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Good morning to you. We have got brand new details out of our exclusive CarolinaJournal.com, a news poll this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour to walk us through some of those details. David Larson, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. David, we do this poll a couple of times a year, pretty much every two months or so, and kind of get a grip of what is going on in the public. Obviously, coming off of municipal elections over the last couple of weeks, a pretty good night for Democrats, a pretty rough night for Republicans.
Let's jump into the poll. The direction of the country. We pretty much ask this every single poll right at the top. What are folks' current sentiments on the direction of the U.S.?
Well, it looks like there's been a general trend over the last few polls where people are less and less happy. I think there was often after a major election, especially a presidential year election, people start off with a little bit of Optimism, maybe things will be better. And then I think as prices have remained kind of high. You see, you know, people have gradually gone down in their sense of that we're headed on the right direction.
So we're now at the point where 38% say we're on the right. direct going the right direction and 55% say wrong. And that's you know, another few, three, four points. worse than it was. um from from last poll that we did in september and uh same thing Um You know, in terms of for the state, it's actually even fewer people think right direction.
So yeah, I think There's a lot of pessimism there. And um Being a often what happens is whoever's in the White House gets a lot of the blame.
So at the moment, I think this is redounding to the negative Uh, for the Republicans, um, but this is just a snapshot of time, so you know, Republicans don't need to totally freak out or anything yet, but it just seems like. As it is right now, people are in a pessimistic mood and a lot of that As we'll see in later questions, it seems to have a negative impact on Republicans. But if the economy starts really taking off and things really start improving and people get more confidence, could easily head back the other direction. And I think it's important to note that this poll was out in the field right at the end of the federal government shutdown. Not that that may or may not have played a huge impact on the question of direction of the U.S., but it is important to note that the government was still officially shut down in the late 30s, early 40 amount of day period of time when folks were asked this question.
And David, you brought up North Carolina. That's an interesting one. 47% of people say it's heading in the wrong direction. Only 34% headed in the right. But the number one state for business, CNBC, three out of the last five years, major business announcements, that huge grand opening at Toyota earlier this week.
I mean, I'm sure folks have their reasons for their opinions, but North Carolina, seemingly from all metrics, is trending in the right direction. What do you attribute the overall negative attention on North Carolina, at least in this poll? Really, people are very nationally focused. And I think a lot of the political tension between Republicans and Democrats Maybe people's dissatisfaction with Washington, with the shutdown, as you said, maybe with President Trump. They will reflect that at the state level.
So you see that frequently. And I also just think. Even if the fundamentals are good in a lot of other ways, the high prices seem to be something. that is drowning out a lot of the other Um issues last Last poll that we did. There's so many other topics like crime and immigration and The prices and the economy were just crowding everything out.
Like you only had about 5% of people who picked crime as the. Issue they're most interested in, whereas other things, housing and healthcare, and other prices, prices in general, where What dominated the list in 30s, you know, 30 this percent this, 40% that.
So I think it really is just the economy and prices. as well as people looking you know, j these days just being much more nationally focused.
Well, David, somebody once said it's the economy stupid, and it makes sense when you look at issues like crime. Yes, it's an important issue, but as you're making your health care premium payment every month, as you're paying your mortgage or your rent, or going to the grocery store looking towards Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's no wonder that these major economic issues and some level of economic uncertainty, which we'll get into in a couple of questions, is definitely playing on people's minds. Yes, yeah, we definitely saw a lot of that. Later in the poll, we asked people. you know how they would rate their own um their own finances, they actually weren't too bad.
A lot of, you know Excellent was 9%, good was 37%, fair was 34%, poor and very poor were actually pretty low at 13% and 4%. It was more when they were looking at the national economy. Um, that they said, you know, 40% of people were confident, and 58% were not confident.
So I think people might it might be one of those things where they say, you know, I hate congressmen, but I like my own congressman, is something you'll see in a lot of polls. Could be something like that, where people's in their own personal finances are saying, oh, it's not that bad for me, but I think a lot of other people are. In a rough spot, but One area where that seemed to be Tough that, you know, for people was you know with prices on tariffs uh You had 53, 54% of people say that the tariffs were hurting the economy and thirty eight percent saying help. But then this one was kind of flipped on, you know, personal to national and that for people's personal finances Only 19% said it helped them, and 56% said it hurt them personally.
So while the economy overall might be okay, they and maybe they're not spending as much.
So they feel like, yeah, we're doing okay, we're just not as living the lavish lifestyle we once maybe could with expendable income.
