With VerboCare, help is always ready. Before, during and after your stay. We've planned for the plot twists, so support is always available. because a great trip starts with peace of mind. It's 505 and welcome into the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM, WBT.
I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
Well, it is set to be a busy day in North Carolina. The county canvas taking place today. We'll get into those details here in just a couple of minutes.
However, first, a member of the Trump administration is set to be in the Tar Hill State today. Vice President J.D. Vance is going to be in North Carolina. He will be at the Powerhouse in Rocky Mount for an event taking place early this afternoon. The doors for the event open at 11 o'clock with the vice president expected to speak around 2 p.m.
The White House on Thursday posted an invitation for those wishing to attend. It is a relatively small venue, about 300 or so people, as J.D. Vance will be in North Carolina. His first congressional district, which is a major point of emphasis for the Republican Party and for the administration. That will be a race between current Representative Don Davis, the Democrat in the first district, and Lori Buckout, who won the Republican primary back just a couple of weeks ago.
That sounds vaguely and relatively familiar to you. Those same two candidates battled it out for this exact same district back in 2024.
However, since 2024, the district has been redrawn. That happened last year and was done by the North Carolina General Assembly. We covered those details here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. The district now is a slightly more lean Republican for the Republican in that race than Lori Buckout. That event taking place in Rocky Mount today.
We'll be keeping an eye on it throughout the day, and we'll have the details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and we'll bring the latest to you, if relevant, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour coming up Monday morning. All right, over to the county canvas. As we get closer and closer to wrapping up our primary election coverage, county election officials across the state of North Carolina today will finish counting all ballots in the primary election.
Now, we've talked to our experts, Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation, Mitch Coke, as well from the Locke Foundation, about what this process is set to look like. This is different from the situation we saw one week ago where provisional ballots. Outstanding military and overseas ballots were counted.
Now, there is still the possibility of some military and overseas ballots to be added to the tally. We will learn that from a county board of election officials when they do meet today.
However, all provisional ballots have been counted, and it is not immediately clear how many military or overseas ballots still might be withstanding or how many of them will actually be returned.
So, as it stands right now, Phil Berger, arguably one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful man in North Carolina politics, currently trails Sam Page, the Rockingham County Sheriff, by 23 votes. What is going to go on this afternoon is all county officials. Will hold their meetings today. All county board of election officials, they will go through the final process of certifying the election. That is what the county canvas means.
With that, any race that is separated by less than 1% of the votes cast, those individuals, those candidates, have the ability to request a recount that is due by 12 noon on Tuesday. That is March the 17th. It is not immediately clear that the Burger team will do so, whether the Page team will do so, and it is not clear exactly when that announcement will be made. What we do know is that those elections will be certified today, and any candidate across the state within that 1% margin will have the ability to request the recount. That may happen today, it may happen Monday or Tuesday.
So, we'll keep a very close eye on those details here on the Carolina Journal News Hour and over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. In some statewide news this morning, public school students make gains when school choice expands. This is according to a brand new study that we've got over on our website this morning. This new study shows that scaling school choice is the most cost-effective way in improving public school student performance than simply increasing spending on public schools. The research could have implications for North Carolina's own school choice infrastructure, which recently became universally available to all families regardless of income.
The report, which analyzes Florida's school choice landscape, runs counter to the common criticism from opponents of school choice. which often claim that support for educational alternatives are in fact taking funding from public schools. In a recent statement, North Carolina House minority leader Robert Reeves, who is the Democrat from Chatham County, echoed that sentiment, arguing that the voucher program, quote, siphons money away from public schools and is quote, irresponsible government. He went on to say that Republican leadership is engaged in a reverse Robinhood scheme. While critics argue that funding loss hurts students, new research suggests that resulting competition actually spurs academic growth.
