- We explore how the end of a federal government shutdown is rippling across North Carolina's political landscape and new pollings out tracking the still very early 2026 U.S.

Senate race.

This is State Lines.

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♪ - Welcome back to State Lines.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, great friends, even better analysts, former North Carolina Attorney General Rufus Edmisten to my right.

To his right, Dawn Vaughan of the News and Observer.

Nick Craig of the Carolina Journal and the Nick Craig Show is there.

Good to see you back, Nick.

- Thanks for having me.

- And on the end, seat four, public relations consultant Chris Sinclair.

Chris, always good to have you on.

Thanks for making the drive from Charlotte.

- Thank you.

- Let's get going.

The U.S.

Senate's deal to end the federal government shutdown is rippling across North Carolina politics this week.

In our state, federal leaders, congressional leaders voted along party lines mostly.

Democratic Representative Don Davis said he had to review the deal for a couple days.

Then he voted yes to reopen the government, Dawn.

That's the gist of it.

The shutdown is over.

Bring that back to North Carolina.

You can go politics, you can go economy.

Pick a lane and let's ride.

All right.

Well, people who work for the federal government have started to get paid again.

I feel like that's the biggest impact here.

There's all the other federal program outlying things, restarting, you know, SNAP payments, all of that.

And then Don Davis, you know, incumbent member of Congress and a swing district and potentially a much more competitive district.

So he's got to, you know, weigh the pros and cons of being one of the Democrats to break and vote with Republicans to reopen government because government has been closed for so long.

And I don't think there are any winners.

And it really may be the American people that their government finally is going back to work.

- Nick, it seemed like the political class was stayed just lathered up about this shutdown.

And then on Main Street, my private civilian life, I didn't hear much about it other than, yeah, the government shutdown.

What were you hearing from from your seat there behind the microphone?

- Yeah, I mean, it's very much of what you're saying, unless you had tried traveling maybe within the last five or six days and dealt with some of those, you know, 15, 20, 25,000 flights that had been delayed.

That was probably pretty frustrating.

But unless you were getting a paycheck from the federal government as an employee or contractor, I don't think you were feeling some of those major implications, especially across the vast majority of North Carolina, especially as you get out of maybe the Charlotte or Raleigh area where there might be a little bit larger of a federal presence and federal offices.

But for Don Davis, from a political perspective, that district, like Dawn mentioned, is now going to be an R plus five, according to our new Civitas Partisan Index.

He's going to be an incumbent.

Presumably he will run in District One.

He could also run in three.

That'll give him a couple of bumps point wise there.

But it's still going to be a little bit of a Republican lean district.

Now he can go back to his voters and say, look at me, I'm not the radical progressive left that shut down the government.

I voted to reopen it.

Very, very smart political move.

And Kelly, if we're being honest, the House was going to reopen the government anyway.

Didn't really matter if he voted for it or against it.

Smart move on his behalf.

- Chris, from a PR perspective and imaging and all that, why are we at a point in D.C.

where any deal at all is conceived is is perceived as a cave or you're a coward or because you cut a deal, Chuck Schumer should lose his job and be replaced.

I'm trying to figure out, is deal making over?

- I mean, obviously not, because there was a deal cut with the centrist Democrats coming over in the Senate and working with folks like our own Senator Tillis, from what I understand, was in that sort of mix of those back channel conversations.

So I still think that there was a group of folks who at the end of the day said we can't have these shut shutdowns anymore.

And a shutdown, this last shutdown was sort of like taking, you know, trying to adjust the temperature by pulling the alarm fire, pulling the alarm bell.

And what do you get?

You get chaos and you don't get any results.

And I think that the longer it went on and I think back to Don Davis, you know, yeah, politically it was an easy choice.

But what I was hearing was that he was hearing from those people who were not getting their benefits, who were not getting their SNAP benefits.

And what's the right thing to do?

And he was one of six Democrats that said, I'm hearing from my constituents that this is hurting us.

And so was it political calculus or was it a bit of a political calculus and his saying, look, this is really silly because all we have is chaos and we don't have any results.

- It's both.

And, you know, he went his longer statement about the vote.

He talked about all the things for his district, something for, you know, Seymour Johnson, something, things in Bertie County.

And I remember when he was in the state Senate and he did vote with Republicans on a budget bill.

And when he talked about why, it was things for his district.

So it's it's both.

It's both governing and politics that you you owe the people in your district that that you're there to work for them.

And you have to deal, you know, to to get what you want and work together, because if you if people don't come to a deal ever, then really nothing gets done.

