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I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Following the recent redrawing of congressional maps in North Carolina, North Carolina's first congressional district has moved from a Democratic advantage to an R plus five, meaning that Republicans have on a generic ballot a plus five advantage in the district, making it much more competitive for the GOP. And with that, the National Republican Congressional Committee, or the NRCC, is partnering with the White House to pick a well-vetted candidate for the Republican ballot. A source familiar with the efforts confirmed to CarolinaJournal.com.
The NRCC, chaired by United States Representative Richard Hudson, who is the Republican out of North Carolina's 9th congressional district, is set to be partnering with the Trump administration to coordinate and execute a recruitment effort to ensure that the district has a viable candidate that can flip the seat. Andy Jackson, who is the director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity, told the Carolina Journal, between redistricting and northeastern North Carolina trending Republican over the past two years, the first district has shifted from a D plus one to an R plus five. That shift has made Don Davis much more vulnerable. He is on both the DCC, that's the Democratic Congressional Committee frontline, and the NRCC's initial target list of vulnerable Democratic congressional incumbents. The 2024 election when Davis won by less than 2 percentage points showed how vulnerable he could be against a strong Republican opponent in 2026.
It is important to note that Don Davis is currently a Democrat serving in the first congressional district. With NC1 being the most competitive district in Hudson's home state, the NRCC has partnered with the White House's political operation to work the district methodically and meet with potential candidates.
Sources close to the decision tell the Carolina Journal that they are vetting candidates' strengths to ensure that the right candidate is adequately positioned to take the best advantage of the new mission. maps. A House GOP leadership aide said, quote, the White House and Chairman Hudson are in total alignment on recruitment in the chairman's home state. It wouldn't do a candidate any favors if they jumped in before doing their due diligence first. The NRCC calls the recruitment process deliberate, slow, quiet, and intentional.
The source said that the Republican Party is only getting one nominee, so both the White House and the NRCC want to ensure that the chosen candidate is credible and prepared to run against the Democratic nominee, who will likely be the current Democrat member of Congress in Don Davis. According to Dr. Andy Jackson, he said the leading Republican at the moment is probably State Senator Bobby Hoenig. Hoenig has shown himself to be a strong campaigner, but party leaders may want to recruit someone with whom national party leaders and donors are comfortable.
Now, this is all going to shake out pretty rapidly in the next couple of weeks as the official filing period for statewide candidates in the 2026 election will begin coming up on December the 1st.
So that's just right around the corner and will run all the way through December the 19th at 12 p.m. noon. That, of course, will lead us into a primary election, which will take place on March the 3rd at 2026. If there is not a primary in that race, then you just skip over that primary and head immediately to the general election in November of next year. According to Balladopedia, presumed candidates include incumbent Representative Don Davis on the Democrat side, Bobby Hoenig, who just mentioned is a member of the North Carolina state senate, Rocky Mountain Mayor, Republican Sandy Roberts.
Eric Rouse, the vice chair of the Lenora County Board of Commissioners, Greenville Family Law Attorney Ashley Nicole Russell, and Carteret County Sheriff Aisha Buck. Robinson ran for the seat in 2022 and appears to have a significant early fundraising advantage. Jonathan Feltz, who is the senior advisor for Eric Rouse, told the Carolina Journal, it's only natural that the White House would want a strong candidate who won't flip-flop on the America First agenda. The sad reality is that Mayor Robinson compared President Trump to a dictator who is hard to support. And North Carolina Senator Hoenig made it clear his choice for president was for the rhino establishment option and not President Trump.
Now, obviously, as I just mentioned, Jonathan Feltz giving the comment is working with Eric Rouse in that, who is a member of the Lenoir County Board of Commissioners and is obviously not going to have a lot positive to say about their opposition. You can read some additional coverage and detail on this story over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That headline, White House Partners with NRCC in NC1 candidate recruitment. We will be watching this process unfold over the next couple of weeks very closely as we get candidate filing from across the state of North Carolina. In some other statewide news this morning, charitable donations in North Carolina are beginning to rebound after what can only be described as a slump last year, as North Carolinians were quite a bit more generous in their charitable giving across the Tar Heel State.
