- [Narrator] A new year brings a new governor, new legislative session, a broken supermajority, and new legislative leaders who must tackle some existing challenges.

This is "State Lines."

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[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to "State Lines," and happy new year!

I'm Kelly McCullen, joining me to kick off, what I hope to be a very fine and positive 2025, Professor David McLennan, the Director from Meredith College, Anderson Clayton, representing the North Carolina Democratic Party and debuting.

Anderson, good to have you.

- Thanks for having us.

- And, besides you, representing the Republicans, Matt Mercer of the NCGOP, and Professor and Doctor Andrew Taylor of North Carolina State University.

You've seen both of these professors on local television of the triangle market, and they're masterminds of politics.

Welcome, happy new year to everyone.

- You as well.

- Thank you.

- Are you ready?

We're gonna start the new year with you.

- Oh, I'm ready.

- First question, first analysis, and just days before the 2025 legislative session convenes, we can look ahead a bit before the bills start just coming in, you know, over the dam like it breaks.

The legislative power structure in Raleigh will be slightly different in just a few days.

North Carolina voters, what did you do?

You elected Donald Trump, the Republican, yet, you easily elected Democrat Josh Stein to be our governor.

Those council of state races, you split them between Republicans and Democrats.

Professor McLennan, both sides of North Carolina, we're satisfied with the election results, yet, they're still fighting, and then there's still this spirit of "Ugh" out there.

What do you take?

- It's who we are as a state.

We are a very closely divided state, and the election results from November illustrated that.

I mean, we look at things like the Supreme Court race not only this year, but the most recent one before that, so closely contested.

So that's where we are.

We elect Donald Trump for the third time in North Carolina, but we also keep electing Democratic governors.

That's just the nature of North Carolina.

- What is it about a statewide elected Democrat that is so acceptable to voters, but, yet, they'll turn and vote for Republican US Senators and other federal, or president, they'll go Republican many times, except for Barack Obama.

- Yeah, well, I think you look at some polling results.

You look at what North Carolinians think about the direction of the country, it's far worse than what they think the direction of the state is.

So, they feel like, "Well, we've had a Democratic governor, so things have been going slightly better than they've been going nationally.

Let's keep the Democrat in control."

We have sort of a history of electing Democrats through Council of State races, not uniformly, like you talked about, but, again, we've had some Republican governors, but we've been more consistent voting for Republican presidential candidates.

- All right, Anderson, take us back to election night in Democratic Party.

Good times for Josh Stein, and then you watched the presidential race and North Carolina voters didn't do everything you wanted, but they did half.

- I mean, yeah, neither did the nation, I would say in that sense.

So I can't feel too bad.

North Carolina's sort of been known as the great white whale across the country.

And, on election night, we actually proved to be one of the bright spots, winning six statewide races in North Carolina and giving Democrats a fighting chance on the Council of State, and at least breaking the Republican supermajority to give a semblance of balance of power in that legislature right now.

- When it comes to Democratic politics, and you're right, it was a successful night for Stein, for Morgan Jackson, the consultant, and, of course, Roy Cooper's now set up for whatever he chooses he wants to do, what do you say to your other chair folks outside that they look at you and saw success, but, nationally, the national media seems to say it was a huge loss because of Vice President Harris coming up short?

- I mean, I think we've actually had a lot of good national press that said North Carolina was the spot to look at on election night.

That sort of like, "What did they do there that no one else did?"

and I think that the one point that I would make based on the prior one was just that disinformation was a huge factor in this election cycle, and you don't have the sort of magnitude of disinformation that you do at the federal level at the local level.

And I think that the way in which we were able to really propel Josh Stein forward was by talking about Mark Robinson and basically bringing up, you know, his past, his history in the state, and sort of enabling a party to see that, you know, that's not the Republican party that we know in North Carolina that has given us a business progressive mindset in the future and something that we would like to keep in this state moving forward.

- Is it okay to go around America as a North Carolina Democratic Party representative and brag about how successful you were?

