- Early voting starts across North Carolina.

The state's fuel tax suspension affects pump prices and Attorney General Jeff Jackson says he's keeping watch.

This is State Lines.

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♪ - Welcome to state lines.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, Lennie Friedman of the North Carolina Forward Party.

To his right, Dawn Vaughan, reporter with the News and Observer.

Scott Falmlen of Nexus strategies to her right.

And across from me, Donald Bryson of the John Locke Foundation.

That's all the introduction you get.

Your old pros on State Lines.

Hello, everyone.

- Hello.

- Hello, morning.

- Let's start with -- start with early voting in person.

Early voting is underway across North Carolina as campaign 2026 enters its final weeks.

Voters, you can cast ballots at any early voting site in your county until 3:00 PM on October 31st.

Early voting offers same day registration if you need it.

You can also update your voter registration information.

Now there are 1392 registered voters that have been mailed letters saying that they are currently flagged as potential noncitizens and local election boards have that guidance, Dawn, for correcting some of the problems with the mail in or absentee ballots.

That just sets the tone.

Saw the election boards out.

They say it's been a strong start in person early voting.

- Right, you just pulled the numbers.

It's over 200,000 people are excited to do that first day of early voting.

I have not early voted yet.

It is super convenient, so if you don't want to vote on Election Day, the excitement of voting on Election Day or something comes up, but it seems like people are driven to to vote this year for sure.

- Scott, what's the makeup of an early voter in 2026?

Some folks like to go on Election Day.

- Well, if you just look at yesterday's totals, it was very heavily Democratic.

About 47% of those who early voted yesterday were Democrats, a lesser number than their registration voted of Republicans early voted, and then the rest were unaffiliated voters.

So I think that tracks with what we've seen in polling about the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans.

And I would just encourage everybody to vote early with all the changes in the rules about how to vote and when to vote and how your vote is going to be counted to get your vote in and get it registered early.

And you've got between now and October 31st to early vote.

Donald, there's been a lot of action out of the State Board of Elections with the guidance, if not the permanent rules for absentee ballots.

Now, in-person is here.

Don't forget your photo ID, folks.

That's a big one and should stay that way for the foreseeable election future.

What do you make of the early kickoff in-person voting?

Is it exactly as you expected and your analysts expected?

- It's exactly as we expected.

We did notice there was a downtick in mail-in voting from 2022.

Significant downtick, but that doesn't necessarily mean there will be fewer people voting.

It just could be they could be shifting in-person earlier, in-person on election day.

I think that we'll probably have higher overall participation than we did in 2022.

I also think that Scott's probably right that there probably is an enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans this year.

And it'll be interesting to see how this comes out on election day because the big question is how do unaffiliateds break in North Carolina?

- Lennie, unaffiliated, that's prime territory for a third party that wants to get on the ballot.

How is this cycle?

How is the Democratic enthusiasm and the Republican Party out there fighting as well?

How's it affected efforts in the forward party?

- Yeah, so I think unaffiliated independents are very fired up right now.

And they feel that there's not a party out there that's necessarily speaking for them.

They're tired of all the angry texts, all the angry campaigning from the Democrats and the Republicans.

So they're looking for their own voice and that's why the unaffiliated, the independents are growing so much in North Carolina by far the plurality.

So they want to get their voices heard and certainly North Carolina Forward Party is trying to be one of their voices.

- Dawn, what is it about that experience to go?

On election day, a lot of the precincts will be walk in, show your ID, cast a ballot, you're out in about five to 10 minutes.

And some people will wait this weekend for a couple of hours to do the very same thing.

Why?

- I think it's, you know, it depends on how organized a person you are, I guess.

Like do you wanna, you know, you have your to-do list, do you wanna check it off so you're done?

Do you like the excitement of election day?

