- Candidate filing season heats up as Michael Watley and Roy Cooper have now both entered the U.S.

Senate race.

And some chatter from the House Speaker on what terms it would take to get a state budget bill passed.

This is State Lines.

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♪ ♪ - Welcome back to State Lines.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, great panel, good friends, better analysts.

In fact, Skye David of New Frame is here.

Hello, Skye.

- Hi, good morning.

- We have Donald Bryson.

He runs and he leads up the John Locke Foundation, part of the Carolina Journal's in that team.

Donald, good to have you on.

- Thanks for having me back on.

- Happy holidays.

Claudia Rivera Cotto is here from Enlace Latino NC.

Good to see you.

- Hello, thank you.

- And Bruce Thompson of Parker Poe is on the end table.

Veteran of all sorts of political battles and analyses.

Bruce, always great to have you.

- Good to be back home.

- And it's good to have you here.

A little bit of chatter about the North Carolina budget, folks.

Claudia, we'll come back to you for this.

Let me set the story up because there was some budget chatter this week.

State House Speaker Destin Hall released an editorial that got picked up in some newspapers.

Speaker Hall says the personal income tax rates will be dropping to three point nine nine percent in twenty twenty six.

And the parties all agree on that.

It could drop another half percentage point if North Carolina can meet some upcoming tax revenue goals.

Here's the problem.

Projections are calling for state budget deficits as soon as 2027.

Over in the Senate, Republican leadership has proposed ending those revenue triggers to pass clean tax cuts.

They believe it will stimulate the economy.

We'll see what happens.

Claudia, lawmakers are scheduled to come back to Raleigh for a session on December 15th.

I was told they weren't coming back to do much business, even if they come back just to stay in session.

What are you hearing about this?

- Yeah, there's not an expectation for there to be a vote on December 15.

Even the staff from the House said that in an X post.

And from what we're hearing is basically as House Speaker Destin Hall had mentioned, his priorities right now are in the race of the teachers pay about two percent or more.

So from that, he thinks that it's necessary for the triggers for 2027 to go from thirty three billion to thirty six point three billion.

And that's something that the Senate leader, Phil Berger, doesn't really agree on.

He thinks that they should remain the same as they agreed on 2023.

And I think that is one of their main differences right now and priorities for this budget.

- Bruce, the optics of releasing an op ed, pretty old school, putting out there in the digital newspapers, if you will.

Why would Destin Hall do something like this?

Everyone knows in that building negotiating where Phil Berger stands on triggers.

- Yeah, I think it just comes down to the fact that both the House and the Senate are getting attacked, especially from Democrats, you know, showing maps that North Carolina is the only state without a budget right now, being critical about some of the needs and thinking he felt like he had to respond.

But, you know, it's pretty clear.

And this is maybe a little foreshadowing is something we'll talk about later.

There's not going to be any movement on a budget before the primaries.

There's too much at stake for incumbents right now to stake themselves out, frankly, on either side of this tax cut issue.

So I don't think we're going to see any action until well into the spring.

- What do you think of Bruce's take on that?

It did get us talking about it.

It caught a lot of people's attention, but they're not even close on a deal for a budget, much less Medicaid or anything else.

- Yeah, I think that Bruce is right that the Democrats are really highlighting that.

And I think some of the House members are probably feeling a little pressure from their constituents.

I mean, think about people that are here in Wake County and you have a lot of state employees in your district.

People might be wondering why isn't there a budget?

So I think it was more of this is the House's position and we are waiting to work for you people.

And so I think it's both both the Democrats and also some of their own members who maybe are feeling the pain from their own folks.

- Don, your take on this Democrats in Cahoots.

This was Destin Hall.

I think Representative Hall or someone helped him write that or he may have written himself.

He's very astute.

What do you think of this idea of raising the issue right before the holidays, right before December 15th, if anything else?

A skeleton session is what they call them.

- Well, I think it's interesting to see what the debates will be coming into the December 15th session.

I think we'll probably see a technical corrections bill.

That's a rumor going around, although there are no scheduled votes, as she mentioned.

I think that, you know, when you have an argument between chambers like this, that you have to arrive at some sort of shared truth.

They're not doing a very good job of that.

I think that coming from a rural county like he does, Speaker Hall is very interested in increasing teacher pay to incentivize teachers to come to counties like his.

And I understand that.

At the same time, Phil Berger has been a leader on tax policy nationally.

North Carolina has been a national model on that.

And so he's very protective of these triggers.

I think they could probably negotiate instead of half a percent of the time, they could do a quarter percent of the time.