To other Democrats.

The Republicans aren't gonna give you credit but... - They did, actually.

Dallas Woodhouse has got an article out there right now that talks about, he said, "Democrats actually did do pretty good."

No offense, Matt Mercer.

But I'm just like, I think that we have a lot to be proud of, - Yeah.

- but I also think I've got a lot left to learn and we have a lot of places in this state that have been left untouched.

- Matt, GOP, is the glass half full, half empty going into the legislative session 2025?

- Yeah, I think if you're looking at the one race everyone would've wanted to win, it was the presidential race and Donald Trump won that handily in North Carolina.

And I think what you see is Republicans turned out.

The state party did its job in turning out more Republicans than Democrats across the state.

But what you also see is that candidates matter.

And I would say that, you know, I think if you watch TV a lot of times you'd be confused if Josh Stein was a Republican or a Democrat.

He's got law enforcement in his commercials, he's talking about community college, he's talking about Republican platform issues.

So it's smart, in that sense, that he's trying to run away, I think, from that brand, but I think Republicans had a very good night turning out their voters.

But what we see is candidates matter.

And I think being this close to a super majority again in the legislature, you know, to be determined on that one, you know, I think we'll see a lot of good legislation to help working people and working families this year.

- When candidates matter at the state party level, how do you know when to fight for or against your own party with a nominee who may or may not be able to win the general election?

Because we're go talking about that governor's race and Donald Trump won, Mark Robinson lost, and even Republicans kinda looked at Mark Robinson and either they loved him or they didn't really support him overtly.

- Yeah, I mean, he was not able to make his case effectively and he got swamped by money and so when you combine those things in addition to Democrats traditionally do well because that governorship is really the one power center they have left.

So I think everything kind of goes to that to maintain it, where they've lost the courts, they've lost the legislature, they can't win US Senate seats anymore.

They can't win the presidential race, but the one thing we can do is keep the governorship.

So that's really where it is.

- Dr. Taylor?

- Yeah?

- Your thoughts on 2025, we leave this election, it was, for the most part, the people have spoken with the exceptional one race in the state, but your thoughts on 2025 as we head in.

Will politics get easier?

Will they get more smooth, more friendly, cordial?

- Well, I don't think so.

I mean, you know, we've been talking about polarization and the lack of civility in politics for quite some time now, and even prior to the emergence of Donald Trump on the political scenes.

And I don't see that changing in the short term.

In the state of North Carolina we've, you know, what Matt was just talking about, the Democrats hold on the governorship.

We have, since 1972, there are only two states that have had Democrats in the governor's mansion more... Longer than we have.

More accumulation of years than we have in North Carolina.

That's Washington and Oregon.

So we are number 48.

And it is a puzzle.

It's a very interesting question.

So we've got continuity there.

Matt mentioning the super majority, one short of super majority, the Republicans have in the House.

That's a sort of continuity as well so we're going into 2025 with much of the same as we've playbook that we've had recently.

I'm not sure exactly what else is in the Republican agenda now.

We've had since 2010 a Republican majority in the General Assembly.

It seems to me on the surface to be politics as usual.

- David, if we're so polarized, why do we as voters split our ticket evenly?

Polarized says, "I'm on this team and no matter who you present as an opposition, I'm not gonna support."

I get it, but then I don't get it.

- Well, I think we're talking about a relatively small number of ticket splitters, so we're not talking about 100% of North Carolinians are flipping coins at the ballot box.

So, y'know, we're still very polarized and we've seen polarization increase over the past decade, but I think we're just to the point where, for example, the difference between the federal, if you have cumulative votes for the federal races and cumulative votes for the council state races, it was about 2, a little over 2%, so that's the ticket splitting right there, about 2, 2% are ticket splitters.

But that's enough to make Donald Trump win the state and Josh Stein win the state governor's race.

- For council of state, how much of that is personality and performance on the job as a, I guess, an elected bureaucrat versus partisan politics?

