Early in-person voting trends continue showing high turnout.

Eleven counties seek local sales tax increases as the same ballot asks for tax caps and election monitors are coming to North Carolina.

This is State Lines.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

- Welcome back to State Lines.

I'm Kelly McCullen and joining me today, Donna King, the publisher of Carolina Journal.

Jordan Shaw, Gamechanger Strategies to his right, sorta physically, politically, I'm not so sure.

Morgan Jackson of Nexus Strategies and Travis Fain of Fain Communications.

Hello everyone.

The final State Lines next week will be talking about what happened on election day.

Hello to you.

Let's get started early because we only got a half hour.

North Carolina's early vote still running ahead of the 2022 midterm in-person voting that in Saturday, over 1.9 million North Carolina Indians have cast in-person or absentee ballots as of this point, registered Democrats account for about 40% of those ballots, the unaffiliated vote accounts for 35%, and the Republicans sit at 25% in the 2022 midterm Democrats had accounted for 39% unaffiliated 30 and Republicans at 31%.

It's all a bunch of statistics, but more voters in North Carolina, Morgan, Democrats held their percentage and where are the Republican voters?

Or maybe we should ask Jordan that we'll start with you.

Well, first of all, I just want to say a PSA to Republicans, the election is next Thursday.

No, it's not Tuesday.

It's not Tuesday.

No, listen, let's set the table.

The reality is what we see Kelly is midterms are about motivation.

They always are midterm elections.

And what we're seeing right now, which is often true, is the strongest motivator in elections is anger.

It's not hope, it's not joy, and what we're seeing is voters are incredibly frustrated with their personal economic situation, and that's causing them.

That's one of the reasons that a lot of folks are upset with the president, they're upset with D.C.

because they thought Donald Trump's re-election was going to bring about a better economy and it's gotten worse.

And so what we're seeing is so far in early vote, which I think the numbers, the way we look at the numbers a lot in delve into the data is, look at it versus, as you talked about 2022, the last midterm cycle.

So those midterm, in that midterm, Democratic turnout is already up 8% from four years ago.

An affiliate turnout is up 9% from four years ago.

And Republican turnout is down 19%.

And so the last point I'll make is there's a lot of talk in this election about is there a blue wave coming.

I would make an argument that what we're seeing this time and what could turn into a historic event for Democrats, it's not just a blue wave, it's a red undertow.

And when you think about the big election waves in the past, it's not just that the winning side shows up, the losing side doesn't.

And that's what we're seeing so far in early vote.

- Jordan to the Republican vote, or Republicans hesitant to come out, I know there's some hope in the consulting class that maybe election day, you have to have a giant turnout to offset this early voting lead.

- Yeah, Republicans need to wake up, right?

Now some of this is somewhat normal.

Republicans tend not to vote as often in early voting as Democrats.

I haven't voted yet, right?

As an example, however, Morgan's right.

There's an enthusiasm gap.

There's been an enthusiasm gap this entire election cycle.

We're seeing that in early voting in really a historic way.

So far, Republicans have been slowly inching up over the last few days of early voting, but not nearly to the extent that they need to in order to prevent a blue wave.

So yeah, Republicans need to show up on election day.

If they don't, people have compared this to 22 to 2018, 2008, 2006.

I mean, this could be the worst election cycle for the GOP since Watergate, if Republicans don't turn out on election day.

Now, like I do think, then, we'll talk more about this.

I think there's some reasons for hope in some of these legislative districts, some of the congressional seats, but from a statewide perspective, Morgan's right.

If Republicans don't turn out on election day, it could be something really historic here.

And Jordan, now we're working right, races during Watergate.

So we remember that.

We're old enough to admit it.

[Kelly] Add Rufus to the table But Donna, the process of this early voting is proving very popular in North Carolina.

- Absolutely No matter the party or unaffiliated votes are up, it's just the enthusiasm gap is there.

- Sure.

So, there's more voters voting and to their points and enthusiasm issue, it does appear.

- There is.

And some of that is that Republicans tend to vote on election day.

I think they've come on board this early voting idea over the last few cycles.

But the enthusiasm gap is really centered around affordability to Morgan's point.

We've pulled North Carolinians over and over and over, given them 10 different choices of topics.

What is driving you?

What is driving your vote?

We give them immigration, crime, health care, name it, far and away by triple affordability, prices, cost of living, economics, all of these are really what's pushing people.

So there's also a messaging gap, I think, on both among Republicans and Democrats.

I think the Cooper administration's near candidate Cooper is doing a good job talking about affordability because that really is what voters are being driven by.