And that's the whole point of the gridlock and why this happened.

- Rufus, looking back from what from your experience, is it better for a Democrat or Republican in the other party majority district?

I mean, when you bring home the goodies for your local air base and other agricultural concerns and all, does that ultimately trump the partisan politics as we move towards an election?

Don Davis said, I did what was right for my district as opposed to right for the caucus.

- I think I think he did the right thing.

Like Nick says, unless you live in an area where you're impacted tremendously by some kind of federal program, it's not on the minds of everyday people.

But I I live in an area where we had a lot of folks on on welfare.

I know I shouldn't be using that word.

It's not politically correct.

But the SNAP program and people were really worried about that.

And I don't blame somebody for saying, let's let's cut the theatrics out.

And we're talking about compromise.

I come from an era when I worked with Senator Ervin.

Compromise was the rule of the day.

The wheat farmers would connect with the beet farmers.

Everybody would would get together and do a compromise.

And that seems to be verboten now.

It's just like if you stay in Washington and do your job, you're accused of being a Washington-ite.

And if you if you don't go home on on Tuesday and come back on Thursday, then you're you're not serving your constituents.

And I've I've decided to write a book on bringing back compromise and civility.

- Bring that book up.

You mentioned it before.

Bring it up.

We'll show it on TV.

- Yeah.

When I finish, I will.

- You know, I'm looking forward to reading.

I've heard people you've talked to a lot of people about that book.

And so but what with social media?

Social media would not have made the debate any different in 1974 than it was in 2025.

If if people could tweet at you, Rufus, and send nasty things your way on Facebook, it probably would affect how you led, I would think.

- Well, not if you're like me.

I text.

I talk on the phone and I take pictures.

I am immune.

I intend to stay that way.

- That is the soundbite of the week.

All right, Nick, let's talk about Carolina Journal's new poll out tracking these early, early days of 2026's U.S.

Senate race.

I don't know whether to thank you or blame you for this early poll.

Six hundred likely voters were polled.

Four percent margin of error.

It's put it right into the front and center a year early.

Democrat Roy Cooper, he's leading Republican Michael Watley, forty seven to thirty eight percent.

Check this.

Roy Cooper is leading another Republican challenger, Don Brown, forty eight to thirty eight percent in this poll.

Forty five percent are approving of President Trump's performance.

Forty nine percent approving of Governor Josh Stein.

And from what I read down in the particulars of this, a lot of conservatives were polled in this debate and Stein's doing well with the right leaning vote.

I mean, that's what drew me.

That plus Don Brown.

He's basically on Twitter.

He's done a media hit here and there.

He's doing just as well as Mike Wattley.

- Yeah.

So let's start on the the Stein thing.

If you dig into the crosstabs of that poll, twenty four percent of Republicans, so one in four for all intents and purposes, say that they approve of the job that Governor Josh Stein is doing.

That is not from a purely political standpoint.

That is not normal.

Democrats overwhelmingly agree with Democrats.

Republicans overwhelmingly agree with Republicans.

Flip it, vice versa.

You don't like what the other party is doing.

So the fact that he's got a one in four approval from Republicans shows why his approvals at forty nine and a half percent.

It is down about a point and a half from where it was last month.

But as you mentioned, Kelly, a four point margin of error that sways the Senate race, completely different ballpark, eight point gap essentially for both candidates, whether it's Michael Wattley or Don Brown.

Roy Cooper is a very well known political figure.

He's been in North Carolina politics for forty years.

When he was leaving public office, he had an approval rating as governor of around 50 percent, very similar to what you see now with Stein.

He's a well known quantity.

People know who he is.

It's no surprise that there's not been any major mail, no TV ads, radio, social media, text messages, all the stuff that is going to flood into North Carolina voters over the next 12 months.

Once that starts, I'm going to be very curious to see if this gap grows.

Does it shrink?

It's going to be interesting to follow.

- Chris, like I said, I don't know what to think of polls this early.

I love polls.

I love talking politics.

And then I realize we're not even into 2026.

So should I be outraged by that?

I've fallen for the trap again.

I love it.

But a nine point lead and a ten point lead.

If you're Don Brown, what do you think of this poll?

I mean, he's out there.

I've seen him online.

- Well, if you're Don Brown or you're Wattley or you're Cooper, it's equivalent of starting out before a football game and you're stretching and, you know, getting yourself ready for the game, looking at the scoreboard.

It's zero zero at the end of the day.

I think where we are now is strictly name ID.

To your point, Roy Cooper has been on and everybody's on TV screen in their living room for eight plus years and he's at forty seven percent.

