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Now streaming only on Prime Video. It's five oh five, and welcome into a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk, one of seven point nine FM WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. If you are checking out election results on the North Carolina State Board of Elections website, you will see in very large bold letters right at the top of the screen "unofficial results." Even though election night was Tuesday, maybe bled into the couple early hours of Wednesday morning, it will remain unofficial for the next week here across North Carolina to walk through that process.
As always, Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. And there are some very close races here in North Carolina. Carolina, whether it's for the General Assembly or Congress, these results remain unofficial. There's been a lot of chatter on social media about provisional ballots that are still outstanding, thousands of them across the state of North Carolina.
Right off the top, what is a provisional ballot, and what is this process over the next week going to look like? A provisional ballot is basically a ballot where there is a question about somebody's legal right to vote, either in general or at that particular location. In that case, they will give the person a ballot, but that'll go into a different pool of ballots called the provisional ballots. They're not counted right away; they have to be considered by the county board. For example, if somebody comes in and says, "I am registered to vote at this location," They can't find that person's record.
They generally will not send anyone away without giving them a ballot. But they'll give them that provisional ballot, and then they'll try to figure out on the backside whether or not that person really is a legal voter in that area. And so, I guess an example of this would be election day. You move, maybe not too far across town, but move a little bit. You show up to your old voting location where you used to be registered and used to live, and demand to vote.
You're issued that provisional ballot. You are a legal registered voter. Andy, does that still count, even though you voted out of precinct? That's an interesting one because what they'll do then is they will determine which. Places which items on the ballot you're legally allowed to vote in, and so they have what they call partially counted ballots.
So they'll say, well, this person no longer lives in this school board district or this, you know, general assembly state house district, so they're not going to count your vote there, but they will vote count your vote for senator, for Congress, you know, all the other ones where you are still a legal voter based on your new address. What are some other reasons why we've seen this list? The State Board of Elections has published a PDF and an Excel file that's got all of these individuals that are currently waiting in this provisional kind of situation status right now. What are some of those other reasons?
Well, some some of the more common ones include you don't have a voter ID and you didn't fill out a an exception form an affidavit and you said well I'll bring back that ID later and so they'll keep give you that provisional ballot if you show up then they'll go ahead at the next meeting we'll count that they'll you know note that you did provide your ID the the one of the biggest ones is the person is not registered to vote at all and once the They will give you a ballot, and I think that's a safety measure as much as anything, because you know somebody could get very upset if an election worker says no, we're not going to let you vote. They'll let you vote, but everybody knows they're not going to end up counting that unless they can find you in the voter record.
So those are two of the big ones. That there are there are a handful of other ones that may happen, but those are the ones that really have you know most of the provisional ballots in the state. You know, you make an interesting point about not being registered during that early voting period. You can, in fact, show up, register to vote, and vote.
However, as that we do have that very lengthy early voting period here in North Carolina, once we transition away from that and into Election Day, the voter registration deadline, I think, is sometime in early October or something like that, where you actually have to go through the full process of registration to be eligible on Election Day if you didn't vote early. Correct? Yeah, that is correct. And so it's 25 days before election day, so it is in the second week of October. And we don't have a provision for same day registration on election day.
Partially, it's it'd be really difficult to do that, then verify the registration, and then you know make sure you count that before the deadline, which is a week after election day.
So that's a lot of rigmarole to go through. As an aside, one time I had noted that I think this was the 20. 24 election that there were more provisional ballots that were not counted because they weren't registered vote on election day. More on the Republican side than Democratic side. I spoke to a Republican group a little bit after that election.
Said, "Well, with this new information, should we have same day registration on election day?" And they still said no. Like to a person, so I think that at least on the Republican side, not having same day registration is still a popular idea on election day. There have been some recent changes in North Carolina law as it relates to absentee by mail ballots. Used to be a grace period; I don't remember exactly how long it was, but there's always a weird holiday that seemed to fall right after Election Day, so you'd have this very lengthy period where absentee by mail ballots could be returned as many as three or four days after Election Day. That has changed in recent years, Andy.
