- [Narrator] As Tropical Storm Debby stalls campaign efforts, we examine some new polling data for North Carolina's races.

And Elon Musk political action committee draws attention from the State Board of Elections.

This is "State Lines."

- [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[bright music] ♪ - Hi, welcome back to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today a great group.

Political consultant Brad Kronz in seat one, to his right, Brooke Medina of the John Locke Foundation.

Asher Hillebrand with Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and former North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice and a man you may see on Twitter from time to time, Bob Orr.

Judge Orr, good to have you on for the first time.

- Great to be here.

- Asher.

Good to have you back.

Brooke, once again, welcome to "State Lines."

And Brad, of course, an old friend.

- It's always a pleasure.

- You're in the comfortable seat.

- Yes, sir.

- I feel the glow.

Politics slowed a bit this week in North Carolina so this tropical storm could pass through and drop a lot of rain on us.

But the Carolina Journal from John Locke dropped a new poll out tracking the North Carolina ballot.

The rules are simple, 4% margin of error surveying 600 likely North Carolina voters.

And if you're wondering about that partisan breakdown, 32% of the poll were Republican, 34% were Democrat, and 31% were unaffiliated voters.

They were contacted by phone call and text.

48% of those said they're voting on election day, and Brooke, 46% say they're going to vote early.

We've almost reached parity there.

We'll start with that before we look at the president, governor, and go down this ballot.

So tell me about this poll.

Critics of John Locke Foundation are gonna say, "Oh yeah, Republican poll."

- Well, we try to make sure that our polling is statistically accurate and scientific, and so we make it a very laborious intention to ensure that our poll actually is very unbiased in that we are asking North Carolinians the questions that need to be asked in a way that does not push them one direction or another.

- One thing, back in the old days, they'd call you on the old landline phone.

Grandma would answer the phone and answer the poll.

Now you've got cell phones and people sending that direct voicemail and texting.

What's the challenge with polling these days as you look around and your team hires the pollsters?

- Certainly, so landlines, as many people know, I mean in the audience in particular, how many folks actually have landlines anymore, the reduction in people that are actually using landlines is significant.

And so that means that we do have to be creative in how we reach North Carolinians, particularly likely voters.

And so we mix it up and we certainly employ the texting and that's been useful as well.

- All right, well let's talk about the start very quickly.

We're "State Lines," not national lines, Bob Orr, but Donald Trump retains his lead three points.

We know you're not a Trump guy, but we have a vice president that's gonna get this.

He brings in Governor Walz very quickly, your take on the race, it stayed pretty fluid with Biden out and Harris in.

- Well, if I'm correct, Brooke, it was polled Biden Harris.

And so we don't have any numbers on the Harris Walz ticket and the numbers seem to reflect pretty consistently what the polls have shown in North Carolina for a long time, Trump was leading Biden by maybe three points, but it's a whole new ball game with a new ticket for the Democratic Party.

- The last time I was on the show, I was talking about the Emerson College poll that showed Trump up by nine points in the state.

So clearly there's compression in the race.

The morning consult had a poll number that it was at one and a half percent, and I think that's probably more realistic of where you're at in the presidential race.

- So even just at the time with the talk of Joe Biden dropping out energized Democrats.

- Absolutely.

- Well, let's get down to our business.

Talk about this state ballot, Asher.

Josh Stein and Mark Robinson.

It looks to be 42.6% for Josh Stein.

There you see the Republican nominee, lieutenant Governor Robinson, 38.2%, 4% margin of error.

He's just outside the margin of error.

So we'll say Josh Stein leads, your thoughts?

- I think it's good news for Stein.

I think you had seen his lead really evaporate as it seemed that Biden was weighing down the Democratic ticket nationally.

And this poll shows him, I wouldn't say comfortably out in front, but certainly running ahead of the rest of the Democratic ticket, which is where he's been most of the race in, which is where he hopes to be this election.

So a little too soon to tell.

We're still in that period where the full impact of Biden's exit and Kamala Harris's entry into the race isn't totally showing up.

Certainly not with Walz on the ticket now, but it does feel to me at least like the Kamala momentum is real, that that's helping down ballot candidates across the country in that we still have plenty of time to go for that to take effect.

- Brooke, this poll is you got these early data, what does this say to you?

A lot of republicans are leading down ballot.

We'll show that in just a few moments, but in this race, Josh Stein is ahead, and so Republicans seem to be bouncing around that gubernatorial race a bit.