This is according to a brand new report out from the North Carolina Secretary of State's office. The newly released 2425 State Charitable Solicitation Licensing Division annual report states that charities licensed by CSL, that's under the Secretary of State's office, collected $48.14 million from July of 24 through June of 25, which is a whopping $21 million increase from last year's total of just over $27 million. Approximately $35.88 million of this year's total was allocated directly to charities for their programs, which was a $19.4 million increase from the amount netted in the 23-24 year. The aggregate percentage of 74.53% going to charity programs represents an increase of almost 14% for each dollar donated from that aggregate percentage in 23-24. The remainder went to fundraising and administrative costs within many of the charitable organizations.
The 24-25 figure is still down significantly from the 22-23 report, which showed that North Carolinians gave $58 million to charities between July 1st, 2022 and June 30th, 2023. An increase of 10.4 million over the overall giving from 21 through 22. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall said in a recent press release, quote, Despite the efforts of rising costs of living concerns and other economic challenges, North Carolinians responded to growing needs with generosity and focused on making wise choices with their charitable donations, citing impressive growth in overall giving and in the percentage being netted by charities, saying, We've seen an incredible response to relief efforts in our western counties following the devastation of Hurricane Helene. I always encourage North Carolina's giving public to use our annual report and charitable solicitation registry to research nonprofits as they make donations with their charitable donations this holiday season and all year. She released the report at the Durham Rescue Mission, which has served the Durham community for more than five decades through emergency services, long-term recovery programs, education, and employment support.
In addition to fundraising efforts for Helene Recovery, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall said that the increase in this year's report is also due in part to fundraising activity of four groups involved in economic development and civic issues in the state that may not fit the traditional connotation of charity. A total of $10 million in gross receipts from giving resulted from companies for four economic development organizations across the state. State. They include the Surrey County Economic Development Partnership, the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, the Rowan Growth Partners and the Craven One Hundred Alliance. In national or multi-state fundraising campaigns that included North Carolina donors, over $1 billion were raised, representing an increase of almost $718 million from the previous year.
Of that total, charities netted a little over $838 million, or 77.85% in comparison to those same charitable donations in 23 and 24. The Secretary of State's office licensed charities and nonprofit organizations that use professional fundraising services for their solicitation campaigns, compensate their officers, or raise at least $50,000 a year. These organizations are not exempt from state law for reasons such as being a religious institution, a volunteer fire department, or an educational institution. The office also noted that although it regulates fundraising activity under federal case law, it cannot legally penalize a charity for using most of its donations on fundraising or administrative overhead. People with questions about individual charities or charitable solicitation activities can call the Secretary of State's Charitable Solicitation Licensing Division or visit their website to view some of the research and some of the information on these charitable institutions, as you may be giving as we head into Thanksgiving later this week or heading into the holiday season in December.
You can get some additional details. Check out that phone number and link this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline, charitable donations in North Carolina rebound after slump last year. Did you know you can opt out of winter? With Verbo, save up to $1,500 for booking a month-long stay.
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There's been some discussion over the last couple of weeks here in North Carolina about potentially raising tuition as part of the UNC program that includes all of the UNC schools, not just at Chapel Hill, but UNC Wilmington in the east, University of North Carolina at Asheville over in the west, and everywhere else across the state. Jenna Robinson, who is the president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, has a new opinion piece over at CarolinaJournal.com this morning with a very blunt headline: UNC system should not raise tuition. Reading through her opinion piece, the UNC system has opened the door for tuition increases for in-state graduates for the first time in a decade. Already, Board of Trustees at UNC Chapel Hill and NC State.
Have voted to seek an increase citing strained university budgets. The UNC Board of Governors will ultimately decide whether to request in-state tuition increases early next year. But universities should be tightening their belts, not raising prices for students, writes Robinson. North Carolina's Constitution requires that, quote, the benefits of the University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practical, be extended to the people of the state free of expense. In fact, from 1971 to 1999, the UNC Board of Governors recommended increases only when required by the North Carolina General Assembly.
State statute and the Board of Governor policy echoes the mandate that tuition should be as low as possible, as UNC Chapel Hill trustee Marty Codis mentioned. During a committee meeting last week, COTIS noted that state law instructs the Board of Governors to set non-tuition rates at, quote, rates higher than rates charged residents of North Carolina and comparable to the rates charged non-resident students by comparable public institutions nationwide, end quote, there in the comments from a Board of Trustee member at Chapel Hill, Marty Codis. COTIS also said that the Board of Governors tuition policy directs campuses to demonstrate that they, quote, have exhausted all other reasonable levers before requesting in-state undergraduate tuition increases. Specifically, the UNC Board of Governor policy instructs universities to consider whether there is evidence of institutional efforts to manage costs through increase in productivity, budget flexibility, and/or efficient improvements as part of the tuition setting process. For the past 10 years, Years these mandates have driven UNC system policy.