And if your ballot was not in the hands of election workers by 7:30 p.m. on Election Night, it was too late at that point.
However, Or absentee by mail ballots that I guess came in throughout the day on Tuesday and were there by that seven thirty deadline. Those probably haven't been counted yet. Correct. Yeah, they well some of them get counted on the next day. They're not counted on the same day usually, but there are also a handful, a lot of cured ballots.
They're ones that had problems once again, ID and other things that the board has to look at.
So they may have come in on time, but they weren't counted before. Then they still have to be looked at by county election officials to verify that that in fact is a legal ballot before they can be counted.
So they're going to be counted. At some point between now and Tuesday, looking at some of the information, there are again thousands of these provisional ballots here across the state of North Carolina. In your estimation, Andy, obviously we can't say for certain because every single ballot and every single reason for provisional could be unique to somebody's individual circumstances. What's the general breakdown of whether these things are counted or not? Generally, it's a little less than half.
I mean, there's variation on that, and like I said, part of the reason for that is you get a provisional ballot if there is a question about the legality of you being able to vote. But even if election officials are absolutely certain that you're not a legal voter in the state, they're still going to give you that provisional ballot.
So there's there's a good sized chunk of those that going in that they know they're not going to count unless by Some miracle, they they happen to find. Wait, for some reason, this person is a registered voter, but they're not in the books. We we found out later, and somehow it didn't get transferred to the poll book used in that precinct.
So that does happen, but it's pretty rare. For these individuals that have provisional ballots outstanding, are they contacted by their local board of elections office to go through this curing process that you just mentioned a little while ago? How exactly does that process play out?
Well, if they're involved in the curing process, you would be contacted. Like if you're missing a particular piece of information, they would reach out to you to try to get that. If there was something that you know the voter should sign but they didn't sign, they try to get them to come in and sign that. That may be difficult if you were voting from somewhere out of state, for example. But they do try to reach out to voters to get that information.
Provisional, generally, you're not going to get contacted because that is just something where the board has to make an assessment of that. And there might be, in the in the case of somebody that voted without an ID and they didn't do the affidavit, then they are waiting for that voter to come in and present that ID at the county board of elections office.
So in that case, they are waiting on that. But the person already knew, so they shouldn't need an additional contact. When all things are considered, there's three main races that I think most across North Carolina have really honed in on. North Carolina's third congressional district, that is where actually, for and to be accurate, Greg Murphy is leading by about 300 votes in that race. Virginia Fox is losing her congressional race currently by 99 votes.
David Rouser in southeastern North Carolina is up about 1,700 votes in his race, and then all eyes are on the Senate 24 seat in portions of. Robeson County, where Senator Danny Britt would give Republicans the 26-vote threshold in the North Carolina Senate. He's up by about 268 votes. Andy, we've got a lot of these outstanding ballots. Do you suspect that we'll see some changes in many of these races?
Oh. It could be. I don't think that there's going to be enough on the provisional side itself for for to affect the the race with Danny Britt in it, because I think it's about eight hundred sixty, like you mentioned. A little bit less than half of those will be counted. Not all of them are going to be for one party or another.
You would suspect that most of the ones in Robeson County, where where Britt did well, will will break a little more Republican. The ones in Hoke and Scotland counties, where his opponent did better, will probably break a little more Democrat. It'll be a bit of a wash.
So it could lower that gap a little bit. But then you're going to wait, see what happens with those cured absentee cured. Ballots on Tuesday, and then any remaining military and overseas ballots that will come in by next Thursday of next week. All right, Andy. We've got all of these outstanding ballots as we transition into the latter part of next week.
We have a real possibility of potentially seeing a dozens of recounts being requested across North Carolina, whether that is in local races, county commission, school board, congressional races, the North Carolina General Assembly. Walk me through that process as we transition into the latter parts of next week. What you're going to have here is right after the final count for the county canvass a week from today, which will be at eleven o'clock in the morning on Friday. Then immediately you'll have an opportunity for the candidates to request that recount. At that point, the counties involved in the case of the Britt race, Senate Twenty Four, there are three counties: Robeson, Scotland, and Hope.