Patrick Graff, who is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, which we'll note is a school choice advocacy group, found that public school students in areas with higher levels of competition for school choice programs show broad and growing benefits, including higher reading and math, test scores, and lower rates of suspensions and absences. Graff's research, which is the whole point of the study, the baseline of the study, found that competition effects of school choice in Florida yield the same improvements as traditional spending on public schools at a fraction of the cost. After 15 years, Florida students were an additional 120 days ahead of learning, equivalent to roughly two-thirds of a school year, with even greater gains for lower-income students. The research also showed that these competitive effects amplified as the program scaled. Achieving the same academic gains through increased traditional public school spending in Florida would have cost taxpayers some $31.8 billion over the 15-year span of time, according to research.
In contrast, Florida's tax credit scholarship program delivered these similar benefits with just $2.8 billion, making it 11 times more cost-efficient. Gaff told the Carolina Journal, how money is spent matters a great deal more than how much is actually spent. Dr. Bob Lubke, who is the director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Logg Foundation, called the research on Florida's approach quote inspiring, saying, quote, policymakers in other states wondering how to allocate resources should reconsider school choice. As this research suggests, school choice should be thought of not only as a way to create options for students, but also a major initiative to the system that can improve outcomes for all students.
Graf cautioned that a direct one-to-one comparison between Florida and North Carolina was challenging, and specific analysis of the opportunity scholarship program would be needed in the Tar Hill State, especially after the expansion to a universal school choice program began in the 24-25 school year.
However, he said that the bottom line is that competition can serve as an effective mechanism to improve public schools and education across the state, saying if you're a public school advocate, you should think about school choice as another mechanism to improving public schools. For those that follow education policy closely here in North Carolina, you know that that is not some of the discussions. Discussion and conversation that is taking place as it relates to public schools. Unfortunately, for many, it has turned into more of an ideological political battle more than anything else. There are individuals that are very and very much against the opportunity scholarship program here in North Carolina.
I just read the quotes there from Robert Reeves, who is the Democrat minority leader in the North Carolina House. He talks about, and this same commentary is echoed by many, including Democrat Governor Josh Stein and many other high-level Democrats across the state of North Carolina, that the expansion of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, the expansion of school choice programs across North Carolina are severely affecting the public school system.
Meanwhile, we've looked at continued polling, not only from Carolina Journal, but from other major publications and outlets as well, that continue to show that one of the The rubber meets the road. Parents are, in fact, interested in school choice. They are interested in giving their children the best possible educational opportunity, regardless of whether that is a public school, a private school, a charter school, homeschooling, whatever the venue might be. Parents are interested in the best choice for their children. No real surprise there.
And for many in North Carolina, we have seen that best choice come in the form of an opportunity scholarship and a private school. We will continue to keep an eye on education policy. It does remain a relatively hot political discussion here across the state of North Carolina. You can read some additional details on this report out of Florida, which could have some similar tie-ins to North Carolina. The details on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
Look for the story with the headline: study. public school students make gains when school choice expands. Mm. It's 5:21. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 WBT.
We have spent a lot of time over the last year on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, talking about tariffs. There's been a lot of different angles that we've looked at that issue.
Now, Governor Josh Stein jumping into the equation after a recent ruling that we talked about as it related to the United States Supreme Court and some tariffs put in place by the Trump administration to walk us through the latest and the governor's reaction. Teresa Opeca, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. Teresa, it seems like everybody, it doesn't matter who you're talking to, has got an opinion or thoughts on tariffs. I guess that includes the governor of North Carolina. What does he have to say?
That certainly does. Good morning, Nick. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so he joined on to a letter with 18 other Democratic governors to Congress to tell them to reclaim their authority when it comes to following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs: that President Donald Trump cannot use federal emergency powers to impose them.
So, this came out earlier this week. He said too many North Carolina families are already feeling the squeeze of high prices. You've got different volatility going on caused by the federal administration's tariffs, further exacerbating their pain. That's his quote again in the press release. He says the tariffs are hurting consumers who are now paying higher costs, and farmers are selling goods overseas.
And he says Congress must act to reassert its authority on tariffs to lower costs and expand economic opportunity for North Carolinians.
So, again, he signed on to this letter. It should be noted again, with 18 other Democratic governors to tell the Congress to, you know, hey, you know what? Take back your authority on tariffs because the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's. tariffs th that he wanted to impose on everybody.
