Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rust and president of NC Family, and each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. What if there was a resource that helped you make decisions on who you'll be voting for based on current issues that affect you and your family? There is.
It's the 2026 voter guide that will feature the responses of hundreds of candidates running for office in North Carolina. I'm joined by John Rustin, our president. Of course, I'm Mitch Prosser, our vice president here at North Carolina Family. And today we're going to be talking to you about our 2026 general election voter guide. John, let's talk about our voter guide and what it looks like for this year's general election.
Of course, NC Family has been doing this for several years now. About how long has NC Family been producing our general election voter guide? Yeah, gosh, Mitch, I think we started producing a voter guide for the general election back in 2004.
So it's been over two decades that NC Family has been providing this as a resource to the citizens, the voters of our state. And this year is a unique year. It's not a presidential election year. It's what most people in the political would call midterm election year.
So that means that we have a U.S. senator. Every six years, of course, senators are elected. U.S. Senators, that is.
And so we have a U.S. Senate race on the ballot this year. And we have a U.S. House. Of Representatives, which are 14 of those.
14, and those are every two years. This year, we have one NC Supreme Court race, we have three NC Court of Appeals races, and then every North Carolina senator and every North Carolina House of Representatives member is up for re-election as well.
So, this is a nonpartisan voter guide where we ask about topics and questions in regard to your family values, things that you care about. John, what are some of those issues that our voter guide asks questions about? Yeah, well, first of all, Mitch, we actually produce three separate questionnaires or surveys for candidates because those running for federal office for the U.S. Congress, those running for the state judiciary, and those running for the state legislature kind of have jurisdiction over different areas. And so, we try to ask questions that are pertinent to those particular offices.
So, we've got different questions for those running for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, those running for state judicial office, and those running for the state legislature. And typically, for the congressional and state legislature, Legislative candidates, we ask them about questions of sanctity of human life, religious liberty, parental rights, school choice, gambling issues, trying to dig down and understand where they fall out on these issues. For judicial candidates, because a lot of judicial candidates are hesitant to answer questions about specific policy issues, we ask them questions more related to judicial philosophy.
Like which member of the current United States Supreme Court most closely resembles or represents your point of view? You know, tell us about your judicial philosophy. Tell us about the role that faith plays in your daily life. It's one of my favorite questions. Yeah, it's a very, very insightful question.
And so, yeah, we really want to help facilitate information from candidates to voters. And this is one very effective way that we have found to do that. We actually ask that question about faith in public office to all of those we send surveys to. Of course, we change the wording of. That based on the public office, whether it's in years where we have council of state races, whether it's congressional seat or even those state House of Representatives and Senators, because we do believe it's important to know where they stand, not just in regards to faith, but how that affects the way they operate in public policy.
And the specific question that we ask candidates for the U.S. Congress and the state legislature is: should a person's religious beliefs influence the decisions they make while serving in public office?
Now, we're not going to comment on those. We obviously don't want to influence how any candidate might respond to that question, but it is very interesting to see how the candidates respond to that.
Some will actually say that it's impossible for a person's religious beliefs not to influence. Others will say that they think that it's inappropriate for a person's religious beliefs to influence decisions they make while serving in a public office.
So, it's really interesting to get the feedback on that and also these other questions related to specific policy issues in the voter guide. I believe this is a value. Tool for people as they go to the polls for them to know where candidates stand on particular issues that are important for them and their families. One of the very interesting things that our voter guide does is it allows for a little bit of nuance as well. You know, a lot of these surveys, when you get them, it says yes or no, and that's it.
Our survey, on the other hand, allows for the one being questioned, whether it's statewide or if it's a local office like North Carolina House, to be able to give a reason for their answer or to give an altogether different answer as well.
So I think that's a really neat feature that ours does.
Well, from a practical standpoint, it's important for us when we do a print voter guide to have a yes-no undecided response options. If the candidate doesn't respond, we put NR for no response. But we also, if they provide additional comments to more fully explain their answers, which we invite them to do, we will make a notation of that in the voter guide, the print version of the voter guide. That directs folks to go look at their answers on the voter guide website. And if you access the voter guide through our voter guide website at ncfamilyvoter.com, which will be up and available and active at the beginning of October, then you can see those additional comments and responses provided by the candidates.
We don't want the candidates to feel like they're boxed into a yes-no answer because sometimes, as you say, their response may be a little bit nuanced. They may say, Hey, you know, I feel strongly about this issue, but I want to provide a further explanation to more accurately represent where I stand. And so, we want to provide them with that. We're not trying to pigeonhole them into a response. We want to provide, you know, accurate information about where they stand on the issues to the voters.