I'm thinking of Elaine Marshall, Steve Troxler, the treasurer's race in many ways.

- Yeah, some of those just have, y'know, name recognition.

I mean, Elaine Marshall's been in office since 1996.

Steve Troxler's been in there a long time.

They've got some built in advantages of incumbent.

But we did see some turnover in some offices that went from Democratic control, like the auditor's race, to Republican control.

- Alright, let's go to the North Carolina Senate, where Republicans will hold onto a super majority in 2025.

But the new incoming State House Speaker, Representative Dustin Hall, is one vote short of a House Republican Super Majority.

Now, this statistically gives Democrats the power to uphold any gubernatorial veto should all representatives attend legislative sessions and all the Democrats can vote together, of course.

Republican leaders have enticed crossover votes to override Cooper vetoes in past years.

So my question, is the pressure on House Democrats to stick together or pressure on House Republicans to flip that one or two votes that they need?

- Or maybe the third option, y'know, are they gonna run someone else out of the caucus at this point?

I think you're looking at issue-dependent, which I think it was that Speaker Moore and now Speaker Hall have said, y'know, a working super majority, y'know, it can kind of vary based on a particular issue, but I think everyone wants things that will improve their district.

And so the biggest piece of legislation that they do every two years is the state budget, and so I think you're able to kind of use that as your guidepost of what's actually going to happen, what can build up to that point, getting things passed, continuing to let families keep more of their hard earned money.

Obviously, relief for Western North Carolina's going to be important.

But it's easy to kind of come in and change things, but once you've done that for a long time, y'know, how do you maintain it and how do you search for those next things?

Y'know, I think there's still a lot of questions about, y'know, the state health plan.

I think there's questions with Medicaid expansion.

I think there are a lot of areas you can dig into and say, y'know, there's still some work to do here, but I think voters have trusted Republicans to do that in the General Assembly - Anderson, to that one vote, the one vote that the Democrats have to sustain vetoes, and then in mid-December, Cecil Brockman, the Guilford County Rep, comes out, calls out the young Democratic party leadership, probably you, to say, "I've got my limits!

Don't pick on me!

I missed the veto vote!"

And people should read up on that, it's very interesting.

Do you see the House Democrats coming together in this state and supporting Josh Stein or will they be easily picked off, at least one or two of them?

- Lemme tell you what, Matt was brazen earlier with saying the fact that the legislature and that everything that the state has done for Republicans and that it's all fine and good and dandy.

I'm just like, no, Republicans have gerrymandered this state.

That is why you have power in it.

Make no mistake on that, first and foremost.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm hoping all my Democrats stick together, and we're gonna try to make sure that they do.

I don't think that that was coming at me as a state party chair.

I think it was specifically coming at organizations in our party, but I think that everybody has got the right to do what they wanna do, especially in a primary.

And I think that right now what we've gotta focus on is making sure that everyone knows that this state party supports them and does wanna see good things happen for their district.

I do not believe that community colleges or our law enforcement right now, to be real with you, is a Republican-only agenda.

As we've seen from the state legislature Republicans this year in the state legislature, defining our community college system and taking the power away from the governor to appoint people to that board, partisanly, making those boards more partisan in the state and taking away power from Democrats in North Carolina.

They've restricted us at every single level.

And I think that right now what we've been able to do in this election cycle is a tale that we are gonna be able to come back and we are gonna be able to put a foothold in this state even stronger.

- If the finger points at you, Matt, I have to go back to you.

- Hey.

No, that's fine.

I think voters are looking for balanced government and where they've seen Governor Cooper being the most overridden governor in history, issuing executive orders, really kind of going around the legislature.

You have an attorney general in Josh Stein for eight years who would not defend the legislature in the court system, as he is obliged to do.-- - It' not his job.

- He is obliged to do that now.

- It's not his job to defend the legislature, it's his job to defend the people of North Carolina.