He kind of stayed there from the last poll that was done.

You know, Wattley's kind of where he was, maybe came up a little bit.

It's nil nil.

And look, at the end of the day, when we get to the fourth quarter of this race, it's going to be tied.

The score is going to be tied and whoever's got the ball last going to throw a Hail Mary and win about ten thousand votes or less because that's the historical context of all of these Senate races.

Right.

And so it's going to come down to a very close race between, I think, Wattley and Cooper because Wattley is raising a boatload of money.

- He should raise a boatload of money.

- He is raising a ton of money.

He's got he's going to they're they're looking at fifty million dollars that he's going to be able to raise here.

They feel really good about where they are position wise and they believe that Cooper's at a ceiling right now and he hasn't really bumped up past that ceiling even though he's been in everybody's living room.

So so this is a zero zero race.

It's strictly name ID to me.

If I'm if I'm involved in these races, which I'm not and I wouldn't be and I don't want to be, I would say, you know, we're we're we're starting at zero zero.

- That ceiling is an interesting thing to note.

And that is one thing that we'll be watching in that poll as we get into two early parts of next year and maybe after the primary.

He's been essentially stuck at forty seven point three percent.

And so that's going to be something interesting.

- But he's going to have a lot of money to for sure.

A ton of money.

So but it's going to be Wattley and it's not going to be Brown.

It's going to be Wattley.

- You buying this ceiling talk with Roy Cooper at forty nine percent.

He is well known in our state.

More than 50 percent of the state knows Roy Cooper.

- Yeah.

Well, let me point out some people that were very well unknown.

Budd came from nowhere.

Got to be in the U.S.

Senate.

For those that can't remember like I did, Robert Morgan was defeated by a man named John East.

Nobody knew John East except those at Carolina.

And a year from now is like an eternity in politics.

Now, I'm not a great poll lover.

When I ran for governor, I was so far ahead of Jim Martin in the beginning that I thought, man, I was even picking the curtains for the governor's mansion.

And all of a sudden, I'm going to agree with our colleague over here.

National the national mood at the time will determine this race.

And like one of our great friends on the show, a lot Paul Shumaker said, it's Roy Cooper's to lose.

And I think that's true.

It is still going to be a very tight race and national national politics will rule the day, in my opinion.

- I agree.

- How can national politics affect legislative races in Raleigh next year as well?

We always we kind of never talk about the two together.

- Yeah, the same thing.

Well, I think the primaries in the legislature are probably what we're paying most attention to.

But I think the elections recently with this Democrat sort of like mini wave and variety of elections.

Is that going to hold true with the midterms?

And if people, you know, probably already have there's more people moving to the state.

But I think people pretty much establish what they think of Roy Cooper and if they would want him in the U.S.

Senate or not.

I think the ceiling factor is is valid that there's not a whole lot of shifting there.

But the races are so close.

And Watley hasn't made a name for himself at all yet, you know, with voters.

So people just don't know, don't know who he is.

So I think we will see a lot of attack ads, probably Cooper tying Watley to Trump.

So if people are really unhappy with Trump and there's this bigger blue wave next year, that's going to work to Cooper's advantage.

- That's precarious.

And if your poll is correct, and I think in the margin of error, you have 50 percent of the state that likes Trump, 50 percent of the state that approves of Stein.

And so if you look at that, Cooper's got to be careful in my mind.

If he's going to come out and tie somebody to Trump, he's got to worry about the Republicans that are supporting Stein, the middle of the state, the unaffiliated voters, those silent Trump voters that still exist in our state.

So I think that's really precarious.

- Because there are Trump Cooper voters and there's Trump Stein voters.

- Well, it could be dangerous.

- And I mean, even in this last 2024 election, we saw Trump with his largest margin of victory after three elections in the state.

So to both of your points, it is going to be interesting to see what those tie ins look like, because it like to Chris's point on it could hugely backfire if the economy recovers rapidly.

Trump gets some major wins in Washington, D.C.

People are going to go, oh, well, you're tied to Trump.

OK, great.

He's doing great.

He's doing great work.

- Rufus, this could be a billion dollar U.S.

Senate race.

If it if no matter what anyone does on those two campaigns, it's a point and a half to a two percent winning percentage.

Why spend a billion?

Why not spend one hundred million and get the same result?

Or would it not happen that way?

- I've often thought how many how many hospitals can we build with some of that money and other things?

And what intrigues me is what is it about a federal Senate race that makes it so close?

And yet we have gubernatorial races that the Democrat normally wins.

I've often been intrigued by that.