And so, we find that a lot of candidates really appreciate that. A lot of candidates tell us that, hey, I complete your questionnaire or your survey. I don't do a lot of others, but I like the fact that you all provide the opportunity for me to more fully explain my answer. And we've actually talked to some. candidates as we were following up with them this year and it's happened in years before where they will say no i don't like to respond to questionnaires because they just you know i i don't have yes no answers i don't want to be hamstrung by that and we say no no no no no we invite you to provide additional comments and they're like hey that's great i think i'll participate because now i can you know i can accurately represent where i stand on an issue and so you know we think that's important we think it's fair and appropriate to do that and the candidates appreciate it and certainly the voters do because it provides them more information so that they can more fully and accurately understand where candidates stand we want their voices to be heard in fact there are two particular candidates this year who did not fill out the survey but they did send us an email with a letter both of them are great letters and you can go on the website when it's available and read the letter that they sent so we want their voices to be heard so that you know where they stand on the issues where they are on these things it's It's extremely important for you to do that.
We believe it's so important because millions of Christians simply don't vote. And we want Christians and their voices, your voice as a Christian to be heard. Many times they don't vote because they don't know where the candidates are, who the candidates are. I was looking at my sample ballot the other day, and there's a soil and water commission, and I don't know soil and water conservation district supervisor. Yes, yes.
And I don't know any of the names on it. I've got to go do a lot of research.
Well, ours doesn't get that far into the weeds or the soil and water, but it does cover many of the major races, and we want you to know where they stand on the issues. And so I once heard an informed Christian is an effective Christian, and your vote matters. And so, as millions of North Carolinians will be headed to the polls, whether it's in October or in November, this is a valuable tool to make sure that you have the tools. And in fact, there's a cutout section or a tear away section in the voter guide. Copy of the voter guide where you can write down the candidates and particular notes on those.
We want to give you as many tools or resources to help you make informed decisions for you and your family. Yeah, and I would just say, as a Christian and a voter, an active voter, there's little that's more frustrating for citizens to go into the voting booth and look at a list of names and not know anything about those individuals, just like you're saying, Mitch. And so, you know, we, as far as it concerns federal and state-level elections in North Carolina, because it's just not practical for us to drill down to more local races because there's so many of them. But on those federal and state-level races, we want to provide assistance, insight, and information to voters so that they are well informed when it comes to those. And like you say, there are other races that will be on your ballot.
There may be local bond referenda, things of that nature too. But you want to go to the State Board of Elections website. You can print out your sample. Ballot and not only see those federal and state level races that are covered on your ballot for the general election on November 3rd, but also other local races and local bond referenda and things like that that may be questions on your ballot come election time. That's a perfect segue into three constitutional amendments that are being proposed.
They were all voted on by the General Assembly. I'll briefly go over the three. One is on voter ID for all elections. There's been some back and forth over the years on that.
So there is a choice for you to make for or against voter ID for elections. Another one is a limit on state personal income tax, capping it at 3.5%. And so you'll want to read a little bit more about that on our website or the link provided below. And then there's another one on placing limits on local governments levying property taxes.
So all three of those are proposed constitutional amendments that when you go to the polls, again, this fall, whether in October for early in-person voting or on election day, November the Third, you're going to see those at the bottom. And, John, the interesting thing is they're really not even posed as questions, they're more like statements. Right. And then you have the opportunity to say for or against. And Mitch will have information, an information sheet on the Voter Guide website at ncfamilyvoter.com where people can go to get information about those constitutional amendments that will appear on the ballot.
Absolutely.
So when can a person vote? One of the things I love about our voter guide is the intentionality and the focus on the timing of it when it comes out, making sure that people have it well in advance of voting. We're going to give you a recommendation here in just a moment for how you can order those in bulk order in-person early voting. That period starts on Thursday, October the 15th, and then it ends at 3 p.m. on Saturday, October the 31st.
So it runs pretty much half of the month of October from the 15th to the 31st. And then, of course, as we've said a few times already, Election Day this year, the first Tuesday is November the 3rd. And so as you plan, make a plan to go to the polls, as you get ready to go, make sure that you have our 2026 general election voter guide. John, how can people get the 2026 NC Family Voter Guide?
Well, they can go to the NC Family Policy Council website at ncfamily.org. And prominently in the middle of the main page of our website at ncfamily.org, they will see information about the voter guide and the upcoming election. They can click on that link and it will take them to a page where they can order voter guides in bulk for distribution at their church, their community, their civic clubs, any people that they know who would benefit from a voter guide. They can order voter guides. They're packaged in bundles of 100.
And so just tell us on that page how many bundles they need to provide one to every family in their church, for example. And we will be very happy to send those out to them. Voter guides will start shipping in early October so that people have them in hand before the start of early voting on October 15th. And the Voter Guide website will go live in early October so that information. Information will also be available well before early voting starts.
These resources will be in hand. And so, if you need to order Voter Gods in Bulk to help inform your friends, folks at your church and in your community, definitely go to the Family Policy Council website at ncfamily.org and click on the link to order Voter Gods in Bulk.
Well, we are certainly preparing for a monumental election and all that goes along with that.
So make a plan. Again, as Jon has said, go to NCFamily.org, where you can learn more about how you can get the NC Family Voter Guide today.
Well, John, it's been great to talk about the 2026 Voter Guide. I think we've got a valuable tool and resource, and I'm so grateful for your leadership and joining us today on family policy matters. Thank you, John. Mitch, great to be with you. Thanks.
Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy.
Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