They will go through the recount process in their counties and report that. And then, if. They're still not satisfied with that. Then you can request a hand eye recount, where they go through manually for all these. The first one will be a machine recount.
Generally speaking, and we saw this with the Page Berger recount in the primary in that race. The recounts don't really change a lot unless there was a problem, which is the purpose of having the recounts.
So if somebody's ahead when the when the county canvass is over on Friday, that person will probably be ahead after the recount as well.
Well. Even though Election Day was Tuesday, we do have a pretty good idea as to how the vast majority of these races are going to shake out here across North Carolina. There are still some that are within these very tight margins. We will watch that process play out through the remainder of the next week. We'll keep you up to date over on our website carolinajournal.com and as always, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
As always, we appreciate the information and insight. Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal. News Hour. He was a champion, an icon, the original goat.
But before Muhammad Ali became the greatest, he was Cassius Clay, a young man finding his voice, his purpose, and his place in the world. Follow his journey through the victories, the challenges, and the defining moments that would shape a legend, both in and out of the ring. From Ben Watkins, creator of Cross, and executive producer Michael B. Jordan comes the first authorized scripted series about the man behind the legend, starring Jalen Besse as Muhammad Ali. Don't miss the greatest.
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It's 5:22. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. Following some statewide news this morning, State Senator Jim Bergen, the Republican from Harnett County, has announced this week that he is seeking to become the next President Pro Tem of the North Carolina Senate, the chamber's leading role, joining a growing field of Republicans competing to replace longtime State Senate leader. Phil Berger. Berger announced his candidacy in a letter to Senate Republicans on November the fourth, one day after election night projections gave Democrats control of the North Carolina State House for the first time since 2010 and significantly narrowed the Republican majority in the Senate, which will likely be 26 seats, or just one more than the 50 vote threshold, or the 50 percent threshold.
His announcements come as Republicans prepare to navigate a divided North Carolina General Assembly, with Democrat Governor Josh Stein remaining in office and the GOP no longer holding a veto-proof supermajority in either legislative chamber. Bergen, who represents Senate District 12, emphasized his experience working across party lines and his ability to maintain Republican policy priorities while negotiating with Democrats. Gats. In his announcement, Bergen acknowledged that the political environment facing Senate Republicans will be substantially different from the one that they have navigated during the past 15 years. He writes in part in his letter: "Last night, results were not what we had hoped for, nor what many of us worked for.
With Democrats winning a sizable majority in the House and having the governor, the road ahead will look quite different from the one we've traveled in the recent decade." Aid. Our options are to lament on that, or we can adapt to it. Our caucus must choose the second option, and I am asking for the opportunity to help lead it. Bergen argued that maintaining relationships with lawmakers from both parties and with the governor's office will become increasingly important as Republicans attempt to advance their legislative agenda, which will be increasingly hard. Writing in part, I have worked to build bipartisan consensus.
On many difficult issues during my time in Raleigh, and that ability will be helpful in the years ahead. In a divided government, little will get done without people who can sit across the table and find common ground without abandoning our conservative principles. Bergen has previously worked across party lines on several major legislative issues, including Medicaid expansion. He also worked with Stein's office on legislation that would have expanded the attorney. General's authority to review proposed hospital mergers, although that proposal ultimately failed to advance after opposition from Senate Republican leadership.
Bergen currently serves as co-chairs of the Senate Health Care Committee and Appropriations on Health and Human Services. In his letter, he emphasized his existing relationship with Democrat lawmakers and the governor as qualifications for leading the chamber under this divided government, noting a relationship. Relationships matter, and they are what I would bring to this role. I have built working relationships with my Democrat colleagues, with members of the House, and with the governor. Those relationships will help us deliver results and protect the priorities that matter most to our caucus.