The system has introduced the North Carolina Promise Tuition Plan, which caps tuition at $500 per semester for in-state students and $2,500 per semester for out-of-state students at five UNC system schools. North Carolina has also created the Next North Carolina Scholarship, which is a financial aid program that helps most North Carolinians from households making $80,000 a year or less pursue higher education. Under the Next NC program, students attending a community college will receive at least $3,000 per year. Those attending a public university in North Carolina can get a minimum of $5,000 per year. This generous commitment is funded by the North Carolina taxpayer, many of whom send their children to UNC institutions.
Now it is important to note that North Carolina consistently ranks in the top 10 states for per-students university funding from taxpayers. Universities should match the taxpayers' generosity by continuing to rein in expenses and extending the long-standing tuition freeze for in-state undergraduate degree, writes Jenna Robinson. Universities in other states have proven this can be done. In Indiana, Purdue University had its tuition and all mandatory student fees frozen for 14 years. It has achieved this by various means, including increased revenue from graduate students, out-of-state undergraduates, and donations, as well as reduced expenses for academic support, institutional support, and student support and student services.
Rather, in a 2014 letter to Purdue stakeholders, then President Mitch Daniels pursued even smaller savings. He stated at the time, if we can maintain a campus-wide commitment to holding costs down, counting every $10,000 saved as a student tuition equivalent, we can fulfill our duty to our students, taxpayers, and everyone who chooses to invest in Purdue's enterprise. In Florida, another example, tuition and fees for in-state undergraduate students. have been frozen since the 2014-2015 academic year for now more than a decade. That's two years longer than UNC's freeze with the result being tuition and fees for in-state students at the University of Florida's flagship campus are just over $6,000 a year compared to $8,700 at Chapel Hill and $8,900 at NC State University.
The University of Florida proves rather that academic excellence can be achieved at an affordable price as the University of Florida is consistently ranked among the top 10 public universities in the country. And the Wall Street Journal even recently ranked the University of Florida number one in its most recent report. Jenna Robinson, the president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, ends her opinion piece at CarolinaJournal.com by saying North Carolina should follow Florida's lead. Doing so will benefit North Carolina students and its citizens.
It will also ensure that North Carolina's public universities satisfy their constitutional duty to keep tuition as free as practical for North Carolina students and families. You can read some additional coverage of this this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. It's in the opinion section with the headline: UNC System Should Not Raise Tuition. Transform your home during blinds.com's Black Friday Super Sale. Get up to 50% off site-wide, plus huge doorbuster deals on popular styles.
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See Blinds.com for details. It's 537. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. Don't forget if you miss any portion of the Carolina Journal News Hour live here weekday mornings, 5 to 6 on WBT, you can check out the show on your own time by downloading the Carolina Journal News Hour podcast. It's available in Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere else you get your shows.
Search for the Carolina Journal News Hour, tap the subscribe or follow button and get a new program delivered to you each and every weekday morning. You can also watch the show live and on demand. We've got some folks watching live this morning over on our Carolina Journal YouTube channel. One of the legal stories that we've been tracking for the last couple of months, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, involves the state health plan and exclusion of certain treatments that would likely be used by individuals that are going through some sort of gender transition. We do have an update on that lawsuit this morning to bring us up to date.
Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Foundation joins us on the news hour this morning. Mitch, we chatted about this maybe a month and a half, two months ago. There were some decisions in other states that may have been having an impact. What's the latest with this North Carolina state health plan lawsuit?
Well, the latest is that all parties in the suit basically want to put the case on hold. And the reason for that is that the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Fourth Circuit is the one that North Carolina cases go to.
So the Fourth Circuit is hearing an almost identical case out of West Virginia. And the arguments in that case are going to be taking place in early December. And then, at some point afterward, the Fourth Circuit will come up with a ruling. And basically, all of the parties in this case on one side, the state health plan, which has an exclusion that blocks coverage for these what the proponents call gender-affirming care. But if you don't like to use that language, you could say the medical treatments that are usually requested by transgender patients.
