes.

She's barely behind Jefferson Griffin as we head into this weekend, Jeff.

Very quickly on the judicial races, it was the bottom of the ballot and voters, millions, made it all the way down there.

I think 5.5 million votes were cast in that Supreme Court race.

- Yeah, yeah, and the judicial candidates, I think the Republicans enjoy a generic advantage here, especially when you get the partisan labels on there.

So this is kind of a follow through of the advantage that they were looking for when you present a little bit of information to the voters about how this judge may operate in that role.

So, the closest race in the Supreme Court with about 10,000 votes separating them, and statewide, that is the one that became, it maybe floated up to become the most political with Allison Riggs ads out there.

So that one makes sense.

That's the closest to me.

But you see that generic Republican advantage in the judicial races, a down ballot in those Court of appeal seats.

- Don, some consultants really like the idea, if you're gonna be partisan with judicial campaigns, why not go there and put your ideas on the table.

Did voters punish Allison Riggs for that or is this effectively a tie?

And even if she loses, it was practically a toss up.

- I think, she was appointed to replace Mike Morgan when, you know, he retired to run against Stein and the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

But I think this is another down ballot example where people are, I mean, soil and water Commissioner was, you know, on my ballot where people are thinking they have, you know, very clear thoughts on Trump and Harris and on Stein and Robinson, and then those they've paid attention to, you know, it kind of, as you get further down the ballot, it's, you know, maybe they'll check party because that's just what in general they want, if they didn't know about the specific reasons.

- Got about a minute left, Brad, and then we'll close out with Pat.

What do you think, judicial race?

- Well, I think Tom Murray's going to do a great job, you know, a very good legislative career, then a heck of a pharmacist and a businessman, and then went back to law school, got his law degree and then prosecuted.

I think Tom Murray's going to be a judge to watch.

- The Supreme Court race and I think it's like 10,000 votes.

I'll call the race.

That is the most, to me, one of the most important pickups of 2024 because I don't believe, correct me if I'm wrong here, I don't believe Democrats have a chance now to retake the court in 2028 with a six, one court right now.

- So we have a GOP or a conservative dominated Supreme Court.

I want to appreciate you folks for sharing your expertise with us.

This was one of the most rapid fire shows in our first test of a major presidential election on "State Lines."

Thanks for running these numbers for us.

Folks, thank you for joining us for this half hour.

Hope you'll stay with us through the holidays and into the legislative session.

We're just getting started here.

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

I'll read every email.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

As always, thank you so much for watching "State Lines" on PBS North Carolina and I sincerely hope to see you next time.

Bye-Bye.

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