He also stressed the importance of maintaining the Senate's influence in negotiations with the House and governor, writing that co-equal branches are vital parts for our system of government. Government and I will ensure that the Senate is not sidelined. Bergen suggested that the chamber would need to make changes to how it operates, referencing an earlier letter he had sent to colleagues, saying in part, "As I hope my previous letter made clear, we have to do something different in Raleigh." Rebuilding our majority starts now, and I'm committed to leading with an eye towards a successful 2028 for our caucus and our state. Bergen joins several other Republican senators and lawmakers in Raleigh seeking to succeed Berger, who had served as the president pro tem of the Senate Republicans took control of the chamber in 2011, as Carolina Journal previously reported. Senator Brent Jackson, the Republican of Sampson.
County formally announced his candidacy in October, joining Deputy President Pro Tem Ralph Heis and Senator Todd Johnson, the Republican from Union County, who had previously expressed interest in the position. Jackson, one of the Senate's chief of budget writers, has emphasized his experience overseeing state spending and his commitment to fiscal discipline, limited government, and agriculture. Heise has served in the Senate since 2011 and currently holds several influential committee assignments, including leadership roles involving appropriations and redistricting. And for Senator Johnson, a Senate Majority Whip, he has also expressed interest in replacing. Burger and has previously emphasized the importance of passing a state budget.
State majority, Senate Majority Leader, excuse me, Michael Lee, the Republican from New Hanover County, had also been seeking the position, but lost his reelection bid Tuesday evening to Democrat Jessica Bickler, removing him from consideration from the upcoming legislative term. Burger's departure follows his defeat in the March Republican primary to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page. The leadership transition will be the Senate's first in fifteen years. Only two lawmakers have held position since 1993. Democrat Mark Basnight, who was leading the Democrat caucus from '93 to 2010, and Burger from 2010 until now, the end of 2026.
It is not. Often here in North Carolina, you literally have to go back. At this point, more than thirty years to find more than two individuals leading the fifty-member chamber in our North Carolina General Assembly. There's obviously going; it is obviously going to be a much different rally in 2027 with Democrats holding 71 or 72 votes in the North Carolina House. Democrat Governor Josh Stein likely able to lead a lot of the discussion over policies and agendas from the governor's.
Mansion in Raleigh, and Republicans, unless recounts or provisional ballots change something pretty significantly, they will hold on to 26 of 50 votes in the North Carolina Senate. It is going to be an interesting start of the year. We'll be keeping you up to date with all the detail over on our website carolinajournal. dot com and here, as always, 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 FM, WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good Friday morning to you. In the aftermath of the 2026 midterm elections here in North Carolina, many are asking what happened to Michael Wattley—a 19-point loss to the former eight-year governor in North Carolina and Roy Cooper.
Well, that is exactly the title of a brand new opinion piece over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. To walk us through some of those details, the CEO and president of the John Locke Foundation, Donald Bryson, joins us to discuss. Donald, you wrote the headline, you wrote the article. What do you say?
Well, it was a shellacking to say the least. Nineteen points in North Carolina is beyond a landslide. If you look back over the the last several Senate races in North Carolina, you know we're talking two points, three points, maybe four points. These are always close races, and so nineteen is.
Something we've not seen in a long time. I can't think of when we've had Senate race quite like this in North Carolina. But you know, the piece that I wrote was that there were warning signs for the Watley campaign for a long time, and I liken it to, and we're in football season, right? I liken it to a football play starts, and there are three or four receivers out there, but the quarterback is insisting on going to his first receiver instead of. Working through his progression over and over again, and poll after poll indicated that you know while some people were concerned about crime, in every poll, not just the Carolina Journal poll, but also the Elon poll and High Point University poll, indicated that crime was about eighth or ninth on people's priority lists.
And really, it was jobs and the economy and cost of living that continued to drive the conversation over and over again. And say what you want about Roy Cooper, and I disagree with a lot of his policy proposals. But the crux of his campaign was literally make stuff cost less. And so he may not have the right policy answer, but he at least understood what the correct political question was for the moment. And combine that with a really bad political environment for Republicans, and you have a 19-point win.
