welcome to Swing State, our
weekly look at what's going on in the world of politics
and how it all affects you. I'm your host, FOX8 Senior
Political Reporter Bob Buckley. Now, the last two weeks,
we've had Republican gubernatorial candidates
Bill Graham and Dale Folwell on our program. And we felt
we needed to let you know that we told the man leading in most polls,
Republican Mark Robinson, that he could come in any day at any time,
and we would give him the same full half hour. And in the end,
the Robinson
team declined our invitation. But we have a great show for you
anyway with political scientists
John Dinan of Wake Forest University and Hunter
Bacot of UNC-Greensboro. Welcome, gentlemen. You know
a lot to talk about here. And let's begin, though,
with that governor's race. How do you see this race shaping up
in the primary on Tuesday and then in the general in
the fall? Of the two favorites I think we're going to walk away
with both Stein and Robertson, I think will do
well there
in their primaries. The interesting thing
about the Republican primary is typically Republicans
are fiscally oriented. Folwell's got no traction
against Robertson, which demonstrates
how powerful of candidate he is. -And you say that when you say fiscally oriented
because he's sort of the fiscal candidate
as our state treasurer, Dale Folwell. -Correct.
How do you see it, John? I mean, Folwell has
the most experience of anyone. And previous days, we might
value experience in primaries. Put someo
ne in who's held
statewide office, who's held state legislative office. That's not what counts
the most these days. And Mark Robinson has clear
name recognition advantage. He has clear endorsement
advantage. He has a strong advantage. This shows
how the parties have changed. I mean, the Republican
establishment, the pre-Trump Republican Party,
would love a guy like Folwell and to some degree,
even a Bill Graham. But they're completely switched. But one of the challenges is
when you're a primary
voter, you can think along a dimension
of which candidate comes closest
to my passion of use or two, which can
and do I think would be the best general election
candidate in November. Voters
do not do as much thinking about that second
as they do about the first. Mark Robinson is almost certain
to be the nominee, and that's certainly not in primaries.
They don't. We have some numbers on this. Let's take a look
at some of the poll numbers. Robinson above 50% to Graham's
13 and Folwell■s 7. Pretty
you know, polls
may not be what they used to be, but they're not going to be off
by that much. And in head to head,
I have one where we have a Stein and Robinson essentially tied
in the general election head to head likely matchup,
whereas Bill Graham is minus two against Josh Stein
and Folwell is minus four. So all of those look pretty good
for the Republican Party. Any one of them has a shot.
But really, Robinson, not the shot
Republicans think he has. Well, I don't know. I think Robinson is
going to be
a formidable opponent. I think this can be a barn burner of election when Stein
and Robertson come into it. Key point is Republicans have the advantage in North Carolina,
in national elections. Republicans
clearly have the advantage in presidential elections. They have the advantage
in Senate elections. A marginal advantage,
but an advantage. Republicans
do not have the advantage in gubernatorial elections. It shows that you can still have
a split electorate, that voters
can be think
ing about one thing when they're electing voters
for a candidate for national office. And think of another thing
with being a statewide office. Democrats have historically had
the advantage in the governor's race. -32 years for governors
races, one Republican, Pat McCrory. But 48 years, we're talking about this
a little later, where only in the last
48 years has one Democrat won the presidential race in
this state. It■s crazy. The lieutenant general
or attorney general? I don't know that a Repub
lican
has won in more than 100 years.
-No, and that says something voters
still think about. They filter
through state elections in a different way
than they do national elections. -Are you
saying are our voters think? It really sounds like it, But thinking about this. -For money,
other elections, voters are down the line. They're going to cast
a straight party ticket for president,
for Senate. The one place where they deviate from
that is in governor and some other statewide
elections, such as
lieutenant governor
and attorney general. That's the one place
where voters are going to evaluate candidates on their own merits, not only whether they have
an R&D next to their name. -Let's talk a little bit
about the General Assembly. And the Republicans have had a
veto proof majority for a while, which really has diluted Governor Roy Cooper's
effect in the last eight years. The Democrats are desperate
to break that. And what are the chances?