Well, Theresa, and I'm glad you bring up the political side of this because as you talk about these 18 Democrat governors, I think it's also relevant to mention that this letter is sent to Congress, and the majority currently in both the United States House and Senate is the Republican Party. I would imagine that this letter is probably falling a little bit on deaf ears as lawmakers immediately rush to microphones after this Supreme Court ruling back a couple of weeks ago saying that they were not going to take this up, at least as of right now. Yeah, I would imagine so. Like you just said, right now we've got that Republican majority, both in the House and the Senate. And it seems like this probably will fall on deaf ears.
But of course, you know, they want to band together and get their voices heard. You know, the 18 governors, there was one for me as a surprise who wasn't on this was Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, just stating that as a fact, and he's, you know, Democrat as well.
So just pointing that out, because usually he'll band together too against the Trump administration. But yeah, I don't think it's really going to have too much of an impact as far as Congress listening to what the Democrat governors have to say on this issue. And, Teresa, of course, this is a much larger discussion about tariffs. We've dug into a variety of different elements and factors as it relates to that. And as I understand, the Supreme Court ruling from a couple of weeks ago, they didn't say that the president could not impose tariffs.
What they said was you cannot use a certain section of IEPA to put these wide-sweeping tariffs out. In the immediate aftermath of that, even the same day, the president hosted a news conference indicating that there would be additional tariffs from this administration just going through different channels. I would imagine that we'll continue to see this back and forth, not only between Democrats and Republicans, but there is some disagreement within the GOP as well as to whether these tariffs are hurting or helping the American economy. Right, yeah.
So, like, you know, after that ruling, President Trump kind of scaled back and went and imposed a About 10% tariff. He's just based on a section of the Trade Act of 1974. They could rise also up to 15% to replace those earlier tariffs. Um but you know, like you say, you're hearing disagreement on both sides for and and on the GOP, you know, against the tariffs and it it will be remain to be seen about that.
So, um yeah, it's it's it Yeah, when you bring the word tariff, You know, no one really likes to hear about it, they call it another tax, so it's uh It's a pretty um You know, a volatile discussion when you talk about that. Yes, very volatile and something that we've been tracking pretty regularly over at CarolinaJournal.com. Teresa, more specifically, the agricultural industry across our state, which remains the state's largest business. We've had interviews. Our friend Katie Zender and other reporters have talked to farmers that have just been ravaged by some of these tariffs that have been levied by the Trump administration.
However, I'll note on the flip side, you can look at reports from businesses across the country that say, hey, the tariffs are helping.
So it's very sector dependent, and it might even be a little bit geographic dependent, depending on what you're producing or building or putting together. Yeah, that's correct. That's correct. And you're talking about, you know, different sides. We're talking, obviously, it's a political issue because you've got both sides of the aisle talking about this.
One important note earlier in the week, we had North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson citing the John Locke Foundation's research on this issue. And he touted it as he was, he joined on to a new multi-state lawsuit challenging federal tariffs. You know, he talked about, you know, about things about He referenced how tariffs threaten North Carolina agriculture, North Carolina farmers at risk. That was based on a January LOC report authored by Jeffrey Dorfman, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University.
So, yeah, it definitely affects certain sectors, including one of the most important, if not the most important, sector for North Carolina is agriculture. That's right at the top there.
So, yeah, it comes down to, you know, if it is really affecting everybody. And I guess it kind of is. It depends on what you're paying, if you're going to see higher prices on what they're going to start charging.
So, yeah, it's an interesting topic and it's not going away anytime soon.
Well, Teresa, that was going to be my next point. When you and I talk, it's typically about state issues. You cover a lot of what goes on in the Council of State, the executive branch here in North Carolina. But I know you're pretty plugged into these national stories and national topics as well. Do you think that the Trump administration is going to move off of these issues?
From everything that I've seen from my vantage point, they don't seem to have a willingness to do that at all, at least as of right now. Yeah, it doesn't look like that they are. I think they think they're going to keep going on that track. You know, maybe they had a little bit of a setback with the Supreme Court ruling, but he still wants to get some type of a tariff, if not 10%, 15%, something in that range. And they're not backing down from that.
So you're going to see that continue.