And it's the national mix that is going to determine this race.

- Well, Rufus, coming back to you.

Let's talk about the certificate of need.

Rather obscure kind of law or rule in the state that affects you.

Treasurer Brad Briner, State Employees Association of North Carolina, joining forces to support a new Briney doctors lawsuit to end that certificate of need law.

I hope I explained this correctly, Rufus.

The certificate of need law requires health care companies and clinics to seek permission and get approval before they can open new clinics and hospitals.

Treasurer Briner says controlling a market like that makes it hard to slow rising health care costs.

That eye doctor, Rufus, said he's forced to use local hospitals for his eye procedures.

He'd be more efficient.

He'd save money for his patients if he could own his own shop there in town and do just as good a job with just the same safety standards.

- Frankly, I don't blame him.

The CON, to the people that don't like it, it's a con.

Certificate of need, it doesn't only apply, Kelly, to hospitals.

It's a piece of equipment.

I've often talked about when I had to go over to Chapel Hill to get an open MRI because I have claustrophobia, that was ridiculous.

And normally it's legislative.

This is a private lawsuit by an affected party and in my opinion, it's been around long enough, let the marketplace work.

And the reason that so many people say that they want the CON is they think it saves money.

It keeps hospitals and other medical suppliers from going into all these exotic things.

But nobody's proved to me ever that this has saved anybody any money and it's nothing but confusion and gives a lobbyist like me a good chance to be on one side or another.

- They'll blame you for it then, how about that?

You're the lobbyist.

Dawn, it is, there's an argument that says if we control the market, then hospitals can stay healthy, the MRI machines, no one goes bankrupt buying one and then failing in the marketplace.

I think that's the general catch to it.

What do you make of this CON lawsuit?

Could this be what dislodges it as a policy?

- Well, I mean, we have three branches of government and I think law and lawsuits end up changing things when legislatively or otherwise things don't end up moving along or the market or whatever the decision is.

But the certificate of need has been a long running debate in the legislature.

There was some CON reform in the Medicaid expansion deals several years ago now and I don't think it's going away and this is just kind of a new way of sort of pushing at it and seeing what kind of change will result until no one's ever gonna be happy with the pro versus against CON but if there's some sort of middle ground that makes it work for more hospitals, city and rural and the providers, then maybe there'll be some end.

But I feel like this has already been, CON reform has been a topic for a long time and it's not going away and this is just another example of it.

- Nick, is healthcare one of those industries that if you put a hospital or a clinic across the street from each other like you see gas stations and other competitors, do you think it would work?

I mean, no state's willing to really go there.

- Well, that was exactly the point I was gonna bring up.

If we were talking about the state regulating, if a grocery store could open next to another grocery store, everybody would probably unanimously agree that is absurd and insane.

Grocery store companies know how to open a grocery store.

They know if there's a large enough market, why is the healthcare industry any different?

If you are a healthcare facility and there is a market for another MRI facility in your whatever geographic area that you support, you will go and invest in one.

If there's not, you won't spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars investing into a machine.

We allow this in almost every other facet of our free market economy.

I don't know why for whatever reason with healthcare, we say we wanna protect the healthcare industry.

They're some of the largest businesses that exist in the country.

They know how to make smart financial decisions if they want to.

- Well, it reminds me of one time.

We had a law that said you can't sell milk under a certain price.

Totally, totally monopolistic.

And I think this is along the same line.

Why are you regulating something that can take care of itself in the regular marketplace?

- Yeah, I think if you asked Harris Teeter, hey, would you like for Food Lion to open up across the street, they would say, well, no.

And that's essentially what the hospitals are saying.

- That's right, hospitals can go in and say, we don't want this, we're against it, and that affects the rule of the game.

- The real story here is the doctors, right?

That they know there's demand for their services.

And they know that because of the way things are set up, whether it's an MRI or whether it's a special piece of equipment, that the process for getting that approved in the CON process takes time, money, lobbyists, all those things.

And these doctors that know there's people waiting in line to get an MRI and they want to open up a camera, they have the resources, the know-how, and some of the best radiologists in the state, they can't compete with the hospitals in the CON process.

And they try, and it's really, really hard.

So they've tried to go into the legislature.

So I think that there's a lot of demand in our state for this, it's happened in South Carolina, we talked about this earlier.

You know, it's a matter of time.

And I think if it makes its way up through the court system, if you look at our court system now and the judicial system and who's on the bench, I think CON's a thing of the past.

- We'll see, let's stay with you, Chris.

I want to talk about the North Carolina Board of Elections hired some new staff as it settles.