We have obviously talked about our Carolina Journal polls throughout the this the entirety of this year, and Donald Carolina Journal and the John Locke Foundation did catch some heat from Michael Watley back just two months ago when a poll showed that he was down fifteen points to Roy Cooper. He criticized the pollster, said that you should fire him and find somebody else. And I guess when it's all said and done, that Carolina Journal poll at fifteen points is probably the closest that we saw here in North Carolina.
Well, technically, that yeah, that fifteen point poll back in September is now within the margin of error of his loss. And anybody who knows anything about North Carolina politics and pays attention knows that there was going to be another October Carolina Journal poll, which we had, and that one actually had him losing by only ten points. What's What's interesting about our poll, I don't think any pollster and anybody who was modeling this election anticipated just the sheer size. Of the Democratic turnout, or how hard unaffiliateds clearly broke towards Democrats in this election, but the final Carolina Journal poll in in October said that Wally would be at thirty nine point one percent share of the vote. He ended up with thirty nine point zero nine percent share of the vote.
We were off by one one hundredth of a percent.
So I don't know that you can quite call that a trash poll. I think it's remarkable that we came that close to actually finding. The Republican floor for that, and. You know, thirty nine percent is really bad in the grand scheme of things. But I do find interesting about this election is that the same voters that went nearly sixty percent for Roy Cooper also passed amendments that would cap property taxes and lower the cap on income taxes and require voter ID for all people who vote, which are conservative policies that people were able to vote directly on in in the frame of constitutional amendments.
So I would frame this as a rejection of Michael Watt. And perhaps a rejection of the GOP, but not of conservative policies. If I am a Republican or a Republican activist, I am going to start questioning whether the GOP that I am a part of is representing my conservative values. I'm so glad you brought that point up. When you look at the difference in vote tallies between some of those constitutional amendments and the votes that Michael Wattley got, specifically the three and a half percent personal income tax rate, Donald, there is a nine hundred thousand vote delta between those that supported that amendment and those that voted for Michael Wattley.
I mean, that is an astonishing gap in a race like that, or two different questions in the same race. Yeah, it's it's absolutely remarkable. And remember, Michael Watley in all of our polls was running behind the generic Republican.
So if we said, when you're voting for Congress across all of North Carolina's 14 districts, right, are you going to vote Republican or Democrat, and against a generic Republican on that question, he consistently ran behind the generic Republican because. While he had lots of anti-Cooper ads on crime, and the NRSC had anti-Cooper ads, and the Senate leadership fund had anti-Cooper ads, Michael Waltley never actually came out and defined himself to voters. And so, people never really knew what to do with him, other than he was Donald Trump's guy. And there was never really a way for Michael Waltley to separate himself from Donald Trump. He was handpicked by Donald Trump to run for this.
He said explicitly to the press several times, "The president asked me to run, and so I ran." But when cost of living affordability is the top issue for people, he's going to have to eventually answer that question. He talked about other issues like voter ID. He talked about the economy some, but he never actually had a concerted effort to talk about the issues that that were concerning people. But when people saw an opportunity to, you know, talk about grocery, you know, grocery issues—what I call them, kitchen table issue—maybe is what other people call them. How it affects their pocketbook, they voted for lower taxes, which tells you that.
Maybe that wasn't part of the overall messaging, and maybe you know people were concerned about tariffs. Maybe you know passing the one big beautiful bill was great, but it was a tax cut extension from tax cuts we got in 2017. They're not new tax cuts. People are looking for ways to keep more of their own money, and that should be you know more of the conservative and/or Republican strategy going forward. Really, the only thing we saw on that economic front was discussions of things from the one big beautiful bill, like you talked about, whether that was no tax on tips and overtime, or some of the savings as it relates no tax on social security.