So there's the state health plan on one side, and then on the other side are the patients and their lawyers who would like the state health plan to cover these treatments. back in 2022 A district judge put an injunction in place that blocked the state health plan from excluding the treatments, meaning that the state health plan would have to cover the treatments. And the Fourth Circuit upheld that ruling. But afterward, the U.S. Supreme Court came out with a ruling in a case out of Tennessee called Skermeti.
That said that Tennessee's law that banned the gender treatments for teens was constitutional. And so after that ruling, the Supreme Court went back to this North Carolina case and said, Fourth Circuit, you need to reconsider this case in light of what we said in Skirmetti. Once the case got back to the Fourth Circuit, the Fourth Circuit threw out the injunction and sent the case back to the trial court.
So presumably this is going to go through all of the trial court items, a trial and such. But before that happens, all of the sides in the case say, wait a minute, it doesn't make sense for us to go through all of this trouble at this point when the Fourth Circuit's going to take up almost the exact same issue out of West Virginia. Let's go ahead and see how that case plays out. And then afterward, within a couple of weeks of the final ruling in the West Virginia case, then we'll provide another status report about how this case moves forward.
So basically, what is in place right now is that the state health plan. After the ruling from the Fourth Circuit that threw out the injunction, the state health plan. Put the exclusion back in place.
So the state health plan is not covering these treatments now. And that's the status quo that will remain until a court decides something one way or the other about this. But that's not going to happen for a while because all of the parties in the case have agreed: let's put this on hold until the Fourth Circuit decides something in this West Virginia case, which is called Anderson v. Crouch. Mitch, this might sound like a stupid question, but when you've got both sides saying, hey, let's kind of tap the brakes on this thing, we've got a similar case that is also under the Fourth Circuit's jurisdiction taking place.
Is that something that the court almost all of the time says, okay, we agree with? Or is there a possibility that the court says, no, we're going to move forward with this anyway?
Well, it's possible that the court would decide to move forward with it, but unlikely, because with all sides agreeing and saying that the case that's in front of the Fourth Circuit from West Virginia deals with almost the exact same issues. You know, if the court looked at it and said, yeah, that's slightly different. You're dealing with some different issues here. We should probably go ahead with your case now. That could happen.
But generally, if all sides agree that this West Virginia case will almost certainly decide what is at issue in the North Carolina case, it makes a lot of sense for judicial economy and efficiency just to allow the West Virginia case to play out. Another factor that's important here is that we don't really know at this point who the judge is. The judge who issued the injunction back in 2022, District Judge Loretta Biggs, is no longer assigned to this case. At some point, In this past year, there was a court order that said she's no longer assigned to the case. And if you look at all of the information that's online from the U.S.
court system, the case is unassigned. And so we don't even know which judge is going to be overseeing this.
So my guess is it's very likely that the court system just says, okay, well, we'll keep this on hold. We don't have to worry about it, at least for a while. And then once the Fourth Circuit comes up with a ruling in the West Virginia case, the Anderson case, then you can go back and see what needs to be done in terms of this North Carolina case. It could be that whatever judge is assigned to this says, well, based on what the Fourth Circuit said in Anderson, this is how we have to rule in this case. And probably all sides will agree.
And whoever is on the losing side will sort of jump on to whatever appeal comes from the Fourth Circuit to try to get something to the Supreme Court.
Well, that's what I was going to ask you. You talk about this court date coming up in December in another state, but still under the Fourth Circuit's jurisdiction. Mitch, it's probably hard to argue that regardless of who wins or loses that case, somebody will be appealing that from the Fourth Circuit, likely to the nation's highest court.
So it could be months, if not years, for that West Virginia case to be dealt with. In the meantime, everything might just kind of be standing by here in the state of North Carolina. And as you just mentioned, due to some of the previous rulings from the nation's highest court, those transgender exclusions are currently in place in the state of North Carolina. They are. And that's one of the reasons why it's sort of interesting that the plaintiffs in this case would be willing to go along with setting everything to the side and getting a stay.
Because at this point, we are Pre-injunction status quo where the exclusion was in place and it was being challenged.
So, right now we have the exclusions back in place. The plaintiffs want to get rid of the exclusions, but they don't have the injunction.
So, there's nothing that helps them in this case, and nothing can help them in this case unless they get a favorable ruling from the Fourth Circuit. But I do think it's to their credit that the plaintiffs did not try to go back and say, Well, that Schirmetti case from the U.S. Supreme Court did not do anything that changes our injunction. You should restore that injunction and then wait to see what the Fourth Circuit would do and perhaps have that injunction lifted a second time. They basically said, Look, the West Virginia case.