- It's certainly worth noting, like you said, that in the other council of state races, Republicans are leading.

The disparity is and the flip is with Robinson versus Stein.

It's also worth noting really quickly that we polled Presidential Candidate Harris, as well as Presidential Candidate Trump.

And so we didn't have a previous poll to rely on for trends related to that, but we certainly see that Harris helped boost the Democratic ticket in ways that Biden was not at the state or at the national level.

But yeah, gubernatorially, certainly I would say that all of those nonstop campaign ads against Robinson certainly are taking their toll for him.

- Yeah, that's real critical issue.

Stein is outspending Robinson on television.

But even more importantly, one of the most effective ads in the campaign so far has been the Stein ad with the Lieutenant Governor looking to camera on a Facebook video, talking about women keeping their skirts down.

And it has been devastating to the Lieutenant Governor to the extent that last week the Lieutenant Governor had to release a new campaign ad with his wife declaring his total position on women's reproductive rights.

But that ad has been devastating to the Lieutenant Governor, in particular with women voters in the suburban markets, and they're leaning more independent.

And that's the most important voter audience group that Stein wants to talk to right now.

- Judge, it seems to me the gubernatorial race in North Carolina's personality driven.

The top of the ticket, the presidential ticket, personality driven.

It took a campaign to ad to at least discuss an issue, How do we get to an issue or do we just not care anymore?

It's gonna be a popularity contest.

And if you and I run against each other, We're just gonna pummel each other.

- Well, unfortunately, negative ads work.

And there's a huge amount of money at the presidential level and at the gubernatorial level.

The one thing I wanna point out is that all the down-ballot races have about a 20 to 25% undecided vote.

And so, even though Republican candidates are leading by two or three percentage points in those down-ballot races, including the Supreme Court race, there's a lot of votes out there to be had between now and the election.

And so it's a little early, I think, to be predicting certainly how it's gonna look.

And in the Harris-Waltz ticket.

It certainly energized the Democratic party and their supporters.

- Alright, Ash, I wanna ask you about the Lieutenant Governor's race.

Got a graphic, Rachel Hunt, Jim Hunt's daughter.

She's leaning on that family name and legacy about two points behind Hal Weatherman in the Lieutenant Governor's race.

I think people overlook the Lieutenant Governor's race, but it's going to be right there and there will be hundreds of thousands of votes cast in that race.

What do you make of Hal Weatherman, no one in this state probably campaigns and rides more roads than Hal Weatherman and he made Dan Forest do the same thing back in 2012?

- Mm-hm.

Mm-hm.

You know, look, I think this is a very closely fought race, that is still a bit under the radar, despite the profile of some of the candidates and their families.

I think if we've learned anything over the last four years, it's that, that Lieutenant Governor's seat could be pretty critical.

Not just for policy issues in certain cases, but really for, you know, the candidate's profile and what they make of it.

And you see how Robinson came out of nowhere to win this seat four years ago.

Now he's not just his party's nominee for governor, he's also a national figure in Republican politics.

And so I think more people should be paying attention to that race.

- Alright, Brooke, Brad, jump in on any of these, otherwise I'm just gonna keep moving down.

- Well, I would say this, the one thing Weatherman has to be worried about is the Hunt dynasty in Eastern North Carolina.

And the Hunt name, and the Hunt organization still organization in eastern part of the state.

And the Hunt name has gravitas, so you can't discount Rachel Hunt based on her family lineage.

- We've had both candidates in for interviews.

You can catch 'em on YouTube.

We're gonna air 'em on TV a little bit later on.

But candidate Weatherman told me, he said, I looked into that.

I'm a campaign guy.

He said, there are only 500,000 voters in this state that were on the voter rolls the last time Jim Hunt was on the ballot.

500,000 out of 8 million, 5 million?

However, however many it is.

So, be interesting to see how that holds up.

Brooke.

- I think it's worth noting, that in our poll what we discovered were the top issues for voters are inflation and prices.

And so when you're thinking about the presidential and gubernatorial candidates that is going to have bearing and weight.

After that, it's immigration and past that, the third one is jobs and the economy.

We always know that the economy is top issue for voters, but when we're thinking about the likelihood of those other races statewide, as well as national, thinking about the top issues for voters, those are the three top issues.

Abortion comes in at fourth, but again, before that, inflation, immigration, jobs and the economy.

- And yet the ad is about abortion, Brad?

At the state level.