Under the state auditor's leadership, the current state board features a Republican majority, so the new staff hirings are reflecting that.

Some of the state's employees have cited political leanings as their cause to resign, election watchdogs, some who aren't very friendly to Republican causes say, changes in the election board leadership bring these changes.

So Chris, I'm gonna ask you, why did multiple state outlets and the media make this a big deal?

Republicans took control, Republicans hired Republican lawyers.

- Well, I think it's a good, it's a story.

It's a story in the sense that for a decade now, the legislature has been changing our election laws and who enforces those election laws, it's been the Board of Elections, right?

They are the regulator, if you will.

And so you've had a situation where it's been controlled by the executive branch.

If you look at who's controlled the executive branch for the last almost decade, the problem with the Republicans that have had with what's happened in the Board of Elections and why they finally got it sort of wrestled away is that they don't believe that the intent and the letter of the law of what they've passed in the legislature has been enforced to the letter of the law by the Board of Elections.

So they finally got control.

And of course, you're gonna have people that come in and say, "We're going to follow the letter of the law "and the intent of the legislature."

And those people that had a different opinion of whether they should follow the letter of the law or are following the letter, they kind of bowed out.

So I don't think it's news that you have folks that are frustrated that got out because they don't believe in the new people that have come in because of different parties, whatever.

I don't think that's newsworthy at all.

- Nonpartisan, they say.

Is that even a thing anymore?

- Doesn't exist.

It never has existed.

I mean, the idea that a, and this is, before it was the governor, who of course has been, as you just noted, for over a decade, a Democrat.

Now it is the state auditor who happens to be a Republican.

Those individuals are gonna appoint people that they wanna work with.

We do this in every other facet of government.

It's interesting that it always seems to be a news story when it is Republicans that are hiring Republicans, but not when Democrats are hiring Democrats.

It's the political process.

Just, you just let it play out.

It's not news.

- Dawn, is the air out of the balloon now with all these elections?

For two years, we've talked about all these little nuances in election law changes and board changes.

Is this issue sort of settling into where it's gonna be and we can move on to other ideas in this state?

- I think it's just swung the other way.

I mean, that's how it works in government, right?

With like what the power is and Democrat majority, Republican majority, you know, and people sweeping out.

So they have their own people in place.

And then there's a lot of scrutiny.

And then, you know, a couple of years from now, things switch again.

And then there's scrutiny from the other side.

And so I do feel like that is the norm of what we have.

Yeah.

- Stay outraged there, Rufus.

The other team has controlled the board of elections.

- Well, as most of you know, the Secretary of State in most states run the elections.

North Carolina is very unique that way.

And I contend that there are a number of guardrails there about elections.

Every side wants its own side to do it a little bit better than they did before.

And that's always the push and tug of what we call participatory democracy.

And so everything will be fine.

- Very quickly, I've got two minutes left.

I wanna touch on the UNC Chapel Hill NC State tuition.

Board of trustees on each campus have voted to raise in-state and out-of-state tuition this week.

I'm gonna go over to you, Nick, on this.

3%.

Originally, Carolina said, "No, no, no.

"We wanna only do out-of-state tuition."

They came back, voted very closely.

So rates going up 3% at NC State and UNC Chapel Hill, subject to the board of governors condensing that story down.

Is it time?

Has it been a tuition hike since 2017?

And the university took cuts.

- Yeah, I mean, it might be time, but I think one of the things that we've seen nationally over the last couple of years is the rise of trade and tech schools.

Many individuals and families looking away from your traditional four-year institution, if these rates continue to go up and we see more of these in the near future, you're probably gonna see that accelerate.

- Very quickly, Chris.

- I mean, it's a value proposition.

We have one of the best university systems in the country.

What you get when you go to a state school for that dollar, and you haven't had a tuition increase and fee increase in, what, or tuition increase in 10 years.

It's one of the best-run systems.

So 3%, I think people who send their kids to these schools yeah, I'll shell that money out because they're doing such a great job.

- 10 seconds, Rupert, is this tuition time to go up?

- No, it's time for it to be moderate and go up about, like Dawn and I talked about, about 1%.

And one thing is that the Board of Governors has to approve all these.

And so this was a very close vote, and we may not get the 3%, I hope not.

- What happens at the Board of Governors?

- We'll find out if we're paying more or not.

I'll be paying this tuition next year 'cause my son's a high school senior, and I think those people are obviously the ones that are the most impacted.

- Thank you, panelists.

Email me, statelines@pbsnc.org.

It's always good to see you.

I'll see you next time.

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