Now they're they're saying maybe prices are up partly because of tariffs and And that's probably maybe the the least popular thing I could See, among things for for Trump is It could be part of why his personal numbers have dropped quite a bit in this poll, which we can talk about. It's prices and tariffs especially. um are not viewed very favorably among people of of all parties. Yeah, I do want to touch on the president's approval coming up here in just a couple of minutes. But on this economy, David, I found this to be fascinating.
You just went through the numbers. Most people, almost 60% of people say that they're not confident in the direction of the U.S. economy, yet most people say they're doing all right or they're doing fine is how they described it in our poll. Do you think that this is some level of overall economic fatigue? I mean, you go back to the beginning of COVID-19 and early 2020 when you had these major economic shutdowns.
And David, I just wonder if it's been going on for so long and this economic fatigue is just continuing to build with predominantly the middle class. They just feel like they can't get ahead. And their overall view is that the economy is just not doing what it needs to do for the vast majority of middle class America. Yeah, I think maybe people, as I say, they think I've made some personal adjustments. I'm doing okay.
But this isn't the economy that I was used to before COVID.
So I think COVID's where a lot of things, you know, things were shut down, inflation really started to hit. And they remember those times and they They like I said, they've made some adjustments. Maybe they are locked into their 2% rate and they had hoped to upgrade to a bigger house. They'd hoped to maybe get a new car. But they haven't.
So they see we're doing fine, but it's not really, they are getting a little fatigued of it. things not really turning around when they thought eventually maybe this would uh you you'd get to see a big turnaround in the economy really start to to uh you know grow again at a at a major level that they would see an impact in their life. We'll jump into the approval ratings for President Donald Trump and Governor Josh Stein coming up after this. You're listening to the Carolina Journal News Hour. Verbo helps you swap gif wrap time for quality time.
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Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Continuing our conversation this morning with David Larson from CarolinaJournal.com about our exclusive Carolina Journal news poll. Turning our attention to what is going on back in Washington, D.C., of course, the man in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump.
He is the one that is seemingly responsible for a lot of these issues, whether he is directly responsible or not, David. It's always pass the buck to the next guy, and you really can't go higher than the President of the United States. What do North Carolina voters currently think about the job that President Donald Trump is doing? Yeah, he He and our Earlier polls right after he was elected had a pretty, you know, had kind of a honeymoon period. He was around 50%.
And then he slipped a little bit, and but you know, 49%, but In this latest one, he's dropped quite significantly, four percent about. And now he's at 45.7, which is The worst since he's you know, since he's been reelected. And maybe more troubling is that it's about 53% disapprove. And almost all of that is strongly disapproved.
So The strongly disapproved number, those who are very firmly and enthusiastically against President Trump. is now higher than his total approved.
So that's A lot of it is independence. A lot of it is weakening support among conservatives and Um and and really consolidating You know, that 48%. Of negative is if you're starting to dislike Trump, it's almost universally a strong thing. He's a strong personality, he could be a lightning rod and A lot of the time it's been kind of a 50-50 thing. But right now it's starting to slip away where you see Yeah, more 45.7 to 52.8.
So, you know, 46.53 kind of and and to foreshadow a little bit to other Candidates and polling, you know, on Republicans versus Democrats. It looks like that same four-point drop. For Trump is being seen kind of across the board with other Republicans. And you mentioned the independents as it relates to the approval on President Trump. David, those numbers are not very good right now.
54% of self-described independent, or here in North Carolina, we describe them as unaffiliated voters disapprove of the job he's doing compared to just 43% that are approving. Those are tough numbers for Republicans to overcome as unaffiliated voters are and will remain the largest voting bloc across the state of North Carolina. That's really the tiebreaker, really, because the partisans generally come home to their side. But there is an element among unaffiliated. There are a lot of the unaffiliated that are kind of partisan, but just don't want to hit the R or the D box when they.
You know, register to vote, but probably a big chunk of those unaffiliated that will. you know, look at both parties, they're willing to vote for both parties. And when they start shifting to where it's You know, 54%, you know, against That's going to be a tough one for them to, you know, for uh Trump to really Win width, I guess he doesn't have to run again, but in terms of the coattails that you see during the midterms, are usually of. whoever, you know, the party in the White House. Let's turn our attention back to the Tar Hills State.
Governor Josh Stein has now been in the governor's mansion almost an entire year. We've been tracking, of course, what's been going on with him between the legislature and the governor.