Are the Democrats going to get over that hump? I d
on't think so. I think it will probably end up in the same situation
we are now, because one thing we do have is a popular governor,
Democrat Cooper And I think that's the only way the Republicans maintain
their powers is to maintain that that majority. You know, we have a new districts
that are drawn up this year. We draw up districts
pretty frequently in North Carolina,
and we've redrawn them up again. Republicans
have a bare supermajority in both the House and Senate. They could not afford to
lose a
vote. District lines are redrawn district lines
are drawn up by Republicans, and there was no challenge to that from the state
Supreme Court. So Republicans had the best
conditions for drawing them up. Presumably, they're hoping that
if everything goes well, that they can stay a status
quo of where they are now. There's not much margin
to spare, though. They lose a vote from there, they lose the veto proof
majority. And that is everything
in that sense in terms of getting Democrats
to th
e table for bargaining. -Right. And if I can, the enthusiasm
Trump is going to bring to the state
is going to be something that's going to help
these local elections as well. -But, you know, as you mentioned whatever partisan Power
draws them to get as many of their guys in
and as few of the other guys. Speaking of which, there's a guy named Wiley
Nickel, whose name you might have heard.
Wiley Nickel is a congressman from
the southern part of Raleigh down to Fayetteville,
the 13th District. He'
s on a national tour on
what he's calling his Fair Maps for North Carolina. He has a bill in Congress that is trying to take the ability
to write or to draw districts out of the hands
of every General Assembly and give it to independent
commissions. Wiley Nickel was in Greensboro
kicking off that tour to to push this legislation
the other day. Here's what he had to say.
Here's how he described it. You look to other, you know, every state's going to do it
slightly differently. But what you do is
you look to the successful states
where they keep communities
of interest together. They keep counties,
cities together. You know, you want to make sure
you're giving minority communities, communities of color
equal opportunity to have the representative
of their choice. That's something
that's been a big part of the Voting Rights Act. And what we see with successful litigation
in other states in the South. So 95% of people, I would argue,
will agree with that. And 100% of legislators in power
w
ill say we don't care. And that is the key point: Legislators are the ones that,
for the most part control. Whether you get a redistricting
commission. In the states that have got a redistricting
commission, it has almost always been because there's a voter
initiative process which is not present
in North Carolina that forces it on
the legislature. Virginia is a rare exception
where Virginia, the legislators agreed to
it themselves. The odds that a legislature voluntarily gives up
that power are
highly unlikely. That's why Nickels is
trying to do it federally,
kind of go over their heads. You see this ever happening,
Hunter? No, not with this Supreme Court
and not with any Supreme Court, because they relegate it
to the States. -With the US Supreme Court,
you mean? Yes. Correct. You■ve got a Republican Supreme
Court here, too. So you've got a double
wall there for the Republicans to lay back on. In that case, it really makes no
difference who draws the maps. Yeah. Let's talk a little bi
t
about the congressional. By the way,
before I do that, though, the super majority
talking about that. If Mark Robinson
becomes governor, the super majority
doesn't matter as much. The key
the reason why this is relevant is if Democrats
hold on to the governorship that is important
to whether Republicans keep a supermajority.