Nobody's talking about that.

There's also the Republican Party is supposed to be the party of budget hawks of lowering spending.

And the truth is, and the funny part is, if you do the math and they would agree to spend a little bit less money, they could come to an agreement much faster.

But everybody wants to spend all the money.

- That's what government does is zero sum.

It's a balanced budget.

Not a government can't make profit.

Claudia, that's what I've always been told.

But as a journalist now, do you keep your eye on December 15th just in case a deal can be reached?

Or do you buy in with what the this old guard around here says that, hey, he just said it.

Now we're going to just stir the water a bit.

- I mean, we're still going to be looking at it.

We're still going to be paying attention to that session.

But as they mentioned, most likely there will be no votes.

But there could be other discussions happening.

And I think that's what we're going to be paying attention to.

Maybe if they are able to talk with the press and share a little bit more insight about where their plans are.

- Bruce, about this idea of North Carolina not having a budget.

I'm a stickler for facts.

The fact is, North Carolina does have a budget.

It just hasn't been renewed or replaced.

What in a couple of legislative sessions.

So the government doesn't shut down.

It just operates at what?

Whatever level they've adjusted when they can pass a budget bill.

So is it really fair to Republicans to say they haven't passed a budget?

Yeah.

I mean, to say that North Carolina doesn't have a budget is is not accurate because the legislature did have the foresight a few sessions back to say if we don't pass a budget by July 1st, then we maintain the status quo.

Last year's budget continues.

And, you know, some are critical of that, saying it relieves the pressure.

But I think at the end of the day, it's in all of our best interests not to be on the precipice or even get into a shutdown like they did in Washington.

- You wouldn't dare the Republicans in Raleigh to shut down the state government for a while to cut a deal?

- Well, you know, the interesting thing is we've never had that happen in North Carolina.

And it really could be fatal to so many things, because unlike the federal government that has a provision for some basic services to continue before the legislature passed this sort of ongoing, continuing resolution, we didn't have that here.

And government really would have shut down.

- Back in the day, we had the legislative show and they had furloughs and all that under Governor Perdue to try to save money for a recession.

I worked through it.

I didn't really have a choice.

I was here for the people, folks.

You know how that goes.

Well, how about this, Donald?

Candidates for local legislative and congressional offices filed to run beginning this week.

Whether we like it or not, the '26 election cycle is here, folks.

Legislative candidates.

I love this.

I saw this on a cheat sheet.

I'm going to give props to this.

Cost you about, what, $139 to file for office for a legislature.

Seventeen hundred bucks, Donald, to seek a U.S.

House seat.

Cheap at any price.

District attorneys, judicial candidates, they'll pay some fee.

I didn't look that up, but you must be licensed to practice law in North Carolina.

If you want to run for U.S.

Senate, you must be 30 years old.

We'll have to check Roy Cooper and Michael Watley's IDs.

And U.S.

House candidates have to be at least 25 years old.

Credit all to Sarah Michaels of Carolina Public Press.

I loved her cheat sheet, Donald.

So I use some of the facts off that.

Thank you very much.

But to set the tone, it's candidate filing season.

Any surprises?

Where do you want to start?

There's Congress.

There's the Senate.

There's also legislative and local.

Where do you go?

- Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on in North Carolina and people always focus on the presidential races.

Right.

But this is this is a midterm.

And we have 14 U.S.

House seats, 50 seats in the state Senate, 120 seats in the state House, one state Supreme Court seat and three court of appeals seats and a partridge in a pear tree.

It's there are a lot of elections going on next year.

Of course, the primaries coming up on March 3rd.

Then we have the general election just a few months later on November 3rd of 2026.

And it will be there's a lot going on, some changes coming in the legislature.

The first one I think that's easy to talk about is Sarah Stevens, Representative Sarah Stevens from Surrey County is not going to run for state house again.

She is going to run for state Supreme Court and challenge Anita Earls.

Anita Earls is a current Supreme Court justice and is one of only two Democrats on that court right now.

And that'll be a very interesting and probably a very hot race.

I'm sure that we'll talk about it on this show a lot over the next year.

If we go to the state Senate, the primary that I think everybody who follows the state legislature is going to be talking about is Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page has filed to run against Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger.

Phil Berger has been there since what, 2002, 2004, has led sort of the Republican takeover in 2010 and is the longest standing, I think, chamber leader in America right now, current.

And so everybody has been talking about it and then we'll continue to talk about that.

Really competitive races in the state Senate.

If you move on to the state house, there's a lot of changeover.

We've already talked about Sarah Stevens.