That was really, at least from what I followed in Garner, really the only discussion as it related to any of the economic issues. And as you just noted a couple of minutes ago, Donald, you look at not only the Carolina Journal poll, but WRAL's Eastern Western Carolina University, ECU. I mean, all of the top five or six. Issues were all economy or jobs based, and he just didn't seem to really touch it. And in large part, I would argue, maybe our congressional delegation didn't touch it either, as they ended up going on to lose six seats.
Yeah, it was it was a bad night all around for federal races for the Republican Party in North Carolina, and I think they all. Read the tea leaves a little late. You saw Virginia Fox and Richard Hudson and David Rouser all go on television late. Rouser actually retained his seat, but you know Virginia Fox been office for 22 years. It's a it's a long time to be in office to suddenly go out the way a lot of these seats did.
I think about Tim Moore, former Speaker of the House, now in Congress. That's that seat was essentially drawn for Tim Moore. And he ended up losing that seat as well, and it just seems like perhaps the the Republican messaging mechanism is out of touch with people. You know, I've received some criticism for the column that I wrote, and people, like you said, can see it at CarolinaJournal dot com as it's some sort of anti Trump screed. But if we're being candid, if we can't be candid now, we can't ever be candid with each other.
But When, when your final message to voters before the midterm happens is here's the update on the ballroom construction, you're out of touch with what people are going through.
Well, and you know, you bring up a really good point there. Even in the final thirty days of the election, where the president seemingly had a rally almost every single day, if not every single day, there was some discussion over gas prices in the economy, and we constantly heard the president talking about how gas prices really aren't that high, Donald, and that prices really aren't that high, regardless of what some of that polling looked like, and that unaffiliated split was just absolutely brutal here in North Carolina, and sank not only the. Senate race, many of those congressional races, and obviously trickle down to the North Carolina General Assembly. Yeah, and you know the New York Fed, the New York Federal Reserve, came out with a study just a few weeks ago where they said that had it not been for the tariffs implemented by the Trump administration, the cost on most consumer goods would have actually gone down over the last two years. Which means that Republican policies under President Trump had actually lowered the cost of goods, but then you add tariffs into the mix and they went up, and so it's it's a situation where Republicans just simply can't get out of their own way.
If they would stick to the blocking and tackling of we want lower taxes and smaller government, we want fewer regulations, those are all popular things. They are very popular with voters, but when we start getting too cute by half and have pet projects and The the the cost of goods change on the whim of the president. It gets really really difficult for people to understand that the GOP cares about people like them. And people vote. We're in a democracy or a republic or whatever you call it.
But people vote for their representatives. And people are self interested, and we want them to be self interested. And they were not interested in whatever the brand that the GOP was peddling this midterm. Let me wrap up on this. We talked about those constitutional amendments.
Let's use the personal income tax one as a good example. That's now going to be capped at three and a half percent after the vote is certified. Here, coming up in a couple of weeks, Donald, the voters said yes. I want that capped. I want that held, and so that it cannot be raised in the future unless voters approve that.
Yet at the same time, they voted for somebody like Roy Cooper, who has a track record here in North Carolina in the legislature increasing taxes, constantly talking for more. Government spending, eight years in the governor's mansion—that is a bizarre phenomenon to watch play out, is it not? I think it is, and my takeaway is that this was not a pro Roy Cooper election. This was not necessarily a pro Democrat election. It was an anti-Trump, anti-GOP election, and so.
It will be interesting to see if the Democrats that now are in charge of or will be in charge of the state house and Governor Stein think they suddenly have a mandate to govern in a progressive way. I would not read those tea leaves in that way at all. I think that what voters really voted for was some sort of stability. They didn't feel that the National GOP was providing stability, but what they did want is conservative policy. They want stable conservative policy.
And government less intrusive in their lives. The headline of the opinion piece: "What Happened to Watley?" It's written by our guest Donald Bryson. He joins us this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour. He was a champion, an icon, the original GOAT. But before Muhammad Ali became the greatest, he was Cassius Clay, a young man finding his voice, his purpose, and his place in the world.