If they don't, that gives Democrats
a place at the table still. -Alright. Well, we're going to talk about the congressional
sixth District. There is a bunch of..
there are
six Republicans running for that office
and there is no Democrat. That's part of what we're going
to talk about here in a minute. Just we have just a few seconds
before we go to break. I mean, the not having a Democrat
in that race, that's not ideal. Democrats did a very good job
of putting up seats for state legislative races
this year. -That was their
concentration. They did not do the same job
on the congressional level. They basically ceded this race
to Republicans. Is that not malpractice
? Every party should put up
a candidate. When the districts are drawn
the way they are, though Bob that's not going to be possible. This district is pretty
much a Republican district. So it really makes no sense
for a Democrat to jump in. The big prize, of course,
is the presidential race. North Carolina continues to be a battleground,
but could this be the year that a third party
breaks through? We haven't seen a situation as favorable
probably in our lifetimes. We'll break that down next. Welc
ome back to Swing State. I'm Bob Buckley. With me tonight are political
scientists Hunter Bacot of UNC-Greensboro and Wake Forest■s
John Dinan. And now, gentlemen, before
we get to the presidential race, I want to go over the big race
congressionally. That is the sixth District, the only one that really looks
like it's going to be a challenge. And that is.. the other ones,
though, that are out there. The North Carolina fifth
District is sort of the north and west
part of our viewing areas. Virg
inia Foxx,
she's an incumbent in the North Carolina ninth District,
which is sort of the east and down to
the south is Richard Hudson. He is an incumbent. Of course, you've
got an open seat in the 10th where Patrick McHenry
is retiring after spending what, three weeks
as speaker of the House? That opens up a big opportunity
for some Republican because that's, again, heavily
drawn for a Republican. So that leaves us with the sixth
here. 6 candidates of which 4 have a pretty good shot
to get in th
e runoff. How do you see the
sixth district race shaping up? You rarely
see races in primary races where we have a number
of candidates, each with their own strong
bases of support. You have one candidate who held
the seat before: Mark Walker. You have another candidate:
Christian Castelli, who ran for the seat before. You have another
candidate: Addison McDowell, who's endorsed
by President Trump. And you got another candidate:
Bo Hines, who was endorsed by President Trump
for a previous office
. -And people
still think he is. Still think he's the one! -Who is also backed by Club for Growth
and has a lot of money. So you have.. it's
rare to see four candidates, each with their own
strong bases of support. It's one of the reasons
why we think that there's
a possibility of one candidate not getting to the 30% threshold and therefore leading
to a runoff among the top two. There's also J Wagner, who is the former
mayor of High Point, who has a decent following. Dr. Mary Ann Contogiannis
wh
o's probably going to struggle
a little bit in this race. But tell me how you feel
about this race. It■s going to be a primary,
a runoff anyway, because you have so many
candidates like Bob was saying they're going to bring up a significant number of voters. And they, like you said, they're breaking up in their own
little area. It's going to be interesting
to see how the the dynamics break down
with the constituency. And that's
across those counties. That's going to be important. All right. Well
,
you know, it certainly doesn't get any bigger
than the public housing that's issued at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue. Barack
Obama is the only Democrat to win the state in the last
48 years, and he barely won it. He squeaked by in 2008
but didn't win in 2012. Does Joe Biden stand a chance to gain our sizable
electoral vote count this year? There's always a chance. And it's particularly a chance-
-Is it a good chance? There's always a chance
because there's a chance because they have narrowed
the ga
p between that advantage that Republicans
traditionally held. That being said, almost
everything has to be right and every condition
has to be in place for Democrats to win the presidency
in North Carolina. The most important thing,
though, is Democrats don't really have to win
North Carolina. If Democrats have won
North Carolina, they've already won enough
other states to get to the majority of
the Electoral College. So it's the gravy on
top for Republicans. They need North Carolina. It's very
difficult
to see Republicans winning the presidency
without winning North Carolina. What do you think Hunter?
-Trump's going to
win North Carolina. -By a lot?