That is the state constitution, and that is how it's written, quite frankly.

And so everything that he has done to sue the state legislature over gerrymandering, over the Leandro program, over everything that they have denied the state and North Carolina's people in it right now is the reason why we're in the position that we are.

- What do you make of that Dr. Taylor?

Republican/Democrat going out at the party level?

It's, that's the spirit of Raleigh right now.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, Matt and Anderson are professionals and know how to do their job, and I know they serve their parties very well.

One of the interesting things about the level of partisanship and polarization in civility and politics at the state level traditionally is that the general assembly, as everybody around the table knows, this is a pretty small town.

I mean, it's a pretty tight knit community.

There are 170 state legislators.

There are, the staffs they have are incredibly small.

You compare it to United States Congress, it's much more like a small high school than a big college campus.

And what this means often is that positive things is that you can have good relationships with individuals across the aisle.

The problem is also that you can take personal things in there because you have personal relationships with everybody, and those things can be taken in a negative direction as well.

And so it's a completely different kind of dynamic from the Washington level.

But it's certainly very interesting.

- The personal part of this.

There's only 170 legislators, David, and they're fighting policy wars.

So how do we get past this?

This one vote empowers or cuts power from Josh Stein in that house.

Is it gonna be easy for Robert Reese to run the house democrats, keep everything in line?

- Well, it's never easy to run a group of individuals.

He's got 120 people.

Well, not of his caucus, but-- - [Man] The senate does it.

- Yeah.

The Senate does it.

The House has typically been a more raucous chamber.

They have more members and they bring in different views.

And so I think it's up to the leadership to keep them together for key votes.

You know, we will see some bipartisanship in the legislature.

We always have, we see Democrats and Republicans proposing legislation together.

You know, we tend to talk about the most polarizing issues, whether it be abortion laws and things like that.

But on many of the issues that deal with North Carolina's future, there is more bipartisanship than the average member of the public would understand.

- Yeah.

Most of legislative action is pretty boring, to be honest.

The bills is fly through 100 to zero, but we worry about those few where they fight.

You know, that's what makes all this fun, Professor.

Anderson, a cupcake for you.

There's your guy, Josh Stein.

The new governor starts this term, but he has some huge issues facing North Carolina.

Mr. Stein completed two terms as Attorney General.

He was sworn in on New Year's.

He's a former state senator, and his veto pen does carry that tiny amount of weight with a State House partisan balance being what it is.

Tell us about Josh Stein.

You've worked with him, for him, campaigned for him, and we've all been around him for years.

What's your take on him?

- And y'all might know him better than I have 'cause I've only been around him for two in that sense since I've been party chair but.

- You've raised more money for him than I bet any of us - Amen, alright.

- Take that.

- I think that the good thing that we have in, in our attorney general is someone that is going to be a real powerhouse in terms of protecting the people.

He is somebody that's been the people's lawyer for the last eight years, that he has been the Attorney General.

And I think going into the governor's mansion, that's somebody like a continuation of a governor, Roy Cooper that you want.

And I also think y'all have talked a lot about partisanship and polarization and I'm like, it doesn't have to be that way though.

We do make it that way.

But people, most people across North Carolina right now would look at most of the issues like public education and fully funding our schools is not a partisan issue, but is one that they would like to actually see happen.

- How do you think Governor Stein will, how will he take to his bully pulpit in Raleigh?

We've seen Roy Cooper's style, it was largely successful for two terms in two Trump years.

How does Stein differ from Mr. Cooper?

- I mean, I think he's somebody that's gonna bring everyone to the table, and you've seen it from his, you know, transition team.

He had people like Senator Danny Britt.

He had people like Katherine Truett, Republicans that served with him.

He's not someone that I think is gonna be, it's not a partisan position.

It is about protecting the people of North Carolina.

And I think in every way, shape, and form, he has proven to be that person throughout his career in North Carolina politics and also throughout his campaign where he won in a 15 point landslide, honestly, which is the largest margin that we've ever seen I think, gentlemen, correct me if I'm wrong, in state history, correct?