There was an announcement just yesterday or this week anyway, that Harry Warren from Rowan County has been there for a long time, is not going to run for reelection, but is instead going to run for clerk of Superior Court in Rowan County.

Which will give him a pay raise if he gets that seat from $13,500 a year as a state legislature, where he votes on a $32 billion budget to being clerk of court, and a $90,000 salary.

So good for him if he gets that.

That's interesting and that's a side note on how much we pay our legislators.

Maybe we need to look at that.

Mark Brody is not running again in House District 55.

He's been there for a long time.

I could go on and on, but there's some really interesting things.

One other thing I'll mention before we get to our conversation is, Representative Cecil Brockman from Guilford County resigned due to some very serious criminal allegations.

There is a four-way Democratic primary right now.

Four Democrats have filed in that primary to run for that seat.

- Greensboro?

- In the Greensboro, Spring Garden, High Point area of Guilford County.

- All right.

- So I'll leave it there.

- Skye, if you work in the, where you're walking those hallways and meeting those, everyone in there is an incumbent.

How careful are advocates and lobbyists and those folks when it's primary season in North Carolina, when there are now two candidates for every race and both would like to talk with you for a moment?

- Yeah, I think that this primary season is gonna be very interesting.

The elections that just happened last month kind of showed that people aren't really feeling incumbent so much this year.

And so I think that there are going to be a lot, there's gonna be a lot of money spent in the primary.

And there may be some upsets in North Carolina.

- Bruce, everyone that's come on this show says no matter what Cooper and Whatley spend in millions and billions, it's gonna come down to a point and a half.

That North Carolina is gonna have its mind made up on a partisan basis regardless of the major party candidate.

So let's focus the attention down ballot.

How hard is it gonna be for a legislature or a county commissioner or a clerk of court candidate to keep their name out there when Cooper and Whatley are presumptively buying up all the airtime and print space?

- Yeah, I was thinking the other day that I guess now it's just kind of cute that back in '84, when Hunt and Helms combined to spend 12 and a half million dollars, we thought that was outrageous.

And we may be looking at a $1 billion Senate race in North Carolina, which is hard to imagine.

And it's hard to get any space.

I was talking to a candidate for Wake County District Attorney earlier this week, and she was lamenting the fact that they're trying to cut through all of the other noise that's out there in a very important race.

So it's a challenge.

- Let's pivot, Claudia, to you about Michael Whatley and Roy Cooper.

They did officially file to run in the 2026 US Senate race in their respective party primaries.

Roy Cooper has a clear Democratic primary field.

On the GOP side, Michael Whatley's being challenged by Don Brown and Elizabeth Temple.

I'm from Johnston County, I think.

Cooper, of course, the former state attorney general and two-term governor.

He said, you know, three intermediaries, that he really didn't want to seek a Senate seat, but, you know, duty, if effectively called patriotism, however you want to define that.

Michael Whatley, Claudia, says he's running because President Trump asked him to seek North Carolina's Senate seat and has his full endorsement.

And if you have his endorsement in the GOP, you're as good as gold.

What do you make of the reasons each of these gentlemen have chosen to run?

- I think that for the voters, it's gonna be an interesting decision, particularly when thinking about that.

We know that former Governor Roy Cooper has a name recognition over there, and that has been showed on the polls as well.

But then as we go and see how the campaigns and the ads go about that, and also, as you're mentioning, if they're able to show that they care about the topics that the voters care about more than so just the reasoning of why they decided to go and run for the office, I think that's what's gonna put them apart.

And if they're able to get the people that are from the urban and the suburban and maybe like the rural areas turn out to be higher, I think that will make a difference in the decisions that are made.

- Donald, I am caught by what candidates are doing.

I heard Darrell Ice of California may move to Texas and run in that district.

Has nothing to do with this State Lines.

However, Wally's running, he says, obviously, because Donald Trump asked him to run.

And then Roy Cooper introduced, was it Vice President Harris at the DNC.

This doesn't keep me up at night, but I thought about it at night when I'm laying there trying to go to sleep.

Are we entering an era where it's almost like NIL in college, where North Carolina has two Senate seats, for instance, but it's basically national party players going, yeah, you'll be best for that position because I need you in Washington.

More than you're needed in North Carolina.

- Yeah, North Carolina politics, and I think unfortunately, have become nationalized.

I think for Democrats, there's a lesson in this in that when they began to nationalize was around 2009, 2010.

And that's really when the North Carolina Democratic Party identified with the National Democratic Party.

And that's when they really took a hit and lost control of the state legislature.