- Travis, put on the PR hat, I mean, the Whatley campaign has had the Cooper soft on crime and Roy Cooper's promise to make everything cost less.

But we've never discussed Iran.

We've never discussed how to do these things inflation.

So the voters have been given very, very structured campaigns.

What should they think going to the ballot box?

What are they voting for?

What are they voting against?

- I think voters are responding to the president's lies and Republican unwillingness to call those lies out to call things like they aren't to break with the president.

And I mean, that bills come and do.

That's what's happening.

I think it's as simple as that.

- Next topic is a very consequential race in North Carolina's ballot, the single seat on our state Supreme Court.

Democratic Justice Anita Earls is seeking reelection.

Her Republican challenger is former state representative Sarah Stevens.

Republicans hold a five to majority on the state Supreme Court.

And as Stevens can win, that majority would grow to six to one.

So Earls holds the seat.

The balance would remain five to with three Supreme Court seats coming up on the 2028 ballot.

This is a race I've been told is about 2028.

Jordan, you say?

- Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, in 2028, we have three Supreme Court seats on the ballot.

So this race is really important for setting the table for 2028 when the majority will be on the line, the state Supreme Court.

Morgan, I talked about this a few days ago.

The majority is that in Supreme Court races, unless there's enough money and resources spent to define those candidates and give separation from the top of the ticket, they're going to be heavily influenced by what happens at the top of the ticket.

And so I think in this structure with what's going on in the U.S.

Senate race, I think it becomes really difficult for Republicans to win this seat and take down the incumbent here.

So I think Earls is in a good position.

Again, some of this comes down to if Republicans can have a massive turnout on election day, much larger than any of us think they're going to be, then it could become competitive.

But I think that the type of election that we have, the cycle that we're dealing with, and again, that enthusiasm gap that we see statewide makes this tough for Sarah Stevens.

- Donna, what's been the tone of this race?

There was a thought it could be very combative and -- - I think we are seeing that.

We are seeing that, and I think a lot of that is driving the Earls' lead, because I think a lot of folks just don't know enough about the Supreme Court, and that an education campaign is important.

They have to look at how the individual candidates view, you know, constitutionality of laws, how they view individual rights, and try to decide exactly where they align and where their own beliefs align with the candidates, rather than focusing on what you say this combative tone.

- Travis, there was millions placed in Anita Earls, and then I was looking at some campaign data.

I don't read the fundraising very well, but I'm going to lay them in with that.

But hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent for Sarah Stevens, with that kind of funding gap, what happens here?

- Yeah, funding gap always makes a difference, but also, I mean, money moves to where people think they can be successful.

So, I mean, there's a reason that the money is not there, and it's because Republicans don't think they have as good of a chance on this.

So, in addition, Anderson Clayton, chair of the Democratic Party, they have really pushed judicial races this year and going forward.

I mean, Jordan, you can tell you both made the point.

We have big races.

Control of our Supreme Court is going to be up over the next couple of years.

This is a massive issue.

I'll also note, I voted, I believe, for the first time in my life, a straight party ticket this year.

Republicans made that a lot easier for me to do because it was the Republican General Assembly that demanded judges have their party affiliation next to their name.

So you don't have to learn as much about the judicial races.

We have incented the public to not pay as much attention and just pick the R or the D. I think that's bad policy for judges, but it made my vote a little simpler this year.

- Morgan, what about that?

We're now electing judges based on how we think and are fairly sure they would rule on certain key cases.

I grew up thinking judges would listen to every case, 50/50 nonpartisan.

- Listen, I think at the time they made them partisan, it was a bad idea.

I still think it's a bad idea.

I think a lot, and they've even gone further to try to make a lot of local races like school board and things like partisan.

I don't think I think sometimes that comes back and bites you and I think that is what happens right now.

One additional point I'd make about this is not only has the need of Earl's done the work to raise the money, which is pretty impressive for a Supreme Court race to raise over $10 million.

That's sort of insane to think about it, but the work that goes into that, you have to be disciplined as a candidate.

In the second part, what I'm most surprised about is the lack of effort to support Sarah Stevens from sort of independent expenditure for Republicans for Supreme Court justice, which has happened every cycle for the last 10 years that they've had a lot of massive spending independent expenditure wise.

And there's none.

Zero this year.

And you know why that is?

Travis may be right and everybody may be right, but it's just sort of, it's a fascinating occurrence.

- Jordan, working on campaigns and from the Republican side, do the independent expenditure groups, do they look at the candidate and sense and suss out the enthusiasm for that person, months in advance, and therefore they sort of get the idea of where they want to spend, even before polls, even before we see the idea of this could be a change election?