Follow his journey through the victories, the challenges, and the defining moments that will shape a legend, both in and out of the ring. From Ben Watkins, creator of Cross, and executive producer Michael B. Jordan comes. The first authorized scripted series about the man behind the legend, starring Jalen Bates as Muhammad Ali. Don't miss the greatest.
Now streaming only on Prime Video. Have you ever wondered why some people seem to age slower, like they figured out some secret the rest of us missed?
Well, it turns out someone actually did, and it starts with a melon. Yep, a melon. There's a rare French melon that stays fresh four times longer than the fruit you and I buy at the store. Scientists discovered it produces an extraordinarily high level of a super antioxidant called SOD, the kind that helps defend skin from the visible signs of aging. And get this, meaningful.
Beauty partnered with world-renowned French cosmetic specialist Dr. Jean-Louis Sabat to capture that melon's youth-preserving power in a skincare line you can actually use every day.
So if you're tired of trying products that all promise the same thing, this one is truly different because it starts with something nature designed to stay young. Subscribe today and get the complete introductory system for just forty-nine ninety-five at meaningfulbeauty.com. You'll also get two free gifts, free shipping. And a sixty-day money-back guarantee. Visit meaningfulbeauty dot com and order today.
It's 5:51. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. I'm Nick Craig. Continuing our coverage of the 2026 midterm election results, we've spent a lot of time over the last couple of days talking about the United States Senate, the North Carolina General Assembly.
However, there were local races, thousands of them, all across the state of North and South Carolina, that were also on the ballot on Tuesday. To talk about what this could mean for local school systems, it's my pleasure. As always, to welcome Bryce Fielder from Callen, the Carolina Academic Leadership Network, to our airwaves this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Bryce, all government is local, and we did see some of these local contests play out Tuesday. What do some of those results look like?
Sure, I'll set the stage a little bit.
So there were nearly 300 school board seats up for election across 89 school districts in North Carolina. They took place in every corner of the state, from the east to the mountains and in between. Of those elections, 61 were partisan races, and the number of partisan school boards in North Carolina has grown steadily in recent years. And several school districts also held bond referendums, including Wake, New Hanover, Brunswick, and others. And so, just to give you a top line summary here, I mean.
Much like the rest of the nation, Democrats had a strong night and gained a number of seats. And we can delve into the specifics in different areas if you'd like. But I think, from a high-level summary, much of the results that we saw at the state and national levels really ran down the local ballot. Yeah, we absolutely saw that, and also trickled down to county commissions, sheriffs, a lot of judicial races that were also taking place locally. Walks through some of the numbers, and let's maybe start in our state capital in Raleigh.
T here is been a lot of conversation there over the last couple of days. What went on in Wake County? Yeah, so there were four seats up for election on Wake County School Board. Democratic-backed candidates won all four of those races, and that's not a surprise, as the board already leaned in that direction. And Wake does run in nonpartisan races.
And then if we look elsewhere to the eastern part of the state in New Hanover, a Democrat swept all four seats, and will have a majority on that board. Looking elsewhere in Winston-Calem Forsyth County School Board, all nine school board seats were up for election this year, and all. Nine seats were won by Democrat candidates, and even in places like Cabarrus County, where Republicans still hold a majority of four three, that majority was narrowed after the most recent election results. Yeah, and so we saw that kind of a trickle down effect. How about the bonds?
This is interesting as school systems try and a lot in a lot of cases deal with some major improvements that can go on for a decade or decade and a half across their districts. You mentioned a couple of those in Wake, Brunswick, and New Hanover counties. How did those end up shaking out? Yeah, I'll have to look and see exactly how what the outcome of those questions are. History tells us that bond referendums often has have a decent chance of passing, and of course, what that really means is the school district is borrowing money to pay for different projects, school improvement projects, capital funding projects.
New Hanover was one of the school districts that had that on the ballot. I know there were many in the county there that supported it, including in Wake as well.