They've done well in gubernatorial races since then, but they've sort of had to deal with sort of the appetite around the National Democratic Party.

That has also happened with the Republican Party.

And if you're going into a midterm election where a Republican's in the White House, you're gonna be in a tough spot.

And same thing if a Democrat was in the White House for Democrats.

And so it's gonna be a hard year for Republicans one way or the other.

They're gonna have to figure out how to handle Donald Trump because they have chosen to nationalize themselves and align with the National Party rather than create their own brand.

- Do you feel ripples through the Raleigh political scene by having a Whatley Cooper race just kind of out there dominating everything, two big names, lots of power behind those candidacies?

- Yeah, I think that there is that kind of feeling that this is gonna be a big race.

And next year, it may be because of the national trends, your state legislative seats aren't gonna get a lot of talk.

But I think that it will be, like Donald said, it's gonna be a tough year for Republicans all around.

- Can I add something to that?

I don't think it's the folks in North Carolina nationalizing as much as just all of our elections have become nationalized.

And the person who should be the most worried about that is Whatley.

It's gonna help him have a cakewalk, I think, in his primary.

But running as Trump's guy in November of 2026 is not a position I would wanna be in.

- Bruce, I think news consumers oftentimes have nationalized how they consume media as well, that localism needs to fight back a little bit.

'Cause we have leaders who it's difficult to book at the local media level.

My colleagues say, "I have trouble booking."

They'd walk through Hot Coals to get on MS Now or Fox News.

So I understand the power.

Don't dislike the game.

That's the way it's played right now.

How about first US House District Congressman Don Davis?

He had a choice of districts when considering running in '26.

He's chosen.

The legislative Republicans had split his district this fall to force him into a Republican-leaning US House district.

So Representative Davis has chosen to run in the new first House district, though he's drawn into the third congressional district now.

The old third district is represented by Congressman Murphy.

Yes, it's confusing.

Former State Senator Bobby Hannig, Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson, Lenore County Commissioner Eric Rouse, Cordray County Sheriff Asa Buck are all seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Don Davis.

Yep, they change it.

So where he's representing now is gone after the election.

Don Davis versus a host of Republicans.

I don't know enough about local politics down there.

Is that a strong field, you think?

- I think that Don Davis has a couple of benefits next year.

One is that there are a lot of people in this Republican primary, which means they're gonna have to spend a lot of money to get through the primary, and they're not gonna have that money available for the November election.

So that's one benefit.

And then another benefit would be that it is gonna be a tough year for Republicans.

And so even though this district is gonna be harder for him to win, and he did say he would move into this district, I think he has a couple things that are gonna help him during that process.

- Donald, what do you make of this race?

Don Davis, he's a Democrat.

I've seen much more liberal Democrats come out of the North Carolina Senate, and they're gonna try to force him left, and these Republicans are gonna try to run right.

I haven't seen, a couple have tied into America first, use that terminology, or tied into the MAGA movement.

How do you analyze this race out there?

It is interesting, even if it's the rural part of North Carolina.

- Yeah, it is.

One, I've criticized the legislature, and will continue to criticize the legislature, that when they were asked to redistrict, they came up with a decision real fast, but they still haven't passed a budget.

- Thanks, Bob.

- Leave that for what that is.

They have one job, pass a budget, and they didn't get that done.

Anyway, Don Davis is gonna be a tough customer, I think, for any Republican.

He was gonna be a tough customer for any Republican, whether they redistrict or not.

He's a savvy campaigner.

He knows his district well.

He's a likable guy, and he comes across as a middle-of-the-road Democrat.

He doesn't really lean left or right one way or the other.

I think that that appeals well to Northeastern North Carolina, and whoever comes out of that Republican primary is gonna have to do something else like that.

It would be interesting to see how that's gonna go, but the appeal to one part or the other isn't gonna work in that district the way I think people think it's going to, particularly in a year when a Republican, again, is in the White House.

- Claudia, what are your readers, what are they telling you out of the eastern part of North Carolina?

What are their expectations for their politician for Congress?

- I think that primarily what people are very concerned about during this redistricting process is more about the fact that it really hinders a little bit the feeling of democracy.

I know that this Congress map has been shown to be legal, and particularly because of the changes are mainly political, and they're not necessarily impacting the First Amendment.

That's what a three-judge panel decided this week.

But we also have seen that people, and this was a poll actually conducted by Opinion Diagnosis and commissioned by Common Cause that said that 84% of voters don't agree with gerrymandering, even if it's legal, and this included also Republican voters.