He barely squeaked by in ‘20. Well, he's
going to win North Carolina. I don't know about
the margin of victory, probably because there's so many people
disaffected with Biden and he■s incumbent, that kind of
negates his advantage there. So I think Trump will come back. He's going to come back
with a vengeance. He's been in the state
many
times, you know, and he's going to be
in all through the summer, you know, we have all seen the polls
that say 70% of the electorate does not want to see
either of these guys run and they don't
want to see a rematch. If we've ever seen a chance
in our lifetimes for a third party
to break through, you think this might be it? I put that question to Chris
Stirewalt, who is a Newsnation's
political guru. Brilliant guy,
knows about as much about this as anyone I know. Here's
what he said about a thir
d party possibly winning or making a big effect in this election
on the presidential level. North Carolina
is a perfect example of a state where if No Labels put a squishy,
centrist ticket together, it would probably be
very appealing. There's a lot of votes in
Mecklenburg County. There's a lot of votes in
the research triangle. There's a lot of votes
around the state that would be would love to park
a protest vote that would be great
news for Joe Biden. So right there
in North Carolina, where,
by the way,
No Labels is on the ballot, another consequential third
party candidate, probably more consequential would be
if Robert F Kennedy Jr can convince the Libertarian Party
to give him their ballot access. That would be big trouble
for Donald Trump because RFK■s appeal to
is the same sort of disaffected, fed up outsider, angry voters
that Donald Trump has made his stock and trade.
-So what would happen? I mean, is there any chance for a third party
ever to break through if they if we don
't like
what's out there, are we going to still choose it? Third parties will poll well. They traditionally poll
well early in the campaign when folks are signaling
I'm open to a third party. The challenge is whether third
parties sustain those numbers going into the final week
of actual voting. There are so many barriers
against third parties doing well. If there is a time
when a third party might have
a significant showing, these conditions are ripe
for that. It still is the case
that the odds
are against a third party
having a significant showing. -Do you think any shot?
There's a shot. The only reason I would even say
there's a shot is because the unfavorability
of these two candidates, they're
both in the high fifties, which is highly unusual. And so I think
if there's a possibility it could be this election, but we know that varies based on the third party.
It■s going to be a third party that gathers a lot of votes
or a third party is just going to make
a little bit of a ripple o
r a dent. -You know, because Perot got almost 20% in 1992
and neither of those candidates were nearly as disliked
as these two. You know,
Joe Manchin, Nikki Haley? What do you think? No? Again, we're most likely talking about how
what percentage of the vote a third party can get rather
than whether a third party candidate wins. And then we're talking about who that third party candidate
takes the most votes for. And that is the key question. And there are.. you can make a case
that third party c
andidates are going to draw from otherwise
Biden voters. You can also make a case that
they can draw from Trump voters. The polling has been different,
but it's not yet clear that it's a clear advantage
for one candidate or the other. Having third party
candidates in the race. -And that's key that the level of preference
for these two is pretty low. So I think.. the landscape
is there to entertain a third party.
If it could happen, It would happen,
but I don't think will happen. -Yeah, well, it
depends on which one it is,
too, I guess. The primary process is part of
our problem here, right? Because it takes the extremes
of each party who don't care about
who can win. They simply want a purist.
-You know, the primary process
has developed over many decades. There is a lot of reason for being unhappy
with the primary process as it sets out. The primary is.. no doubt
that a lot of folks took a look and say we would have a better
general election candidate, the Republicans,
other than Do
nald Trump. There's a lot of reason to
believe on the Democratic side that there could be folks
who would be a better general election
candidate than Joe Biden. Joe Biden and Donald Trump
are almost certain to emerge, both of them,
from our primary process. That's
the nature of our process. As long as we stick
with that current process. This has only been the process
for about 50 years. People don't realize that.
-But it still doesn't jive with things because the
person who's going to win the el
ection
is going to approach the center. And so that takes it away.
That takes it out of the equation
with these primaries. And so you have to..
that's where the parties come in and try to weed out before we
ever get to the primary. -Have you guys noticed
what the biggest issues are? What do you think? Because we've got something
coming up in the next block. We're going to talk about what the biggest issues
are from polling. What do you guys see
as the biggest issues? That's inflation.