So that would be interesting information for voters to go and see, and a lot of that information should be. Easily available online. Yeah, and we did see, and specifically New Hanover and Wake County, those bonds passing pretty significantly, even even in the case of the New Hanover County School District, brought forth by Republicans who had that majority on the board. Then voters rejecting some of those same individuals running for re-election, yet supporting the school bond that they brought forth. Kind of an interesting dynamic there.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And there's something certainly that happened where Republican, either running as Republicans or Republican-backed candidates, may may not have performed all that well in the elections. But we saw in some cases conservative policies being pushed forward by voters in many states, including in North Carolina and places like Florida, both of which had questions on the ballot relating to property taxes.
So that was certainly an interesting dynamic to see. There's also questions of did Those ballot questions turn out certain voters, and what the impact of that was too. Let's transition the discussion up to the state capital. The North Carolina General Assembly did see some major political changes. Democrats controlling the North Carolina House for the first time since 2010.
It does appear that Republicans will hold on to the Senate. Albeit, should be an interesting couple of weeks as we watch some of the additional provisional ballots coming in in North Carolina's 24th Senate District. Vice Republicans have controlled education policy for the last. Fifteen years, Democrats are going to get a crack at it this cycle. While we don't know exactly necessarily what their plans are, do you think we'll see a dramatic shift in some of the conversations bleeding out from Raleigh?
I certainly think we'll see a shift in some of the conversations. Of course, we do have divided government in North Carolina with the state Senate Republicans there retaining a slight majority.
So that kind of remains to be seen, where how the total votes could play out there. But if anything, we might see some of the conservative leaning legislation that has been successfully passed in the last few years and even the last decade slowed down a little bit. Of course, earlier this year, one such piece of Legislation was the eliminating DEI in public education, and you have a hard time to think that legislation like that in the current or future political makeup will have as a successful chance of passing there.
So that's something that we'll be closely watching. Of course, our organization, Carolina's Academic Leaders, do is dissect and analyze the information and legislation relating to education and put that in the hands of school board members.
So we'll be certainly closely watching what Raleigh. And the lawmakers do in the coming session. We did hear from the Democrat governor and Josh Stein earlier this week as well, holding a press conference outside of the governor's mansion. And Bryce, no surprise that we did hear from him the many the same similar statement that we've heard from many high profile Democrats here in North Carolina. We need more money for public education, whether that's the K through twelve public school system, the community college system, or the UNC system here across the state.
Those those rallies and those Cries have been loud for many years here in North Carolina. What exactly does something like that look like? That is the big question that remains to be seen. Of course, earlier this year, when the state lawmakers passed the new North Carolina state budget, that increased funding for teacher pay.
So we actually did see an increase to education funding there. What the perfect number is is a question that probably few people can ultimately agree on. And there's also the important question of how can we maximize the funding that's currently being allocated to North Carolina public schools today, and what can be done to reduce redundancies into Eliminate waste and inefficiencies, and of course, the financial strain is something that most, if not all, school districts will will tell you about. Much of that is tied to student enrollment, and as the share of students that go to private school and charter school and exit the public school system does have a financial impact.
So that's certainly something to be watchful of in the coming years. Do you think we'll see any discussion about the opportunity scholarship program we've seen in years past? Discussions that if we got rid of that program and stopped giving those vouchers out, Bryce, we could take that money and funnel it into the public school system. At least in one chamber of North Carolina government, Democrats would actually have the ability to do that. Yeah, I think what matters with a program like OSP is whether or not it's effectively helping students get an education.
We know from the data that it is leading to many kids have successful learning experiences in private schools, and so if that continues to be successful, then that's really what we should focus on. And whether or not the money would make a meaningful difference, I think ultimately is marginal. We see states like Florida that have extremely ambitious school choice programs, as well as Arizona and the public schools there.
Some That might claim or try to say that they're underfunded, but I think the reality on the ground is it's not so much about the top line figure; it's what schools are actually doing with the money that they have. There's undoubtedly going to be some very interesting conversations here across the Tar Heel State over the next couple of years. Bryce will be keeping a close eye on those and bringing us those updates right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. As always, we appreciate the time and information. Bryce Fielder from Callen joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
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