- Yeah, Matt, what happened?

Do you know the statistic, no.

Let's talk about, let's talk about Governor Stein.

Does he come in with a clean slate with Republicans, or is it because he's a Democratic governor, you might as well define him as the loyal opposition, at least politically and just move forward into the legislative session.

- Yeah, I think his service in the state senate does lend itself to, okay, he does have some of those personal relationships where Roy Cooper was Attorney General, kind of off doing his own thing for 16 years, didn't have that with a lot of the members there.

So I think there's always a hope that he'll be a reliable governing partner.

Whether that happens, you know, we'll see.

I think there's a lot to be said there, but I think that if he does not do what we would like him to see and does not hold his, what he's trying to do for the people of the state, then he'll as govern, Lieutenant Governor Jim Gardner said he'll get to have a state trooper drive him around and not do much else.

So that to be seen.

- Dr. Taylor, Josh Stein comes in, he's dealing with a very powerful senate leader in Senator Phil Berger and a new house speaker, but a seasoned rules chairman in Dustin Hall over in the North Carolina house.

How do you see the, how do you see the navigation of those political waters?

- Well, as I mentioned, I think to, oh, the first question that we had earlier on when, when you were talking to me, this is a sort of sense of continuity.

Matt was talking about Governor Stein's years in the Attorney General's office, Cooper before him.

Very similar cut in many ways from a similar kind of cloth.

We've got continuity in the general assembly.

I'm not sure how much more is in the, in the sort of agenda pipeline, even though we do have a new governor.

And so I think there's gonna be times when they're gonna want to be able to work together on some of the nuts and bolts things that have to be done.

Obviously the budget we do, we have to have a budget in some shape or form at some point in time.

But that, that's probably good for the relationship that we don't have a brand new regime in town.

With both of these, the Governor and the general assembly majorities have been around for a long time and they've done a lot of stuff that they already want to get done.

- David, I must say that republicans and some that I know that were in powerful positions have said, Mr. Stein is someone you can do business with.

We fully understand the positions he has to take.

So will it be smooth backstage you expect for the political process and then let the newspapers report what they will?

- Well, I think it depends on the issues that come forward.

I mean, there are gonna be some non-sexy issues that the General Assembly has to deal with, like transportation funding.

There may be an opportunity for the governor and the leadership and the Republican House and Senate to work together on those.

It's the cultural issues that are gonna test that relationship.

If we see more gambling bills come forward or I don't think we'll see another abortion bill, but that's where you're gonna see those big differences.

Certainly funding the opportunity scholarships, that becomes a real flash point between Stein and perhaps the Republican leadership.

So, I think it depends on what the issues that come up during the legislative session.

- You brought up a great point Anderson, about Josh Stein being a former attorney general, just as a few days ago.

And here comes Jeff Jackson in with his own ideas, probably his own platform and how he does business.

Do you see a good clear separation coming?

Would Josh Stein want to be sort of a quasi attorney general 'cause that's what he knows as the early governor, or do you see it being Jeff Jackson, that's his kingdom now and Josh Stein pivots towards a more external-focused approach?

- Well, I mean, thanks to our last little legislative session in a power grab from Republicans at Senate Bill 382, our attorney general is essentially a lame duck until we figure out the litigation that's going on right now and what it means.

And I think that Republicans have definitely done that intentionally, not allowing our attorney general to be able to sue over legislation that impacts, or that comes out of our state legislature that could impact the people of North Carolina.

Because as I said earlier, he is the people's lawyer.

He is not the legislature's lawyer, not the governor's lawyer, to be honest with you.

- You don't buy that the legislature can prescribe by law the job performance duties of the council, the state, including attorney general.

That's what they'll say.

They say they can do it and it's constitutional.

- I mean, they say they can do a lot of things to be real with you.