Of course, you're actually going to your precinct on election day if you happen to really like your polling place or something versus early voting where you have a lot more freedom range of where you're voting in your county at these various sites and maybe something's more convenient for work or near your house or something like that versus the only on election day.

- Scott, you're with the Cooper campaign, of course, but I'll ask you in the general politically consultant role.

Once voting starts and that grassroots movement is out there, is it, it's easy to be excited.

How do you keep a campaign involved all the way through election day so folks continue to early vote, at least the ones you want to vote for?

- Well, you're still communicating with voters about why they should vote for your candidate, but you're also encouraging them to vote, to get their vote banked in the machine so that it can be counted.

And that's why you've got, you know, between now and October 31st, early vote, then you've got election day to vote.

But, you know, we want people to vote early so they can check it, as Dawn said, check it off their list and know that their vote is banked in the voting machines.

- Yeah, take your voter ID, folks.

If you go, voting is open, go do that.

North Carolina's 41 cent per gallon state fuels tax has been suspended through November 30th.

That happened last week.

Well, Attorney General Jeff Jackson said this week, "Gas stations, you should pass those savings "along to customers," but not every station will cut prices immediately, we're told.

The gasoline now in some of the station's tanks was purchased before the tax suspension took effect.

So that just means the prices may not fall in your neighborhood until those stations receive fuel that was purchased after the fuel tax was suspended.

Nonetheless, Donald, Jackson's office has launched his NC Fuel Check.

It's a website where customers can report stations they believe have not passed along the savings.

Fuel stations, or fuel prices, will vary by station.

That's almost like a disclaimer.

- Right, well, that's why I think this project is largely signaling more than it is actual enforcement of the law.

It's very difficult.

Let's be very clear, this gas tax suspension's just 52 days.

A lot of gas stations have a lot of inventory that's already in where they had to pay the tax up front.

Even when they get their tanks topped off over the next week or whatever, some of that gas will have been taxed before, some of it will not be taxed.

And so there's gonna be a large variety of what's going on.

I think this is largely a signal to, hey, don't try to cheat customers.

And even if there is enforcement and investigation, there's a lot of paperwork that these gas stations are gonna show.

Now, I don't think there's a large, and I don't think, Jeff Jackson thinks there's a large grand Sheetz or Handy Hugo's conspiracy to keep gas taxes high.

The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business had a study from 2022 that showed that when there is a state gas tax holiday, somewhere between 58 to 80% of that savings is passed along to customers.

And I think that's probably what we'll see here.

- Lennie, in my neighborhood, and this is anecdotal, was 41 cents come off the pump price.

30 cents really is where the price drops.

It was like a 10 cent gap there.

That's not gouging, I would not imagine.

- No, and if you look at these gas stations, they don't really make their money off of gas, right?

They're making their money off of people coming to the gas stations and then buying food.

So they're gonna drop it if they can.

I mean, why would you go to gas station A when gas station B across the street is 10 cents cheaper?

They're not gonna shoot themselves in the foot.

So they will drop it when they can.

But it is temporary.

So as someone who's gonna pay for gas, I'm excited to pay less, but it's temporary.

We are gonna have to dig into our budgets for road repairs and those types of things.

So it doesn't really solve a problem, but short term, very short term.

- I think Republicans just wanted it to be, if it's a vote for them driver, that when you're getting gas on your way to go vote, it's below $4, which it seems like we're seeing a lot of.

I went and I was watching to see 'cause I needed to get gas soon, like how soon are prices gonna drop.

I went and got gas at the closest gas station to the legislative building.

It's behind the Archdale, if anyone gets their gas in downtown Raleigh.

And it was 3.50 something, and there's another pretty cheap gas station.

But the other levels, it's creeping up toward four more, where it's like 3.79 or something like that.

And I think people, with your regular routes and everyone likes certain gas station you usually go to, you know where the prices are.

And I've kind of seen that mirror where the cheaper gas stations are staying further down.

- Scott, this is very interesting.