Meanwhile, we don't know exactly all the ramifications as to what was charged before, how that's going to be affected, if they have to issue refunds or whatever that is. That's more on the wheeze for us to look into here in the future. But yeah, I just not look like the Trump administration is going to give up on this subject anytime soon. Yeah, again, as you kind of mentioned earlier, you use the word volatile, and it still very much is what the decision is and what the discussion is right now. It could dramatically change in the coming days and weeks.
Teresa, for folks that want to get a little bit more from exactly Governor Josh Stein, these 18 other Democrat governors, plus some of our previous tariff coverage, of which we have a lot, where can they do that this morning? Sure, they can head on over to CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update this morning. Teresa Opeka joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 5.36.
Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good Friday morning to you. You are probably not aware of a provision in North Carolina law that allows non-residents of the state of North Carolina to potentially vote in state elections. Yeah, it sounds a little bit screwy.
That is the reason it is part of a lawsuit that we are keeping an eye on this morning over at CarolinaJournal.com to walk us through some of those details. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, if I remember correctly, you and I chatted a lot early last year about this ongoing battle between Allison Riggs and Jefferson Griffin. Am I right to remember that there was a lot of discussion about some of these people when that election was playing out? That's right.
This was a key part of that months-long debate over the resolution of the state Supreme Court election. Jefferson Griffin lost by about 730 votes, but he challenged. Thousands of votes that had been cast in the election. Most of the ballots that he challenged were those cast by voters who had incomplete voter registration records. They didn't have a driver's license number or last four digits of a social security number.
That was the bulk of his challenges. But he had two other categories. One was people who voted overseas and didn't provide photo ID. And then the third category is the one that we're talking about now: a group that was labeled in the Jefferson Griffin court filings as never residents. These are people who have never lived in North Carolina, but are allowed to cast a ballot here.
And basically, the idea is that if their families were from North Carolina, moved overseas but still had residency, In the state, then a person who moved with that family had never voted anywhere else. But had perhaps at one point lived in North Carolina before becoming of age and then became of age to vote while living overseas, that person would have status to vote in a federal election. And the state of North Carolina had given that same person the opportunity to vote in a North Carolina election. This was challenged in a couple of ways in connection with the 2024 election. There was the Jefferson Griffin challenge as part of his attempt to win the state Supreme Court election, but there was also a separate lawsuit.
Filed by the Republican National Committee, the North Carolina Republican Party, and then a couple of individual plaintiffs that challenged this ruling for the state board of elections in interpreting state law, saying that the North Carolina Constitution. Says you must be a resident of North Carolina to vote in a North Carolina election. And so, regardless of where things stand with a federal election, whether you could potentially cast a ballot in a federal election while living overseas, that you cannot cast a ballot in North Carolina if you are not a North Carolina resident. And so, that was a lawsuit that moved forward on a parallel track. It's basically been sitting there with nothing happening for a while.
But earlier this year, there had been an appeal in this case, in another case at the state Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court asked the plaintiffs What's happening with this appeal? Do you still seek anything from the state Supreme Court? The Republicans dropped their appeal to the state Supreme Court, which sent the case back to a trial court level. There is a trial that's actually scheduled in this issue of the Never residents in late April.
But now, what happened this week is the Republican plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment, which means what they'd like to have is for a judge to just rule on the case without getting additional evidence or holding a trial, but saying that as a matter of law, that this case should go in the Republicans' favor and that never residents should not be allowed to vote in a North Carolina election. A couple of things there, Mitch. I want to make sure we're clear for our audience. We're not talking about a college student doing a semester abroad or taking a sabbatical to visit some overseas countries and gallivant throughout Europe. We are talking about individuals that, in many cases, have never been residents in the state of North Carolina.
This does not deal with people that may have to go for work trips or anything like that during the traditional election cycle.
So with this most recent legal filing from the Republican Party asking for this summary judgment, are they looking to kind of circumvent this legal, this court date that is set currently for April the 20th? Are they looking to get ahead of that and just make sure that doesn't come to fruition? Yes, I mean what is set is a trial. And so a trial, you'd present the evidence, you'd cross-examine, the judge would ask questions if necessary, and then the judge would ponder everything that happened in the trial and come up with a ruling. If a judge acts on the motion for summary judgment, you wouldn't have to get to the trial.