-You think
? - Yeah With immigration
rising up the ranks in a way that we usually do
not see immigration issues and border issues
as high as it is a lot of events are propelling
that. If Republicans have a good year, it's
because immigration is front and center and inflation. Democrats have a good year. It's because abortion is front
and center right. Abortion was a stronger issue than a lot of people
realized going in the last year. But, you know, when you say inflation
and immigration, you see a lot of D
emocrats
including the President doing lalala. They don't want, you know,
that's not
what they want to hear. Those are two of the worst
issues. Well, where we are,
the immigration does we live and see it,
but with the inflation we live and see it.
It's getting here though, it is. All right. So still more tonight
including why you may have changed parties. Yeah you! Both Republicans and Democrats
don't look like they used to. How they've
changed and why next. (a nn ou nc er ) De ep b re at h in .
. . (man inhales) ...and out. Talk to your doctor
about hitting those high notes. About not acting your age! (exclaims) Can my heart take
double overtime? (announcer)
Whew! Talk to your doctor,
Steve. Yes. You'll want
to talk about that, too. -How many glasses of water?
-Yeah. Don't ask me, ask your doctor. Talk to your Cone Health
primary care doctor about whatever, because if you're talking, you're increasing your chances
of living a healthier life. Go to
conehealth.com/primarycare to find a d
octor today. Welcome back to Swing State. I'm Bob Buckley
along with political scientists John Dinan
of Wake Forest University and Hunter Bacot
of UNC-Greensboro. Gentlemen, it ain't your mama's
Democratic Party nor your daddy's
Republican Party these days. We have had some hard numbers we have coming up here
on how partisan party membership has changed
over the last eight years. Before we get to that,
let's talk about the issues that are probably going
to decide this race. A lot of times
it's a
mishmash, but I think there are two or three
major issues that really stand out
above the others. Look at some numbers here. In fact, one, when people were asked what are the most important
issues, we're combining here, people who said it's
very or somewhat important on these numbers. Inflation
at 91%. National security, and I think they sort of
lump immigration in with that. 91% school
safety, 90%, nothing else, even close to that, including
abortion, way down the list. And climate change
is
actually at the bottom of the list of things
that affect people. Will these things, those issues affect
this race more than any others? They've got to, right? You know, it's always,
pocketbook issues are always front and center. And that is
how is the economy doing? How do I feel like I'm
doing under the economy? You can go both ways on that. But the general public
is not feeling overall
enthused about the economy. So it's tough
for an incumbent president. Your fate rests a lot
on the degree of
the economy. So that's a tough one. Biden's going to continue
to make the case the economy is looking better than you think, but a lot of people
don't think it's looking good. And here's a rare case. We have
two essentially, incumbents. Both have a record
as president to deal with. But I think this is a tougher slate
to ride for President Biden. I agree. These are both Republican issues and they should take them home
and I'm sure they will. The inflation that's something like I said earlier,
we
're that hits home. I mean, your steak is more,
your milk is more. And so you carry that home. You live with that daily with with the national security,
that■s something a little bit more esoteric
for the average voter. So you feel the inflation. So the economy, as John
said, is strong, but the inflation is what's
affecting the individual person. -And here in this state, inflation may not be as bad
as other places. Our economy's good in this state
and immigration hasn't affected it to the degree
it has others. But it's all these governors are saying
now we're all border states. That's an effective line. Events and news events have led immigration
to be a prominent issue, not just in border states,
but all over the country. And it remains the case
that Republicans will want the election waged on issues
such as inflation and immigration. Democrats will want the election
waged on abortion and perhaps gun safety and gun reform issues
to some extent in that way. So elections are not about t
aking a common set of issues
and arguing about those. They're about pushing
your issues to the forefront and saying this is the issue
that's most important because each side has favorable
issues toward it and they want the election
run on that issue. Yeah.