- I think in a perfect world that would happen.

I don't know that that's how it works most of the time.

I think what you're seeing in this cycle is that the challenges for Republicans are so deep.

We have so many fires to put out, so many problems to try to solve that the money, the money machine is just not there, the cycle, the way it has been, right?

You've seen that happen at the federal level in the U.S.

Senate race.

Spending has gone down as the polls continue to get wider.

And so I think that's a symptom of what's happened in the Supreme Court race as well.

But as I said earlier, Supreme Court races, we have to do a better job on my side of the table, of funding these races as we get ready for 2028, because unless you differentiate those candidates from other people on the ballot, voters aren't going to have all the information and to Travis's point, their partisan.

So we've got to go out there and make a case to people.

- [Donna] Sure.

I agree.

Well, actually, I was going to add that in the past, we've seen a lot of Republican focus on judicial races.

This time, we haven't.

And we've seen national Democrats really have their eye on North Carolina as a place where they could get some traction.

So I think that this is Republicans not paying attention to those judicial races like they have in the past.

- But you saw that as a journalist?

- Sure.

- But the consultant is saying they didn't see it.

They didn't bring that money in from out of state, but Anita Earls did.

- Right.

Well, and that's what Democrats, national Democrats really are focused on North Carolina, and that's a perfect instance.

- Let's go to local with some politics.

Our statewide ballot is asking voters to cap the state income tax rate and require limits on future property tax increases.

But at the same time, Donna, voters in 11 counties get to decide whether they want to raise their local sales taxes.

Counties say the new revenue would support local projects and services.

And in some places, like Samson County, that includes public education.

WUNC News is calling Campbell reports nearly half of our counties already have voter approved local sales taxes.

But in March, voters engage, Granville, Hyde and Wayne counties, rejected local sales tax increases.

How about that?

You can vote for a tax increase while capping it at the state level.

This is local governance I do there say statistically and by logistics.

- Sure.

We're seeing two things.

One, you're talking about the Constitutional Amendment.

There will be three constitutional amendments on the ballot.

All of them overwhelmingly have support north of 60% so far in our polling.

One of them is the property tax levy.

So it's not a cap on property tax.

It's telling counties that they have to follow a formula of inflation and population growth to dictate how fast they can raise property taxes.

A lot of this is coming from areas like Wake County, Mecklenburg County, where it's just been through the roof.

And I think what we're seeing in those 11 counties is those local communities, those local counties trying to get ahead of that.

Because it's likely to pass.

It's got a lot of support because of property taxes getting out of control.

But this is, we're talking about a sales tax in these 11 counties.

Summer tourism areas, some aren't.

And affordability is on the ballot this time.

So I'm not positive voters have the stomach to one support, you know, a levy limit on property tax, but at the same time vote to increase sales tax.

So it may not be this cycle for something like an increase in taxes.

- Travis at the local level, if you read the local papers.

Citizens are coming to the county commission meetings to discuss a local partial sense sales tax levy.

So this has generated liberal grassroots interactions between commissioners and their voters.

- Yeah, I don't doubt that at all.

Property tax has been a particular issue, but this is just a different type of local tax.

I noted that Guilford County is asking people for money to support teacher salaries.

I mean, that's traditionally, there's always a local ad to it, but that's traditionally a state responsibility.

And I mean, Gildford County's had some problems with their school system.

Excuse me, that was force I've got to take it up.

But at any rate, I would say we need to see a little bit of both.

We need to see a little bit of bubble up from local taxes supporting these things, maybe a little bit more than they have.

But state money needs to flow down probably in larger numbers than it has.

Republicans have had great fiscal discipline.

They've got the state coffers in really good shape.

It's probably a time to loosen that up a little bit or reallocate some.

For example, opportunities, scholarships, private school vouchers, there are probably several hundred million dollars in there that can be reallocated back to regular public schools.

- There's something like one of the things that North Carolina struggles with to Travis' point.

We have an incredibly complex education funding formula that is very antiquated.

And that's what we're seeing.

So we have a combination of state responsibility and county supplement.

And that's what we're talking about.

So you're referring to in Guilford County, all counties have that level of supplement, have a different level.

And so that's how schools are funded.

What we're really seeing is down the road, we have to clarify and streamline how we fund schools because it creates a real challenge for these individual counties when they have things like what Guilford County is offering.

- Morgan, strategically, do you think voters looking at their local ballot could see the option to raise local sales taxes with a defined purpose?

They vote for that and then vote against the state caps.

How does this work politically?

Do the amendments weigh down the local sales tax referendum?

- I think what partially it leads to is voter confusion.

They can't.