My guess is that because of the timing of this motion for summary judgment, what you might see is that a trial date might get delayed until the judge decides whether to grant summary judgment. And then, based on the issue of the summary judgment, then the trial might be rescheduled.
Now, it's possible that the judge. could say All right, I've heard enough, and issue summary judgment or not before a trial, and thus mooting the idea of the trial. But given the timing of this and the fact that it's a little bit more than a month before the trial, what you might see is. Putting off the trial date, dealing with arguments on both sides for a motion on the motion for summary judgment, and then regarding depending on how that turns out, then either rescheduling the trial or just not having a trial because the issue can be decided beforehand. What we've seen this week is the motion from the Republicans.
Now, obviously, it will remain to be seen how the state board of elections will respond. When this suit was filed, The state board of elections was run by Democrats. The Democrats were against this idea and were fighting the Republicans' lawsuit. We now see a state board of elections ever since last summer that has a 3-2 Republican majority. And the Republican Majority Board of Elections has been very interested in election integrity issues.
If the Board of Elections now in its majority agrees with this idea of not letting never residents vote, you might see a more rapid resolution of this case. I mean, perhaps. We haven't seen anything yet, but perhaps the State Board of Elections files something saying We agree. And then you wouldn't have to have the trial, and the issue could be resolved. State Board of Elections might, for some reason or another, though, still want to continue the adversarial position here.
If that happens, then you'd see a filing from the State Board of Elections saying either. No, don't grant summary judgment at all. Or they might say, this is a matter of law, and you still should. Grant summary judgment, but grant it to the state board instead of to the Republican plaintiff.
So it'll be very interesting to see how the state board of elections responds to this. Yeah, I'm glad you bring up that major piece of context that has changed. To say dramatically, Mitch is probably an understatement from when this case was originally filed. I will say this, just because remember, because there was the other lawsuit dealing with the incomplete voter registrations, and initially you had a sort of a contentious position between the Republican Party organizations and the state board of elections. But now that has been resolved with the state board saying we're going to have this registration repair project, we're going to make sure we get as many people as possible to have the complete voter registrations.
So my guess is Republicans, the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, will hope that the state board of elections is also on board with doing something about the Never residents. We've not seen anything yet in terms of a court filing from the state board, but my guess is the Republican Party's organizations would love to avoid having a trial and would like to get the state board on. the same track as they are on Never Residence. Yeah, and of course, we'll wait to see that. Mitch, you laid out a couple of the different potential scenarios that could play out in this.
We'll obviously wait and keep our audience up to date over on our website with those details. But just kind of stepping back from the news on this, this to me does seem to be an issue that has to be resolved one way or the other. That Jefferson Griffin, Allison Riggs thing, as you are well aware, as you and I talked about it, sometimes three or four times a week, went on for months on end. And there was a couple of other things in there, as you noted, with voter registration, with Hava, people not having the correct information. But, I mean, we see close races.
We've got one literally taking place later today here in North Carolina. We'll have the county canvas process up in Rockingham, northern portions of Guilford County, a very close race between Sam Page and Phil Berger. I mean, these challenges likely are going to continue until a court says one way or the other, yes, this is good or no, it is not, right? This has to be resolved. It does have to be resolved.
And remember that we've already seen at least some steps toward resolution because, as the Jefferson Griffin and Allison Riggs contentious election played itself out in courtrooms, we already saw. The North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court issue some rulings and statements about the Never residents. The Court of Appeals said no, never residents should be able to vote. And then the state Supreme Court actually went along with that. The majority did.
And they, at that point, when this case was in front of the state Supreme Court, they were calling into question several thousand votes. And there was a potential that they could impact the election. But then, U.S. Chief District Judge Richard Myers stepped in and said, you know, regardless of what happens with these other issues, The state board of elections needs to certify Allison Riggs as the winner.