However, for Governor Stein, his numbers are still pretty rock solid in terms of approval, are they not? Yes, he hasn't really seen much change. I guess the only thing that happened was he lost about a percent in approval, but he also lost about a percent in disapproval. He just had a few more people that are unsure about him, but that's not really a drastic. positive or negative, I guess.
fluctuations you just see in polling. Um but yeah, so he's Uh For whatever reason. Democrats, if they can they can win North Carolina and they can keep a Uh somewhat You know, solid approval rating in North Carolina in the governor's mansion. Cooper did it as Attorney General and his governor. And Stein did it as Attorney General and now as governor.
And they're able to do that if they kind of just. Seem like a professional. Moderate.
sort of at least give that persona. You know, Republicans are gonna point out. you know, Cooper shutting things down during COVID or, you know, things things of that nature and Um With Stein, I guess. There's going to be things he does that are clearly partisan and clearly Democrat leaning, but. For the most part, he's managed to just keep that bland persona kind of professional.
You know, you don't pay him much attention, and if somebody asks you about him, you're like, I guess I approve.
So he hasn't really. He hasn't really drawn a huge disapproval. He's got 28.9% disapproval. That's not really very high, you know?
So I think he's managing to kind of play the Cooper. game plan of of passing himself off as kind of a professional moderate figure. You talk about that low disapproval number, his approval hovering right around 50%. But David, I do want to ask you about two specific numbers. 24% of Republicans say they approve of the job that the Democrat governor is doing.
That's not normal in a poll, and 49% echoing the kind of overall number. 49% of Independents say he's doing a good job. What do you make of those two different groups in those numbers?
Well, the independents make sense in that they often track with kind of the overall trend.
So as you saw with the Trump numbers, the independence numbers kind of tracked with the overall numbers. But the Republican numbers, I think. Might still be the honeymoon period in that. The Republican candidate Mark Robinson, his campaign completely. disintegrated and a lot of Republicans ended up voting for him.
And so I still think there is. An element to where there's a big chunk of Republicans who are Still sort of justifying, rationalizing their vote. I voted for Josh Stein, I'm gonna give him a chance. And until he does something that really upsets them. A lot of them might still just think, hey, I picked this guy.
He's better than Robinson at least and in their minds and that's why they picked him so Robinson really did lose a big chunk of Republicans, and I do think that's probably going to be a lingering thing until. Maybe the midterms, maybe until there's a big controversy, something that makes. That disapproval rating. go up, something that upsets. you know base republicans and makes them uh you know, come together uh and and to oppose him.
Well, and I wonder, you were kind of mentioning this earlier about everything is kind of national and everything kind of rolls down from Washington, D.C. I have to wonder if even the one in four voters right now that are Republicans that say they approve of the governor, the job that Governor Josh Stein is doing, David, part of me wonders if it's just there's so much attention on what's going on in Washington, D.C. and Trump and Republicans and Democrats and the back and forth fighting that there's just so little emphasis on what's actually going on in the state of North Carolina politically. I think that could be a big part of it. I mean, people.
Pay What are they paying attention to at the state level? A lot of times they didn't even know that we didn't have a state budget. That's one issue you asked about. People didn't realize that. We asked them, how has this affected your life?
Very few people said it did, you know, so. I think they're much more aware of the federal shutdown than the state lack of a budget. They're more aware. Also, you know, this is one thing that's going to Cooper's benefit. is Cooper was governor during Helene, but he's gone on the attack against Um Watley because Watley was put up as Kind of the the Head of the federal response.
And when we ask people, more people were upset about the FEMA and the federal response. Then about the state response.
So I think he tried to play that, maybe in a smart way, and that it could have been a negative for his campaign, but he spun it as. Where's Watley been? Where, you know, so I think. it can be kind of a a benefit that in that way you know if they want to fly under the radar That people have their eye on national things, and even for something like Helene, that maybe mostly should be state. Response: People are thinking, where's FEMA?
Where's the federal government? Let's look forward to 2026. Major midterm elections taking place, not only in North Carolina, but across the country.
However, a little unique nature in North Carolina is we will have a Senate race. Folks are well aware of that, a primary taking place in March of next year. And then, of course, a big general election in November. Before we get to the Senate race, arguably, and some may argue, even more important, is what's going on in the legislature. As Republicans have had a majority, in some cases, a supermajority for now 15 years in a row in Raleigh.
We did ask voters this question about a general legislative ballot, even though voters do select people in districts based on where they live. What was the overall response to a general legislative ballot question?