I agree. I mean, I think I think the Republicans
are sitting pretty with regard to the immigration
and inflation issues. I don't think
I think the abortion is going to be there. How much traction that gets
nationally, comparatively, is going t
o be difficult
to understand. You know, it's interesting, though, to see over the last
really 20 years how much the parties
have changed. I mean, Barack Obama garnered
more than 90% of the black vote, and that's very understandable.
He was an excellent candidate. He had obviously
some certain demographics that were historic on his side. That's begun to flip. And the Democrats have lost 19% of the black support
they had before. That■s significant. Hispanic,
especially working class, are also brea
king towards not just Donald Trump,
but Republicans, whereas very educated white voters,
particularly women, have gone to the Democrats. And I think a lot of that
has to do with the abortion issue, too, for the
for the women's side, although, you know, interestingly
enough, men are is likely more likely to be pro-choice
in most surveys than women. I'm sorry, yeah, pro-choice. What do you make of
these changes? It's got to scare
both parties, to be honest. I agree. I think the black vote
is somet
hing that■s going to concern Democrats. They need to hold that vote,
hold it strong. The the Latino/Latina vote is going to be more dynamic
based on place and geography, because you see Texas
and California with different sets of Latino/
Latina. -Right. And let me just put
one other thing in here. Traditionally, the urban vote
has been heavily Democratic. The rural vote has been traditionally Republican, and the election is waged in the
suburbs, in that way. And you see urban areas
become more
and more democratic. You see rural areas becoming
more and more Republican, suburban areas are still torn
in both directions. That's where
a lot of the candidate visits will take place with an eye
toward suburban voters. And that is an excellent point. Coming
out of the Charlotte region, the way it's
grown out of Raleigh. So you have the exurbs,
those counties around there that were once rural counties
that voted solid Republican. You're seeing some changes
there. -But here's
an interesting dyna
mic: The African-American contingent
of the Democratic Party is now the conservative wing or the moderate
wing of the Democratic Party. Overall,
they are the most moderate Democrat voters. isn■t that.. I think it's a very interesting
dynamic. African-American voters
have always been split in terms
of their issue positions and on social and conservative..
on social issues, there's always been
a conservative streak among African-American voters. What's happened
here is the white voters who have gr
avitated to the Democratic Party
tend to be very progressive. And so they've sort of flanked
the Democrats and left them. They used to be on the left
overall of the Democratic Party. Now they're on the right. It used to be the case
that if you would ask someone one question, you know
what party they stand for: How much money do you make? That
is not a safe question anymore. Now it is seen as a reversal,
and it's certainly not the case that if you make more money,
you're necessarily Republican in
that case.
You do see a real realignment. Donald Trump
played a key role in that. But he was he was a part
of a broader movement that's bigger than just him, of the parties realigning
in ways that we're still shaking out. -Hunter, what do you
make of that? I think the education
aspects override it, because we saw that happen early
on in Trump's first election, in his first victory, were people where the pollsters
missed it by not waiting for education properly and education
income are entangle
d. So trying to disentangle
that■s tough. and some pollsters finally got it right. We're doing it by education. So I think what you're seeing
there is the people evaluating things
in a very different cognitive structure, as we once saw. Just a few seconds left,
but I want to bring up how, you know,
for a couple of decades now, Republicans
essentially gave up since Jack Kemp left, on blacks, and didn't
even bother speaking to them, and the Democrats
took them for granted. It is still the case
tha
t about nine out of every ten black voters will vote Democratic.
If just a few percentage points of Democratic voters
shift over to Republicans that has huge implications.
-I■ll bet it's bigger
this time around. Well, you got Mark Robinson
leading the ticket on the state level.
So that's going to be something that's
going to help with that vote. Although Mark Robinson
has some things about his his background
that are going to turn off people in every sector. That is the question
that primary vo
ters are facing in the next few days. That sense is how much to weigh his liabilities
in a general election versus their passion for what
he stands for. Absolutely. Gentlemen, thank you. That is our show for
tonight. Thanks for watching.
Comments
Mark Robinson my governor❤❤❤