Governor Stein, your man signed it.

He said it was a gimmick, and I think everyone has acknowledged it.

It's a political stunt, but it does carry fiscal impact on the pocketbook.

And then you have a candidate running for US Senate who I didn't hear weigh in on the idea of suspending the gas tax.

Where do you stand?

- Listen, I think the Democrats and Governor Stein supported the temporary suspension of the gas tax, and I'm happy for the drivers and the farmers and the truckers for the relief.

But let's, we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge that this is a political gimmick by the Republicans in the legislature.

I think it's gonna be a little bit too little too late to give them any benefit in the election.

But to do it three weeks before election day and have it only go a couple weeks after election day, it's pretty obvious this was a political ploy.

Gas prices have been high for months.

They could have done this back in the spring or the summer when gas prices rose after Trump's war in Iran.

So I think people will see it for what it is.

They'll be appreciative of the benefits to their pocketbooks, but I don't think it's gonna be of any benefit politically.

- Donald, Scott nailed it.

I've had Republicans say, yeah, it's pretty transparent.

We do need to do something with gas prices, and if we can at the state level.

And the Republicans and every Democrat but one did that.

- Well, I mean, yes, there are political conversations, and anything any politician does in October is political.

If they sneeze in the wrong direction, it's a political decision.

Overall, I don't think this is good long-term policy.

We're having to dip into our reserves.

Luckily, due to a lot of good conservative governance over the past decade, we've been able to have large reserves that we can dip into so that we can keep transportation funding flat.

That also means that we'll have to refill those reserves at some point.

From a political standpoint, not good fiscal policy standpoint, I thought they would have done it to the end of the year rather than November 30th.

- I did ask both Speaker Hall and Senate Leader Berger about that.

And Hall, who was open to pausing the gas tax, when I asked him in May, they decided to do it now.

He said, well, sure, we'll be back for voting sessions in November and could extend it.

And the asking Berger, it was kind of a no, probably not.

- Well, the US inflation rate rose 3.7% over the past year.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of living remains a central political issue.

Those gasoline prices had been up more than 34% from a year ago.

Now, this is nationally, while overall energy prices are up over 20%.

That is the backdrop for North Carolina's temporary fuel tax suspension and for Democratic US Senator Roy Cooper's campaign slogan, make stuff cost less.

But after accounting for inflation, Scott, real average hourly earnings are down 0.7% to a year ago.

So it costs more.

I hadn't heard any politician talk about salaries going down.

That sounds bad for Democrats and Republicans.

- Well, as you mentioned, inflation did go up to 3.7%, which was higher than expected.

And, you know, President Trump and his allies continue to blame President Biden.

And in some respects, they still go back and blame President Obama, who hasn't been in office for 10 years.

So let me just put some numbers out here for everybody to consider.

On Biden's last day in office, inflation was 3%.

We just talked about it being 3.7% today.

Gas was $3.10 a gallon.

It's about $4.47 a gallon.

If you take into account the tax pause, it's $3.80 a gallon, still up $0.70 a gallon.

Coffee was $7.02 a pound.

It's now $9.30 a pound.

Milk gallon, $4.03, then $4.23 now.

And electricity is way up.

Republicans don't really have a plan to deal with this.

And they control all three branches of the federal government.

They could have dealt with this over the course of the last two years.

So I think the voters are taking all of this into account.

And that's why I think you see the election trending the way it seems to be trending as far as it relates to Democrats and Republicans at the ballot box.

- Donald?

- Scott, we were having a good time.

And then now we disagree.

Now, overall, I think you're right.

A lot of things could have been done.

The New York Fed put out a study just last week, which I think a lot of people should pay attention to.

And it said that basically, if not for the Trump tariff regime, overall consumer prices would have gone down, which means that the Trump administration and Republicans in Washington can't get out of their own way.

Their other policies otherwise would have helped reduce some prices for consumers.