Is arguing the same issues that we're arguing. We should just set this aside for now, see what the Fourth Circuit says in that case, and then go back and see how it affects the North Carolina case. It's entirely possible that both sides in this case. look at the West Virginia case, look at what happened in the U.S. Supreme Court in Skirmetti and think they're likely to win.
And so they won't have to do as much in the North Carolina case if they can go ahead and bank on the Fourth Circuit ruling in their favor. And of course, we will keep an eye on that case in West Virginia as we head into the month of December and some of those ramifications possible here in North Carolina. We appreciate the update and analysis this morning. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 551.
Good morning again. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. After being ranked 9th in 2024 rankings and 12th in the 2025 rankings, North Carolina has slipped to 13th in the 2026 State Tax Competitive Index that is conducted yearly by the Tax Foundation. While this reverses earlier progress in the rankings, North Carolina is still among the top 50% of states across all five of the evaluated statistics that are used in making the index. The yearly ranking evaluates the tax structure from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and ranks them according to their relative competitiveness.
Additionally, states are ranked in five narrower categories, corporate tax, individual income tax, sales tax, property tax, and unemployment. insurance tax In addition to its high overall rank, North Carolina performed well across the five major tax categories assessed by the index. North Carolina placed third in corporate taxes, 22nd in individual income tax, 15th in sales tax, 21st in property tax, and 7th in unemployment insurance. The index credits North Carolina's high performance to its low income tax rates with a flat 4.25% personal income rate and a corporate rate of just 2.25%. The important to note that the corporate incomes tax rate is set to progressively decline to 0% by 2030 if things remain on track across North Carolina and is relatively competitive property and sales tax systems across the state.
It goes on to attribute the state's ability to maintain these low rates and its decision to forego many non-neutral or distortive business Tax credits, as well as the state's commitment to broad-based and low rates. Despite North Carolina's high ranks across many categories, the index maintains that there is still room for the state to improve, specifically in regards to business net operating losses or NOLs. North Carolina maintains a low bonus depreciation allowance of 15%, which, according to the Tax Foundation, is substantially lower than federal allowances and restricts NOL carry forwards to just 15 years.
Furthermore, the state levies an unusually aggressive franchise tax on the value of a company instead of of their profits, which the ranking cites as the largest impediment on North Carolina's tax competitiveness. The report reads: This yields a tax levied without regard to ability to pay, and its combination with North Carolina's other problematic NOL policies. disenfranchises investment across the state. The index recommends that North Carolina take steps to rectify its adverse treatment of investment. Specifically, it advises adopting permanent full expensing and raises to its Section 179 expense limit from $25,000 to come more in line with federal allowances.
Additionally, as the single largest barrier to the state's tax competitiveness, the index encourages North Carolina to reform its franchise tax. Although North Carolina did not break into the top ten, this year's index nevertheless holds North Carolina in relatively high praises. Out of the states levying all major taxes, North Carolina ranked among the highest performers, with only five other states ranking above it. Additionally, of the top ten states, seven forego one or more of the major taxes, such as individual or corporate income tax, which they compensate for by leaning harder into other taxes or relying on natural resources among other solutions. This results in tax structures that many states cannot replicate, the North Carolina model.
By contrast, it is cited in the index that other states can and should follow. The index's authors note that in their foreword that taxes, while not only factor involved into a strong economy, are an important part of the mix when positioning a state for economic growth, and that, quote, every state can benefit from a simple, neutral, transparent pro-growth tax structure, end quote. You can get some additional coverage of the 2026 State Competitive Tax Index and view the full rankings over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline story there, North Carolina drops to 13th in tax foundation rankings. In some other statewide news that we are tracking this morning, some good news, charitable donations are up in North Carolina after they were way.
Down last year. According to a new report from the North Carolina Secretary of State's office, licensed charities in North Carolina collected $48.14 million from July of 24 through June of 2025. That marked a whopping $21 million increase from last year's total of just over $27 million. We've got some additional coverage of that as well, including what the last couple of years have looked like in terms of charitable donations across the Tar Hill State. All that coverage over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com.
That's going to do it for a Tuesday edition. WBT News is next. Followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 99.3, WBT.