Well, Republicans dropped about 3%, you know, 3%. Since our September poll. And uh You know, they're barely hanging on to a supermajority in the Senate, and they're one down, and they probably would like to. regain the supermajority in the House. But this doesn't look good for that per se if You know, about most of these polls, if we look at the Republican, they've been, it's down about 4%, not quite as bad here, 3%, but they're still 47%, 47.3%.
for Democrats and 43.2 for Republicans. Usually it's it's flipped. There's there's Usually, and you know, as our poll has gone, it's either even or Republican slight advantage.
So to have them down four points. to the Democrats should be probably worrying for them. Um you know they could loot with the democrat and the uh Your governor's mansion, they could lose supermajority in both chambers, and then they would really have to. Cooperate quite a bit and compromise quite a bit with Democrats going forward on legislation. That is obviously something that we are going to be following up very closely as we turn the calendar into twenty twenty six.
We'll take a look at the all important U. S. Senate race coming to North Carolina in twenty twenty six with David Larson from the Carolina Journal coming up after this. You're listening to the Carolina Journal News Hour. This is the story of the one.
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Granger for the ones who get it done. It's 5:39. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
Continuing our conversation with David Larson from CarolinaJournal.com as we look at details of our November Carolina Journal poll. All right, David, the grand finale, the United States Senate race. It is likely to be one of the most, if not the most expensive, Senate race, not just in North Carolina, but in U.S. history. There will be a primary in March.
There are two Republican candidates, Michael Watley and Dom Brown on the Democrat side, former Governor Roy Cooper. There are some other Democrat nominees or candidates that are going to try to go up against Cooper. Doesn't seem like really any of them have any fighting chance. Of course, we'll watch that play out. What do the numbers look like in this race coming in November of next year?
Former Governor Roy Cooper versus Michael Watley and Dom Brown.
Well, we didn't pull. Brown versus wildly, but what we did do to Um head to heads. And um The head-to-head with Watley against Cooper. Uh Wiley had been able to, as the Republican, He was down 8%, partly because he had very low name ID, less than 50% had heard of him. And then he was able to, that was in August, and then our September poll, he had closed that gap and he went from an 8%.
being down eight to Cooper to being down only four to Cooper. And it looks like the overall dip in Republican support has Affected his campaign because now he's back to 8%, and even slightly worse than originally.
So, you know, kind of accordioned a little bit. And so he's back to being down by now over 8%. And um Also, Don Brown. It's a lesser known campaign. He's been raising quite a significant degree less than Watley has.
but he's an insurgent, you know, another option. there and uh he actually performed slightly worse against Cooper.
So you know, that's that's kind of where it stands. And I think Uh You know, Watley, he has focused a bit on crime. As I said, that's not as much of a. Big issue when we pull what issues people are thinking of. It is a major issue, and people, especially on the conservative side, I think that'd be a red meat one.
A lot of people would would want to focus on it. But more people are focussing on on the economy and and that And maybe that's why. his um his numbers have been affected a little bit, but There's plenty of time. As I said, this is a snapshot in time, and Republicans have a lot of time to change their messaging. There could be a shift in the economy.
Really, that's what I think Republicans need here. is some really good news on the economy. They need a big economic growth. They need Um maybe I've heard some Republicans say it actually might even help Trump to have the Supreme Court knock down his tariffs and to have a bunch of companies that are kind of on the sidelines waiting to invest. I'm waiting to see where all this you know ends up Maybe much more money would come into the economy.
It actually helped the Republicans if the tariffs were knocked down by the Supreme Court. But as it stands, uh Yeah, that's an eight point Eight-point differential. And absolutely. That's going to be, of course, a major focus of this show and many other North Carolina political conversations as we transition into 2026. And, David, I think I'll bring up and note at this point, while those that are politically in tune, probably many of the folks listening to our program this morning, I think the hardcore political junkies, they follow this stuff, they're aware.
But for the overall mass voting bloc in North Carolina, they haven't been hammered with television advertisements yet. They have not had a mail thrown into their mailbox day in and day out. They're not getting text messages. They're not seeing ads on Facebook and Instagram. Once that begins, I would suspect that these numbers probably get a little bit closer and we get a better idea of what this race is actually going to look like into the home stretch of late 2026.
I would imagine so, because usually North Carolina is a closed state. If it were the kind of thing where a U.S. Senate race, You know, it was an eight-point win for the Democrats. That would be catastrophic in all the other races for Republicans. I don't think you'll see that.
So I think you're right. Things will Things will tighten, but. Um I think Republicans will have to do some work. and have a few things go their way to really close that gap. because you don't want to pull this far behind going into the midterm year.