They're asked to do two different things on the ballot at the same time.

I think what's really incumbent for these local communities is you have to make a really strong case about what the investments are going to, the infrastructure, whether it's schools, whether it's school buildings or whether it's teacher pay, whether it is, and Jordan and I are working on something together in Charlotte where it's about affordable housing and transportation and these are investments that the public really wants to see, especially the build out of more affordable housing in a city that is growing every single day.

But I think it's incumbent upon the locals to make that case to voters because they all, they voters can do two things at one time.

They can look at this and say, all right, I'm for a tax cap if that's the case of where they are, but I also want our schools to be better.

I want our roads to be better.

I want more opportunity for affordable housing in a growing, vibrant area.

And so I do think where you're going to see a difference in places where people, local communities have made that case and when they have not successfully made that case, some of these may go down and Donna is exactly right.

This is a challenging year to be on the ballot on anything that says the word tax because of the fact that how crunched people are feeling with their personal finances.

- And 56% of North Carolinians we poll are unhappy with the way their local government is spending the money.

So it's also a trust issue.

- Sure.

Jordan, how would Republicans vote on local sales taxes when they, those voters can then control whether that tax is levied as opposed to a property tax or the even the income tax levels?

I think it's a bad time to ask for a tax increase no matter what your party is, right?

I think nobody wants to raise their taxes when everyone is worried about the price of gas, the price of groceries, price of everything else.

I think no matter red, blue or in the middle, no one wants a tax increase.

And so Morgan's right, this is about making sure that if you're going to ask for that, if you're a locality, you've got to go educate your voters.

We all do this for a living, but the average voter isn't thinking about this, right?

They're not spending a lot of time because they don't have time to go read all these ballot languages and figure out what's this tax and what's that for.

So we got to do that for them.

We got to make sure that they understand what this is.

We can't expect people to do that.

They got more important things going on.

So it's a bad time to ask for a tax increase.

- The US Department of Justice will be sending election monitors to at least three North Carolina counties on election day.

The state board of elections has confirmed these monitors will be in at least week, elements and Mecklenburg counties.

But the monitors have observed past elections in North Carolina.

So there's precedent.

State officials say these monitors may observe the polling place opening, set up procedures as well as the closing breakdown of the equipment.

They may speak with voters about their election day experience and interview these partisan poll watchers that will be hanging around.

They cannot help or hinder any voter Travis.

That's your civics lessons.

If you see a federal official in the big city precinct, what should you think?

- So this is a really common thing.

It happens every election cycle.

I wish I could say that this election cycle, it didn't make me at all nervous because this is something I've been zero percent worried about for my entire adult life.

And now some worry has creeped in because of the way the Trump administration behaves.

I hope it comes to nothing.

I think it'll come to nothing.

I trust our local election workers, the volunteers and the people who are professional and do this.

I trust the process of having partisan poll watchers like the Republicans and the Democrats, right?

They both watch out.

And I think we've got a good, strong system.

There are all sorts of hotlines.

You can Google up and call if you see something that you don't think is right.

And I think we're going to have a good election.

- Morgan, we have everybody watching everybody at the precincts.

You worried about this at all?

Let me just from a civic perspective, not a Democrat Republican.

- So I agree with everything Travis just said.

I think traditionally this is no big deal.

It's just something to make sure is happening.

I think when you have the purveyor in chief being Donald Trump who is very clear that if Republicans lose this election, that means the other side cheated.

That gives me great concern that when you've got a DOJ coming down to working for the president doing his bidding, they're going to try to do something fishy.

And so I just think everybody needs to listen.

It goes back to the old adage that you hear from every law enforcement.

You see something, say something.

And at the end of the day, I hope it is nothing and no big deal.

But I can assure you from our side, we are very much prepared for it to become something as the Trump administration potentially tries to challenge a result of the election after using this to gather information to do that.

It's concerning.

- Jordan, I'm presuming these are just federal workers.

Like Doug and Diane Tarheel out there, someone works for the federal government and they're going to watch the polls and monitors.

Should they be given grace?

Should voters look at the folks and say, 'They're here for some reason.'

I mean, look, as they both said, this happens every year.

This is not new.

I think if I was on the left, I would be saying the same thing you're saying.

So I think this is a normal process.

It's getting more attention from the media this cycle because of how the president has conducted things in the past.

We've heard over the last several election cycles from both sides.

People questioning outcomes of elections, questioning our laws and voter integrity.

I hope this is a non-issue.

I think it will be a non-issue.

I agree we have good people, we have good processes in place to handle it.

I don't know who these people are to your point.

I don't know them.

But I think it's about, you know, when you go to vote, let's make sure that everything operates as it should.

