Start your week in North Carolina politics with our latest Under the Dome podcast, for the week of Sept. 2, 2024. Dawn Vaughan here, your podcast host and The News & Observer’s Capitol bureau chief. On this episode, I’m joined by Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper.
We spend the first half of the show talking about the North Carolina’s governor race and the latest news about where the campaign stands for Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein.
“It’s a very different race than it was just a few months ago, right?” said Cooper, who is also director of Western Carolina University’s public policy institute.
“And we expected this to be the most expensive gubernatorial race in the country. We think we’re dead on, that one. We expected it to be the most watched. I think we were right. We also expected it to be the closest, and it may still be the closest, but the polling recently suggests that it may not be — that Josh Stein may win this by a bigger margin than we expect,” he said.
Beyond polling and the governor’s race, we also talk about the presidential race and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris vs. former President Donald Trump.
Cooper said that Democrats are trying to translate the current excitement of Democrats to something that actually wins elections.
“You don’t get two votes if you’re, like, super pumped to cast it,” he said. “So there’s got to be more than just enthusiasm. So far, Harris has done a pretty good job of translating enthusiasm into something more measurable. So for example, new voter registrations, which the Republicans have been up like almost every week the last few years. Since the big switch, the Democrats are actually a little bit above the Republicans. Not enough to win an election, but enough to say, hey, they are actually getting some people to go out and change their political behavior,” he said.
If they’re successful, Cooper said, “then perhaps the Democrats can finally do what they haven’t been able to do since 2008, which is to win the state of North Carolina. And we should say 2008 is also the last year where Democratic voter turnout matched Republican voter turnout. Not a coincidence, those two things happened in the same year.”
After the break, we also talk about some endorsement news this week.
Former Democratic State Auditor Beth Wood endorsed Republican auditor candidate Dave Boliek instead of incumbent Democratic State Auditor Jessica Holmes, who Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper appointed to finish Wood’s term after she resigned in wake of her hit-and-run and car misuse scandal.
Also, incumbent Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt said she will not endorse Republican Michele Morrow, who defeated her in the primary.
Headliner of the Week
Stay tuned to the end for our picks for Headliner of the Week. Cooper’s is about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ballot and mine is the return of college football and all the related hype.
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