- Yeah, one quick thing from the poll, the generic ballot for legislative candidates and congressional candidates was only like one or 2% separating Democrats and Republicans.

And yet the effectiveness of gerrymandering will produce a major win for the Republican party, both in the legislature and in the congressional seats.

- Well, and here's the real thing for viewers to pay attention to.

Both sides, both bases, Democratic base, Republican base are energized, they're coming, the decision is gonna be made by those unaffiliated, independent voters in the suburban counties across our state.

And how they lean and how they go.

And I believe, Brooke, is that you're going to see a lot of ticket splitting.

- Yeah.

- You'll have folks voting Democrat at the presidential level and then come down and vote Republican or vice versa.

So it is gonna be all over the map.

I think all the race is gonna be super competitive.

Probably 25 to 50,000 vote margins.

- All right, let's look at that attorney general's race.

We have Jeff Jackson, US representative against Dan Bishop, US representative, and in that race we're looking at 41 points.

So 42, 38.

Really within the margin of error, practically, Brooke.

This race is higher profile than most other attorney's general races.

Is that correct?

- You have to thank social media for that.

So between X and then Jeff Jackson's presence on TikTok, there is a groundswell of interest among even younger voters.

And so I think this race in particular is probably going to be reaching a younger demographic that would otherwise be, I would say disenchanted with the state of politics.

I think that part's kind of interesting.

I know that's not gonna probably tip the race either way, but I think that's of note, that's why it's high profile in so many cases is because of X, formerly Twitter and TikTok.

- Asher, what about TikTok using social media?

Donald Trump in 2016 was great on Twitter, whether you hated or loved it, he was prolific.

But Jeff Jackson found his niche and has climbed a ladder to almost the attorney generals seat.

We'll see in what?

90 days or so.

But what do you make using social media for direct communication?

- I mean, I think it is here to stay and I think Jackson was ahead of his time, but there's a lot of people following what he's doing now.

I'll tell you, I teach on a college campus and when he shows up, students come out of the woodwork and students who are not even engaged in politics, who are not the usual suspects, they're coming out because they know him from TikTok.

And so there is this groundswell of youth enthusiasm.

Jackson's clearly able to raise money, he's got a strong network.

I think right now it's still a little bit following the overall partisan trends, but I think Jackson's certainly capable of beating those trends.

- And Mr. Or, we, looking at Dan Bishop though, Law and Order, he plays the role.

He's promising stability.

You can't discount that.

He's in the lead.

- Well, it's an intriguing race and maybe it's because of my age and I'm not on TikTok, but I haven't seen a lot from either of the candidates.

I mean the campaigns, at least at this point to me, have seemed to be under the radar.

And I don't know whether Jeff Jackson's holding back, you know, for the last 60 days to dump a huge amount of money into advertising and to work the undecided, but for the prediction of this being such a high profile race, I'm not seeing it in the media these days.

- The leadership at legislature would love to have a Republican Attorney General.

- Well I bet.

- And that's why there's so much, even probably more so than a governor.

So, but the one thing that Bishop has to be wary about is a House Bill 2.

He was the author of House Bill 2 and his rhetoric and dogma towards the LGBT community, it's just unacceptable.

- Okay.

One last, I would say high profile, yet down ballot race is that superintendent of public instruction, and then we'll move on.

We can hit the other ones, but this is a big one.

Mo Green, the Democrat, well known in public education circles, is and your poll Brooke, clearly behind Michele Morrow, and Michele Morrow has dodged the media.

She's been ambushed a few times by media.

There's been more about that than about the issues surrounding this race.

How is she up four points?

- Well, I think that part of it is what you just identified, which she's been able to, I would say get out in front of certain media stories that have tried to ostracize her and in some ways demonize her, whether that was deserved or undeserved.

But she's been able to make a case directly to voters, I think using social media once again, as well as some other alternative news channels to be able to reach those voters.

So I think that's part of it.

As well as the fact that her predecessor Catherine Truitt, she is, in many ways voters see her as another continuation of that, even though they did choose her over Truitt in the primary, but they see her as right-leaning rather than Mo Green, who is more progressive.

So I think that's part of it as well.

- All right.

Asher, what do you make of this?

Set aside the gamesmanship of a campaign where you are demonizing and attacking.

She's got 41% support right now.

A lot of undecideds.

And Mo Green is there with a resume and by all indications, a good democratic candidate.

- Look, the more voters learn about Morrow, as far as I can tell, the less they like.