We have good voter laws in place.

We have a good process.

We ought to have a good election.

- Donna we have citizen poll watchers now we have federal officials in certain counties?

You know, all the bases covered.

- Well, I think that what we're also seeing though is that this could impact turnout.

If people feel like that there's something nefarious going on, they may decide they're not going to participate.

And that's the biggest risk I think that we have.

As North Carolina runs its elections, you know, cleanly that we've got a lot of good rules, good folks in place.

This again is not, I don't think that unusual.

But we are seeing confidence and elections drop significantly from 2024.

I think that's a Republican driven stat.

They're dropping about 10 points since 2024 confidence.

The issue is, will they use this to not turn out?

And that's the biggest concern.

- Governor Stein talking about vote in person if you could earlier in the early voting cycle.

So is that creeping into the Democratic side?

A little scrutiny of the election?

- Listen, I'll tell you from a programmatic standpoint, we have purposely tried to drive all of our base voters to show up and vote early or in person.

You know, the North Carolina General Assembly, the Republicans have made it harder to cast a ballot by mail than any other state in the nation and not only cast it but to vote to count.

And so our government has been voting person, remove any question about whether or not your ballot is going to count.

Because in a lot of these situations, if you vote by mail and it gets thrown out later, you don't even know that your vote didn't count until after the elections are over.

- All right, last topic.

This is the final State Lines folks before Election Day.

So I'm going to ask this panel.

I don't do this often.

Look ahead.

What results could mean for North Carolina?

Let's break it down.

Republicans hold 71 of the 120 seats in our state house.

That's one vote short of a veto-proofed supermajority.

The Republican holds a 30 to 20 supermajority in the state Senate.

Republicans also hold a 52 majority on the state Supreme Court where one seat is on the ballot of course.

And that U.S.

Senate race could flip North Carolina's Republican held seat.

Morgan, you can discuss the Cooper campaign.

You're running it.

What do you expect after Tuesday up and down the board, that ballot?

- So I think again, it comes back to, is it a historic election or not?

And we all often talk, you hear the adage that a rising tide lifts all boats.

The reality, the other side of that is a sinking tide sinks all boats.

And so the real question is, is when you look at the U.S.

Senate and the U.S.

House and I'll start there really quickly, is how much of a margin Democrats are predicted to take back the House and are now predicted to take back the Senate, which a year ago I think anybody, Iowa, Kansas, Texas were not on anybody's bingo card.

- [Kelly] U.S.

House, U.S.

Senate.

- And the U.S.

House, U.S.

Senate, here in North Carolina, the one big winner from Election United can tell you already is going to be Governor Josh Stein.

Next year, there will not be a veto-proof majority in either chamber.

And there is actually a real chance that the House could flip to Democratic control.

- [Kelly] Jordan?

- Republicans need to show up.

I think we know one thing for certain.

And that is Morgan's going to have a better night than I'm going to have.

[Morgan laughs] I think that what we're seeing this cycle, again, as we talked about earlier, this is going to come down to do Republican voters show up on Election Day.

If they do, then Democrats are going to have a good night, maybe not a historic night.

But if they don't, then everything is on the table for the Democrats.

We talked about this a few days ago.

Republicans need to know what the stakes are in this election.

In 2010, when we took the House in Raleigh for the first time, no one thought Republicans could do it.

Republicans running in Democrat maps, 68-52 Democrat majority, people didn't think we could do it.

And it happened because it was a Tea Party, there was a wave election.

And so everything is on the table.

Republicans need to show up.

- Donna, your group is doing all that nice polling and it's been fairly accurate.

What do the Republican voters do on Election night??

- I mean, they got to show up if they want to shift what they're seeing.

But I do think that we are going to see some real impact in the General Assembly, particularly coming from what's happening in Washington.

Right now, Kalshi, the predictive markets are saying the House is going to flip.

Democrat, 56% is what they're saying right now.

So, take that for what it's worth.

It's the predictive markets.

But the biggest thing I think they need to see is what does this mean for 2028?

What does this mean for an agenda when we start switching leadership and all of those things?

- Fifteen seconds, Travis.

Just a quick rundown.

What do you think happens?

- At the state level, whatever coalition emerges, you will need to have a broader coalition to pass things.

You will need to work on a bipartisan basis, which means it's a great time the next couple of years to deal with bedrock issues as opposed to small or cultural.

- Are current Republicans leading the House and Senate at the state level able to do that collaboration?

- I hope so.

I mean, they need to be.

What do they want to have happen in 2028?

- And what do you want to know about it from us?

Email us at statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'll see you next week.

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