So I think that for the main part, people are concerned about the impacts that this could have in the feeling of the elections being fully democratic.

- Bruce, Democrats ran this state pretty much for a century because they were drawing maps that favored Democrats.

This is gerrymandering things, a 15-year-old phenomenon that's been going on since, what, 1868?

Let's talk about that race out there, though, the gerrymandering effect.

Are people feeling it?

It didn't matter in the '70s, the '80s, not much in the '90s.

It mattered in 2010.

That was my experience as a journalist down there.

- Yeah, I think people don't like it in general, but I think at the end of the day, it's not their highest concern.

I mean, all of us inside this bubble with state government care about it.

- But she's right.

If you ask a voter about it, they don't seem to like it.

They don't like the sausage, how it's made.

- They don't like it, and they don't like when anybody does it, and they don't like this arms race that they see.

But one thing that's very interesting, I'm a native of eastern North Carolina, and too many people think that everything east of I-95 is the same.

And you look at the first and the third, and maybe focus on the first, there's a big difference between what people are concerned about in Pasquotank County versus Pitt County.

- Like, Elizabeth City's totally different than Greenville and Kinston.

- Absolutely.

- And we also, we're a little stubborn in the east, and we don't like people telling us what to think or how to do.

So I don't think you can rely on just the partisan makeup there.

One thing I'll add that's interesting is a member of the North Carolina delegation told me that when these maps first came out, that Davis and Murphy were thinking about running in each other's districts, but ultimately they decided to stay in the same number district.

Even though it's a little different.

- And they wouldn't challenge each other, and it's double bunking business.

That was the biggest strategic move for both of those.

And Kent, very quickly, I want to talk about one thing with Claudia and go around with a little more topic, but Bruce, are you feeling the vibe out of that national race for, what is it, US House?

Does that pretend problem for the GOP, or has Don Davis still got uphill battle of the-- - I mean, I think it's a tough race, and of course, there are only two ways to run for office, unopposed or scared.

And Don, I mean, we all know him, he's gonna run a hard race.

But I think it's a positive sign, even though Democrats didn't win, they're cutting into those margins.

- All right, I want to touch on one final topic.

Claudia, do you, North Carolina's Board of Education Chairman used his board meeting comments this week to say the federal government is hurting North Carolina's public education efforts.

He said local public schools are now operating under uncertainty because of the long-proposed US Department of Education shutdown and recent immigration raids in North Carolina.

School attendance in Mecklenburg County, Wake County, Durham County, all dropped when Border Patrol conducted its November operations.

Claudia, what do you make of the top of the board saying it's causing us problems, problems caused by policies that voters elected and said they wanted?

How do you balance that issue?

- I think that the main issue here is how the federal implications are going into the local level and impacting the lives of the people.

For example, he was mentioning that about several schools had doubled the absentees in their schools because of the fear that these operations have created it.

We talked with several families in Charlotte, I was there for that week during the Border Patrol presence, and the fear that it has created has not only impacted people that are undocumented, but also people that have protection status, that have also asylum, and people that are even documented are also fearing to go out due to racial profiling.

And then the other aspect of it is not just the psychological impact that it's having, but the economical impact.

And that's the area where I think people are most concerned about as well, because it's impacting the schools due to the absentees, but also in other areas in the economy.

- I'm shortchanging this topic, I've got about 90 seconds.

Don, real quick on the education thing, the public schools now saying, "Hey, the feds came in here and disrupted school."

- Yeah, no, I think there's a lot to be said for that.

I think that there definitely, you can see from the absentee rates, there's clearly fear from people that were even legally here due to the absentee, or you can see that through the absentee rates.

I think that public schools are having a hard time right now.

Again, I'll be the squeaky wheel, not having a state budget, not knowing what's gonna happen with the Federal Department of Education.

And look, I'm in favor of getting rid of it, but schools still need certainty on what that means, right?

And so I think that overall, Republicans at the national and state level need to give some certainty in what their policy direction is.

- 15 seconds, Kay, any thoughts on this?

- Yeah, I think that it is true that kids aren't showing up to school, and when kids aren't showing up to school, they're not learning.

And when they're not learning, they're not doing well.

And so that is a ripple effect that's down the road.

- 10 seconds.

- 10 seconds, you said people voted for it.

I don't think people voted for mass law enforcement pulling people off the streets and arresting people who are lawful citizens.

- There you go.

- It's un-American.

- There you go.

Thanks, panelists, for joining us.

Email your thoughts at statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'll read it.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thank you so much for watching.

I'll see you next time.

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