The more they learn about how she's different than other Republicans, including the one she defeated in the primary.

And so I think her strategy is try to run as a generic Republican candidate for this race.

And that's what I would advise her, if I were advising her, right?

Because if she can just latch onto that, that sort of straight ticket Republican ballot, then that's probably a good outcome for her.

Same for Robinson, for that matter.

But if she falls four or five points behind the other Republicans on the ballot, you know, that's where Green wins the race.

- She hasn't done that yet, Judge.

And, you know, why should she be the candidate that has to be on the defensive?

Why shouldn't there be scrutiny on Mo Green?

- Well, I think there is.

From both sides I've seen ads, you know, portraying Green as an ultraliberal educator.

But the bottom line is there's 25% undecided and it's a down ballot race in having run down ballot all my life, and all of my judicial races.

It's hard to break through the president, the presidential races, the gubernatorial races.

And so, I just don't think people are paying any attention other than a narrow group.

- I think the big question's gonna be mobilization of African American voters and voters of color in the state.

They do not like Trump picking on Harris' racial ethnicity, or calling her stupid, or calling her lyin' Kamala.

It is insulting to the voters of color for him to do that.

It's aggravating to 'em.

And the question's going to be, will we see the mobilization that we saw in 2008 for Obama?

If that's the case, if you have 22, 23% of your total votes cast being voters of color, it's gonna be a big night for the Democrats.

- And now you're talking down ballot.

We're talking about-- - Even down ballot.

- The Mora-Greene race.

- Even down ballot.

- All right, well let's move on with the Harris and Trump campaigns postponed some visits this weekend to North Carolina because of Tropical Storm Debby.

Governor Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency.

Now, you know, one person has died in North Carolina.

There's been millions of dollars in crop losses.

We don't wanna diminish that.

But this is a political analysis show, so forgive us for going into the policy side of this.

JD Vance was going to meet the media in Raleigh on Thursday, as Harris was gonna rally in Raleigh.

Both, of course, will return later, Brad.

But, Roy Cooper, he's not running for anything.

He got millions of dollars in free press.

But doesn't do him any good, just makes him like a governor in charge of a problem.

- Absolutely.

But it continues to be, I think you see Cooper has one of the strongest support levels of a sitting governor in the country.

I think you'll continue to see that.

It builds his gravitas and puts him in a good position to be commerce secretary in the event the Democrats win the White House.

- Brooke, what do you make of hurricanes and politics?

They do, it does slow things down in some ways, and elevate some, if you're McCrory back in the day, or your Cooper now.

The governor gets all the glow.

- Certainly, and I mean that is, from a PR side of things, that's great as long as that governor is able to exert a lot of competence within his realm of authority.

And I think that's really, really, really important.

And, at the end of the day, North Carolinians are looking for reassurance when they're going through national emergencies, or state level emergencies.

They want reassurance that things are gonna be okay, and that if their livelihoods, such as crops, are in peril, that there are ways in which they're able to recover quickly, and that the state isn't working against those interests.

- Asher, this sort of dawned on me, this big, this storm's coming, it's a big storm but not a hurricane.

And yet, the top of our ticket flew outta North Carolina instead of leaning in to see how they could at least act like they could help.

Could a campaign have seized on this, even if cynically?

- You know, I think, I guess I'm pretty cynical, but I'm not so cynical that I think they're going to be trying to exploit the, you know, the real impact of a storm like this.

When I worked in Congress for many years, hurricanes that would come every couple of years were one of those instances where all of our members of the North Carolina delegation would drop what they were doing and work together.

That's rare in politics these days, but it was one of the instances where they would do that.

So, you know, I wouldn't say a campaign should seize on something like this.

- Judge, how does it work out there if you're on a statewide?

You've worked in campaigns.

If something like this happens, you have to just put the sword down for a moment and let this thing happen, and then count the damage.

Does this affect the race at all, you think?

- Well, it probably affects Roy Cooper's potential for future races more than anything.

I mean, you know, the governor will get a lot of credit if the recovery process and the handling of the hurricane, or any other natural disaster occurs, the governor will get the credit.

But he'll also get the blame if things don't go well.

And so, you're not worried about politics, you're worried about getting the job done for the people of the state.

- All right, well, from Tropical Storm Debby to Elon Musk, the State Board of Elections, and the State Attorney General's office are looking at, maybe not officially investigating, Elon Musk's Political Action Committee.