And yet they decided to put import taxes on goods from most countries.

And we now have 3.7% inflation.

If they would rethink their overall economic policy or have a comprehensive economic policy, maybe Congress could pass some bills rather than just asking the president what he wanted to do through executive order, then perhaps we would have a better inflation problem.

I do think the Biden administration drove up inflation.

I do think that that had to do with the Inflation Reduction Act, which was sort of throwing gasoline on the fire when the government prints and spends more money.

And I don't think both parties are being honest about their own contributions to inflation over the past four years, because they all want to forget that their reactions from each party didn't happen during COVID.

- Lennie, the state though, North Carolina has stepped in to try to alleviate some price pressure, at least on fuel.

What can states in your opinion even do?

And now you're a small business owner, local government, affordability hits right down to Main Street.

- Yeah, that's exactly right.

It's tough on a state level, it really is.

So I have to agree, tariffs are a known inflation driver.

Right, this is like arguing that two plus two isn't four.

Two plus two is four, tariffs will drive up costs.

And yes, the Inflation Reduction Act under Biden was throwing, great comment, throwing gasoline on a fire, right?

So we have two parties that have done nothing to really reduce inflation, and it is a bipartisan problem.

And we need solutions on a national level.

The state cannot impact national tariffs, we can't.

- They're trying.

- Trying, but it's very, how are they gonna negotiate with foreign entities?

That's tough.

And then on top of that, Canada is a big purchaser of our goods and we buy a lot from them.

We're at basically a trade war with Canada.

That's lumber, that's oil.

- We have a more stable trade relationship with China right now than we do with Canada.

- That's exactly right.

And you talk about two drivers of inflation.

You're talking about fuel, you're talking about lumber for housing.

Where can we get that quickly and cheaply?

Used to be Canada.

- Well, let's not forget the war in Iran has some inflationary impact as well in a negative way too.

So it was not just the tariffs, although they were primary driver, but the war also.

It specifically drove up cash prices.

- I think it's been a series of unfortunate events that have gotten us to this point.

- Limited tickets.

- Right, exactly.

And I think voters are tired of it.

Everything is crazy expensive.

- Well, remember you came on this show today and said 3.50 gas, that low cost gasoline, 3.50 a gallon.

- But then you get to pay that tax later and we're still paying the federal tax on gas too.

- Let's move on to healthcare.

Atrium Health is promising state health plan members lower out of pocket costs, even though most Atrium facilities are not in the state health plan's preferred tier.

Atrium announced it will match or beat preferred provider co-pays, even waive some deductibles and coinsurance.

But state treasurer Brad Briner says Atrium would still charge the plan higher rates, potentially costing the state health plan and its payers $250 million in 2027.

A business court judge just this week did not block Atrium's program.

Most Atrium hospitals and doctor's offices will now be moving completely out of network on January 1st, but 12 rural and children's hospitals do remain in an access tier.

It's very complicated, but Atrium Health, they just would have taken over Wake Med and they're not gonna be in the network for the state health plan at all, the seat of state government employees.

- Yeah, so there was a great movie a few years ago, so I'll date myself now, but Jerry Maguire.

And in that movie, Jerry Maguire, you had this great actor, Cooper Gooding Jr., who said, "Show me the money."

So right now we're having a lot of people talk about, well, Atrium says they're saving us money, the state treasurer's saying, "No, it costs us money."

Show us the actual calculations, show us the money.

So you're saying that it's gonna cost North Carolina healthcare more, the state government more, show us.

Why can't we have those numbers out there, let us evaluate?

We have a state auditor, why not let them compare Atrium's comments to what we're hearing from the state treasurer?

So at the end of the day, we don't want it to be a shell game.

We don't want less money for the employees of the state, which I certainly would be supportive, but then it drives costs up for the rest of the state and taxpayers, so we wanna see what's really out there.