You know, there's plenty of time for things to change, but Um you wouldn't imagine An eight-point victory, because that's kind of what. You know, the territory that Mark Robinson and Stein saw, but that was because of a major. You know, scandals kind of story from CNN and all of that, it would be surprising to see that big of a gap. without something of that nature coming up.
Well, and you bring up, David, if this were to be the final results right now, I mean, it would be catastrophic for Republicans. They could easily lose the majority in both chambers of the General Assembly with this big of a gap at the top of the ticket.
So we'll continue the Carolina Journal poll as we head into next year and see what happens with some of these numbers. As we round out our conversation this morning, we did ask some other questions as it related to the economy and tariffs. We talked a little bit about that. Did anything else jump out at you on this poll? I've got one thing that jumps out at me, but I'll ask you first.
Anything that else jumped out at you? I think we didn't directly ask about it. But the generic legislative ballot We, that was about the North Carolina legislature, but that always runs almost exactly in parallel to the congressional generic ballot. When we ask about that, those numbers always. Fairly identical.
So why that jumps out at me is There was the recent congressional redistricting that took some Republicans from NC3, which is on the coast, south. Um you know, southeast of The state and put it more to the northeast of the state into NC1, which has been a toss-up. And in theory, the idea was that now both of those would be R plus five. and would be more. Yeah they could win them both now.
Um The NC three had already been safe, but they figured they could Pad NC1 a little bit. And then in the mountains, NC11 is now the most competitive at a R plus 3.
So all of those are Republican four five point advantage. But if Democrats have This four-point swing holds or gets slightly bigger, that means all three of those congressional races could become competitive, which Would do the opposite of what the Republicans had wanted when they did this redistricting. Um, that could be catastrophic if these kinds of numbers hold. I don't, like you said, I don't think they will. There's a snapshot.
And it's particularly a bad moment maybe because of ec the economics of things and Maybe Trump has upset people for a minute, but his numbers have done that frequently. But that would be catastrophic for Republicans if those numbers hold, and then NC1, NC3, and NC11. They all become competitive races and Republicans then at The U.S. House level who need every race they can get, instead of picking up one. They might end up losing two more.
So that's another thing that jumped out at me. One of the things that jumped out at me was the shutdown blame. And obviously, this was in the field, as I mentioned earlier. This was in the field while the shutdown was going on. It has, of course, since been resolved.
That happened Wednesday night. But, David, I did find it interesting that 38% of voters said that they blamed Democrats in Congress for the shutdown compared to just 33% for Republicans. I think that would lend itself to an overall idea that Republicans did a very good job messaging that this shutdown was, in fact, not their fault. What do you make of those numbers? I would say that's one that went in their favor.
It's kind of surprising that overall things people's opinions of the Republicans have gone down. Yet, as you said, thirty four to thirty eight, they blame Democrats for the shutdown.
So it's kind of interesting that Maybe it would have been even worse if the Republicans hadn't have been able to place the blame for this on the Democrats. Maybe they would have been in an even worse position and they would have lost, slipped 6% or something, and all these. All these poles that have been slipping away from them. That is interesting. I I guess um they were successful in And making people think that the Democrats really could have come to the table.
And they were dragging their feet on health care subsidies when Maybe this wasn't totally worth it. But, you know, yeah, that was successful in doing that, seeing as the. The majority in both chambers as Republicans and in the White House, but. They were able to. paid the Democrats as obstructionists on that successfully.
You can view more information about our exclusive Carolina Journal poll this morning by visiting our website CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the information, analysis and insight as David Larson from CarolinaJournal.com joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Yeah. Good morning again. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT tracking some statewide news this morning.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is slated to begin operations in Charlotte as early as Saturday. That is according to Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden. The sheriff has said that on Wednesday this week, November the 12th, two federal officials confirmed customs and border protection operations were coming to the Queen's City, but offered little detail and have not requested any assistance from the Mecklenburg County Sheriff. McFadden said in a press release, quote, we value and welcome the renewed collaboration and open communication with our federal partners.
It allows us to stay informed and be proactive in keeping Mecklenburg County safe and to maintain the level of trust that our community deserves.
However, not everybody is happy with this. Democrat Congresswoman Alma Adams said that she is very Concerned about the impact on immigrant communities across Charlotte, saying, I am extremely concerned about the deployment of U.S. Border Patrol and ICE agents to Charlotte. We will continue to follow this throughout the weekend over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour.
WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning B T. We're back with you Monday morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 993, WBT.