There has been a complaint, it was filed by former Democratic insurance commissioner candidate David Wheeler, who's active in democratic politics, that the PAC is offering to help North Carolinians register to vote.

And then they don't seem to follow through after the person gives up their personal information.

At least that's in competitive battleground states, including North Carolina, Bob.

Josh Stein's office says it has not opened a formal investigation yet, but they are interested.

This is an interesting one.

You sign up, I guess, through through X or Twitter, and then what happens?

- Well, it really is interesting.

And there are other states that are investigating this, so it's not just North Carolina.

But if you look at the website, or the original website for the PAC, the America PAC, it looks very generic.

You don't realize that it's a pro-Trump PAC that Musk is one of the primary funders for.

And there are two aspects.

One is registration, which is what David Wheeler's complaint focuses on.

But the second part, which I think has really been missed by a lot of the news coverage, is that it talks about absentee ballots.

And you can apply for an absentee ballot.

And so, the potential there, we know about ballot harvesting in past elections, the ability to mislead people into thinking that they're actually submitting their absentee ballot or their proper form to get one.

And this PAC is just sitting on it or throwing it the garbage can.

I don't know what their intentions are.

Probably going to be tough to get any sort of real resolution, but they have taken this all down now.

So, to that extent, the Wheeler complaint and in other states, has been very effective in dealing with it.

- You know, Brad, this modern tech, it's fast, fast moving, and it comes and it goes, and who knows who gave their information.

It could be a million people signed up under Elon Musk.

- And it's concerning from that standpoint.

What's even more concerning is that on the back end, Elon Musk and his organization really didn't think through the process of, you know, how do you engage this?

You could have done it legitimately and provided the service, but they really didn't think it through.

It was sort of hodgepodge.

And in this election, to equate hockey, it's not a minor penalty, it's a major penalty because of the collection of data and the failure to provide the appropriate links for action.

And I'm glad the Board of Elections is looking at it.

We don't need bad players.

We have enough negative out there already.

So, hopefully they'll go through the process and clean it up.

At least they've shut the site down.

- So, Brooke, is this term "voter integrity" owned by the right, 2020 through 2024, now here come the Democrats with lawsuits and all sorts of things.

What's going on?

- Well, first I'd like to say let's just not attribute malice when it might just be incompetence.

- Right.

- There is part of that, which is still its own kind of problem that needs to be addressed.

But, I think, ultimately this really underpins, or it highlights the need for data privacy and a federal level, maybe data privacy bill that would help protect folks' data.

I know that's not going to always remedy some of these tactics, but it also points out that we live in an increasingly dematerialized world.

People are not filling out just printed voter registrations, they're doing everything online.

And so we need to shore up our systems, whether it's the election systems, or energy, et cetera.

That's really important.

And I think this could be a lesson in that as well.

- Asher, when does private information become public?

Because if I fill out a form online, I know it's going to affect my email inbox, my texts are going to get spams.

What is the expectation in modern times?

- That's a great question.

I think most people don't realize what they're giving away when they give it away, and that's a problem, right?

But the big picture here, to me, is that, look, it's one thing for one of the world's richest men to donate to whatever political cause or candidate he wants, it's another thing altogether for that person to own a major social media platform that he seems to be turning into a platform of endorsement for his favorite candidate.

Now, on top of that, you've got him pumping money into a super PAC whose tactics are sketchy at best, perhaps illegal.

And so, you know, we'll reserve judgment until the investigators do their jobs, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a good thing they're looking into it.

- Judge, what about having Josh Stein's office even look into this?

He's the candidate for governor and if Elon Musk is a pro-Republican PAC running one this time, or did, doesn't that make it an easy target?

- Well, I'll have to say the Board of Elections, which has the initial review of this, they're overwhelmed.

They're understaffed, underfunded, they're behind on technology, and their ability to get any sort of resolution that would in any way impact this election is probably negligible.

The simple fact that by filing these complaints in several states, they've taken the offending aspects of the website down, is probably as good as we're going to get.

But I think the Stein Attorney General's Office, he'll be in a new role whatever it is.

- Well, we'll wrap this up, under 30 seconds.

I have to thank you for your time, Brad.

- Sure.

- We'll have to save that comment for the next time you're on.

- Absolutely.

- Brooke, Asher, judge, thank you so much for being on, and thank you for watching us here on "State Lines.

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

I'll read them, I'll forward them if you like.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

I appreciate you.

We'll see you next time.

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