- Is this politics, Dawn, in your opinion, as a journalist, this posturing that will lead to a future deal, and we always kind of expect that, or are these two lines in the sand that are fairly deeply dug?

- Well, I think it's interesting, all of the dust up over Wake County commissioners and how they voted on this, Governor Stein getting involved, Treasurer Briner getting involved, and just kind of the theme of what we've been talking about, about everything costing so much, and if you are going to the hospital for things that you have to do to stay alive, to take care of yourself, and then suddenly these prices are excessive or something changes because you're a state employee.

Like you were saying, this is very in the weeds complicated, and I don't cover it directly, but I think the end result should hopefully be not putting an increased financial burden on somebody trying to get healthcare.

- Scott, I know Brad Briner is a Republican, he's well thought of, from what I can tell, on a bipartisan basis.

Is this just the Treasurer doing his job and creating some discomfort?

Not only, I mean, threats for the plan policyholders, but also some real policy differences exposed.

- Well, I don't claim to be an expert on healthcare economics at all, but there does seem to be some political tit for tat on both sides going on here, and I don't know whether this is just a negotiating posture, as you mentioned a few minutes ago, or what, but it's obvious that the losers right now are the state employees who need to use Atrium facilities, and that's the unfortunate part of all of this, and something needs to be worked out to give them certainty, as well as the state health plan and Atrium, to give them the financial certainty that they need.

I think there's no question that the state health plan has been under pressure, but there has to be some solution here that satisfies everybody, some compromise that satisfies the health plan, Atrium, but more importantly, and most importantly -- - One of the toughest news articles I've read, because you need more detail than we can discuss in a five-minute segment, but certainly any article, and your team's done a great job with it, Dawn, but Donald, it's, you know, coming out of network means the state health plan, what, doesn't pay very much of Atrium's bill at all, if it can even build a health plan.

This is high stakes.

- It is pretty high stakes, particularly in Raleigh, where most state employees are, and, you know, there's a lot of competing interests.

I think a teacher who's on the state health plan can be enticed by Atrium's argument about a lower copay, and I think that the state treasurer, or people who are directing the state health plan, can be concerned that just because there's a lower copay doesn't mean that it is an overall lower bill, and I think there are lots of questions from both sides.

I think there needs to be an arbiter, where there's a public forum, where people can actually see what's going on.

The Atrium conversation is more complicated due to the takeover with Wake Med.

I also think that Treasurer Briner was handed a very tough situation, because we've known that the state health plan has been in trouble for more than a decade at this point, and nobody, the legislature, or anybody on the executive branch has moved forward to sort of shore up that plan, and he's trying to do that.

I don't know enough, I'm not an expert in healthcare economics either, I don't know enough to know if this is the right way to do it, but I know that he's trying to do something.

- There are more than one hospital in Raleigh, and there's more hospital systems out there, you have Duke and Durham and UNC floating out there.

What does this do to the market, or does it just give customers the jitters?

- Yeah, so I think the biggest problem here is the lack of transparency.

So if you're taking Atrium out of network coming January 1st, that is a disruptive move, right?

You're gonna be impacting thousands of people.

Why not show us the decision process, right?

Why not show us, this is why we're doing it, this is why it's worthwhile.

Without that, it is gonna be very uncomfortable for a lot of people.

- Our final topic tonight comes out of Chatham County, where a moratorium has not stopped a proposed 750 megawatt data center.

Developer Ecotip sued after commissioners approved a one-year moratorium in February.

The company argued the project was already well underway.

Superior Court Judge John Morris ruled in favor of the developer to allow the project to proceed.

Chatham County leaders say they don't think this one ruling on this one case overturns their entire moratorium.

But what I read this week, Raleigh City Council was paying attention to that court case when they passed their moratorium, what, a week or so back.

So we're starting to see data centers and developers fight back against this populism and using city councils and governments to just stop things in their tracks.

- Yeah, I think this is really interesting because data centers also become an issue for some voters, you know.