And I think that it is egregious, the fact that we are looking at our state constitution and our federal constitution, that everyone seems to still be on the same page as that we should abide by that document and those two documents and saying that we believe in three equal branches of government.

And right now our legislature has far more power than it should, and it's backing up and is being backed up by our judiciary that also has far too much power than it should right now, and is not giving our executive enough power at this moment in time.

- Now state Constitution says they shall be distinct and separate from one another.

That does not say anything about them being equal.

And each branch tries to attain as much power as it can.

And I'll let viewers in on the dirty little secret.

The folks most excited for Jeff Jackson to go to DC for two years were his own colleagues.

And how are they gonna deal with him being back too will be interesting to see.

- And there you go.

I mean, like seriously saying, we don't believe in co-equal branches of government in this state.

That's coming outta the Republican party's mouth right now.

And I'm like, if that's what you're satisfied with as a voter out there, go for it and vote for it again.

But I'm like North Carolina, you deserve better than that to be honest with you.

- There's nothing more partisan than when the state starts debating social issues.

Former House speaker Tim Moore refused to allow a floor vote on medical marijuana after Senate Republicans seemed to approve it.

On legalized gambling, sports betting was approved.

Senate Republicans wouldn't budge on a House plan to allow casinos.

Election 24 highlighted some abortion positions, Andrew and the governor's race was part of the attorney general's race, even Supreme Court.

Social issues in 2025.

Is it prime to renew these wars or do voters want a break?

- I don't know.

Well, I think voters want a break.

I don't know whether.

I think they'll get one.

I'm not sure that's why they might get one.

I think a lot of it is, and David mentioned with the abortion legislation.

There are Republicans who wanna move a little bit further forward with it.

But given what President-Elect Trump has said and given, I think, how it went down in 2024 campaigns, I'm not sure we will get anything extra on that.

There may be some other social issues.

Sometimes these things come from left field, you know, we might get some kind of story that goes viral that will require a response.

But I think we're at a sort of status quo point with regards to social issues and we're gonna be looking at other kinds of issues that are gonna take up the most of the time.

- Professor McLennan got two minutes left in this show.

Social issues in 2025, nothing gets hotter, nothing raises more money and nothing makes us feel either exuberant or just lamenting our democracy and the social issues.

- They are the most polarizing issues.

And we see, you know, both in terms of what the legislators themselves do, either in Congress or the General Assembly, they somewhat like to talk about it, but also people in the media like to talk about it as well, but it often doesn't reflect public opinion.

I mean, the medical marijuana issue, one of the issues that North Carolinians support by a great amount, yet we've seen it come up time and time again and be stopped, as you said, by Speaker Moore.

The question is, does the legislature, is the legislature gonna reflect the will of the people or not?

- Anderson, what do you make of social issues in 2025?

Or should we focus on things like Helene, school funding and other budgetary matters?

- I mean, I think that the number one economic driver in places like where I'm from in rural North Carolina is public education.

And I appreciate you calling them opportunity scholarships, I get that that's what they've been calling them too, but I'm like, they're private school voucher funding in every way, shape and form and it is taking money away from school systems that are helping people make it out of communities like where I'm from and making something of themselves.

And it's what's propelled North Carolina's business interest as well, because when you have people that come to the state, they wanna know how their people are gonna be educated.

- Matt, 30 seconds and that's this show.

Social issues... - Social issues, you know, we'll see kind of where the caucuses land on that.

It's one of those, if you're talking about medical marijuana, some other things, you know, it doesn't divide evenly across either side, as kind of one of those interesting things.

If we're gonna talk about education for a little bit, I think the opportunity scholarships being funded is a great thing for North Carolina students because we have to look at where we are in the 21st century and it's not like it was, you know, decades ago.

- Gotta have you folks back, happy new year everybody.

- Happy new year as well.

- Happy new year.

- That's down to our final 10 seconds.

Happy New Year to you.

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

I'm Kelly McClellan, thank you so much for watching, we'll see you next time.

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