So he basically ended the piece of the debate that involved the state Supreme Court election, but that did not solve the issue of whether the Never residents were going to be able to vote going forward. The state courts have signaled no, but they haven't given a final definitive ruling. And I think that's what the Republican Party is looking for in this case: look, we sued over this exact issue. The court should rule, based on what's already been said at the Court of Appeals and State Supreme Court, the court should rule that these never residents cannot vote and that the State Board of Elections was wrong when it allowed, under Democratic leadership, when it allowed these residents to count as voters in North Carolina. And if I'm remembering correctly, I'll admit my memory is a little foggy on this going back a year since we were talking about this stuff.
Essentially, some of the argument that was made by Judge Richard Myers was, hey, yeah, there might be some problems with these never-residents voting, but we're not going to just throw out the election results because of that. You need to maybe clean this up if it's something you're concerned about, clean some of this stuff up in the future. But as it stands right now, this stuff is allowed and it's going to continue to take place. Yes, Judge Myers didn't really get into the details of whether a never resident should be able to vote or should not be able to vote. Basically, his argument was this thing has dragged on long enough and it needs to be resolved.
And so, State Board of Elections, you need to certify Allison Riggs as the winner. But he didn't get into all of the detail about whether a never resident should be able to vote. And so basically, what the State Court of Appeals and the State Supreme Court had said. Should stand, but what they said was in the context of. Griffin versus Riggs, rather than on just the separate issue of never residents themselves.
That's what's part of this case, the case called Kibbett versus North Carolina State Board of Elections. And that's, I think, why the Republican Party, all this time later, is now coming out and saying, we need a ruling, a motion for summary judgment that says never residents cannot vote. That'll make it crystal clear moving forward. Yeah, we'll keep an eye if there is a ruling on that summary judgment. We'll also be looking at to see if the state board of election chimes in on this, see what they have to say.
And I guess if nothing else happens, Mitch, we'll be in here in late April, not too long from now. And that trial is scheduled unless it gets pushed back. We'll keep you up to date with those details over at CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the information this morning. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Uh Good morning again. It's 5:54. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9, WBT. A couple of big things that we are going to be tracking throughout the state of North Carolina. We'll start off in the city of Rocky Mount, where Vice President J.D.
Vance is set to visit an area there later on today. He is expected to speak around 2 p.m. The relevance of this, of course, Rocky Mountain being in North Carolina's first congressional district, which is the Republican Party, is looking to unseat current Democrat Representative Don Davis, who is serving in the United States House of Representatives. He will be facing Lori Buckout, the Republican primary candidate winner we saw just back a couple of weeks ago, and that is going to be a rematch of the same election we saw back a couple of years ago in 2024 when Buckout and Davis battled it out on the national stage. We will watch that again, albeit a little bit different of a district.
Now, with some redistricting out of the North Carolina General Assembly late last year, the first congressional district now gives Republicans a little bit of a better opportunity to pick up that seat. We'll watch those details as that race continues to play out. And of course, we'll keep a close eye on J.D. Vance's comments as he will be in North Carolina. The last time he was here, September of 2025, he was just north of Charlotte discussing public safety, transportation issues.
This was in somewhat of the aftermath of the murder of Irina Zarutska on the Charlotte light rail. The other major story that we are keeping an eye on today is the county canvas process. As all 100 counties board of elections across the state will be gathering at some point throughout the day today to finally certify the elections that took place a couple of Tuesdays ago on primary day. This is all eyes really are going to be on. North Carolina's 26th Senate seat, that is in the North Carolina General Assembly.
The race between the longest-serving Senate president in North Carolina history, Phil Berger, and Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page remains razor-thin. Page currently leads Berger by 23 votes. We will see if any additional military or overseas ballots are counted in either Rockingham or the northern portion of Guilford County. Then see the final results there. Either side, each candidate will have until Tuesday at 12 noon to request a recount if they want to go through that process.
The state law mandates and allows that any race that is within a 1% threshold, which this race absolutely will be, is eligible for a recount.
However, that official recount request does have to be in midday by Tuesday. We'll keep an eye on those details not only later today, but early next week, right here on the Carolina. Journal News Hour.
Well, that's going to do it for a Friday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you Monday morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9, WBT.