It's obviously the price of everything is a big thing, but also data centers in your community, if you don't want it there, so you're mad at local government or state government or federal government as a result.

But just the way anything happens when there are changes and government decisions, litigation ensues in some way.

And so I think everyone's watching to see how this impacts them directly and what they can do.

I do feel like it will probably come up at the legislature this coming year.

I don't see how it wouldn't.

- Scott, the beef was there was 10 or 11 million bucks already invested when the County Commission apparently passed the moratorium.

So you can understand the lawsuit, but now you've got politics and demands of voters butting up against judges saying, wait a minute, you've overstepped based on what law allows.

- Who had thought about data centers two years ago?

I mean, it wasn't even kind of in the vernacular what anybody was thinking about or talking about.

But now they're coming fast and furious, and I guess they're probably a fact of life.

I actually am for a temporary moratorium until local governments and state governments, and even the federal government, if they can ever get together to do anything, can come up with some real plans and some real regulations on how these data centers don't harm neighborhoods where they're cited, so they don't harm neighborhoods to ensure that the data centers pay their own way from an electricity use standpoint, et cetera.

So I think governments, because this has come on so fast and furious, I think to some extent governments were caught a little bit flat-footed, and they need time to get these plans and these regulations in place to make sure those things happen.

- Can we trust government, local, state, and federal to get it right with data center regulation?

Or there may not be regulation needed at all other than zoning rules at the local level.

- I'm not sure how much regulation is needed.

I understand that data centers have been a problem.

I don't think that AI CEOs have done the industry any favors.

But I also know that most major hyperscalers, the big data use companies, have signed an agreement or a pledge with the Trump administration to build, bring, or buy their own power, which alleviates a lot of the concerns that people have.

Duke Energy has also signed the same pledge.

What we need to do is actually get some regulatory reform at the state level so that all those companies, including Duke Energy and the hyperscalers, can come together and alleviate some of those energy concerns, some of those water concerns, pay for it theirself.

Virginia has a pays for growth policy on water.

This is all really good stuff that should be considered by the legislature, and it doesn't socialize the cost of power and water off to everybody else.

- Lennie, should the expectation be that if there aren't regulations or any form of government oversight, that power companies and utility companies would just socialize the cost of these data centers so that ordinary folks are paying higher bills?

- So I think you can have local ordinance and local rules that try to fight against that.

I agree that those costs should not be socialized, but I don't love the moratorium, right?

So if you look at Loudoun County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, they've got more data centers probably per person than anyone, and they're driving down taxes for everybody.

You wanna compare a data center, which is basically just a big block with very few people in it, to a manufacturing facility or a car plant.

Like, they're not gonna create anywhere near the amount of noise and traffic and all those things.

I think we're overreacting to it, and I really don't like changing rules in the middle of the game, right?

And that's what they try to do in Chatham.

I think there's a lot of good that bringing data centers in North Carolina can do.

And yeah, make 'em pay for their own electricity, make 'em recycle the water.

Those are true concerns, but something they can do.

Let's not shut it down, though.

- Well, just to be clear, I was not advocating for a permanent moratorium, just for a temporary moratorium to give these local governments time to put some rules in place.

- And, Dawn, why are we not hearing from local governments saying, "Let us have the data center.

"We'll lower your property taxes."

- Well, there's the, you know, you get money for something, but then also, what's the trade-off to your community, to your rural landscape?

And if you look at any small town, any rural area, when we're talking about, you know, former factories, they sit there for a long time.

So I'd like to know what's gonna happen to all of these buildings decades from now when maybe they don't need them, and they shut them down.

Is it just sitting there forever?

- All right, that's the show for this week.

What do you think, folks?

Email your thoughts and opinions to statelines@pbsnc.org we'll read every email.

I'm Kelly McCullen, appreciate you watching.

Thank you, panel, for being on the show.

We'll see you next time.

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