- Democrats take the North Carolina House.

One race could determine control of the state Senate and North Carolina's boosting Democratic U.S.

House majorities for 2027.

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.

Joining me today, Dawn Vaughan of the News and Observer.

To her right is Paul Shumaker of Capital Communications.

Kimberly Reynolds of Maven Strategies joins us and Colin Campbell of WUNC News.

I'll say hello, that's all I'll say because we have more things than we can discuss.

Let's talk about the midterms.

The election's almost behind us.

There are some recounts poised.

Some provisional ballots still being counted.

This cycle saw the North Carolina House pivot to near super majority Democratic control and one state Senate race could determine whether Republicans keep their majority or the chamber splits evenly as remaining ballots are counted down in southern, central North Carolina.

Early voting surge, ballots cast by unaffiliated voters up over 50% from 2022.

Republicans, you turned out at a higher number but your percentage of voters fell in early voting.

What do those turnout patterns tell us, Paul?

What happened?

- Well, first of all, as you heard me say many times, midterm elections are about anger management, failed expectations and how they impact voter turnout.

And so when you look at the turnout, Democrats had a surge in 2022.

They outvoted Republicans by 110,000 votes approximately.

In 2026, they outvoted Republicans by over 300,000 votes, 200,000 ballot shift.

Unaffiliated and particularly half of all unaffiliated voters who voted in early voting were under the age of 44.

You had a surge of young unaffiliated voters showing up to vote.

And those unaffiliated voters were impacted by the affordability issue.

They were impacted by the failed expectation.

A lot of them were Donald Trump voters in 2024, by the way.

They outvoted Republicans by over 350,000, just right at 250,000.

Whereas in 2022, Republicans outvoted them by 50,000.

Those are 500,000 vote market shift in early voting that set the stage for all the down ballot victories by Democrats.

- What were Democrats thinking on election night?

The Democrats were optimistic.

Were they that optimistic?

- I think Democrats felt good.

And I have said it before, I said it to Dawn.

I think they knew they were going to win.

I don't know that they were, knew that they were gonna win by such large margins.

I don't think anybody would have, you might've predicted 'cause you're really great at modeling, but the shift even at the congressional and Democratic level of moving 10 for Republicans to 10 for Democrats.

I don't think anybody saw that coming.

So I think everybody was really paying attention to Don Davis's race and paying attention to Jamie Ager's race, but they didn't see the others.

And so I knew that they were gonna be victorious, but I don't know that they knew it was gonna be that extent.

And also I think the young voters were motivated by the war in a different way than they were.

I think that was the group that was really mad at the war and it pushed them out to vote too.

- Look at the congressional races, look at where the shifts took place.

It starts in Raleigh, runs all the way over to Charlotte, I-85 corridor.

That is part of the demographic trends that are taking place in North Carolina.

Consolidation, suburban urbanization, driven by growth of unaffiliated voters.

Virginia Fox, Tim Moore, Addison McDowell, Brad Knott, all did well in rural areas, but when it got into the suburban areas, they got shellacked.

- Election night, the process.

We've been watching process and we've changed the rules of voting in North Carolina.

It's gonna cause problems.

Were there problems?

- Not really, no.

A few minor glitches, like there are in any election.

I think my job on election night, and just being in a newsroom is electric, all of the surprises and just so much.

And my job was legislative control.

So that's a lot of numbers.

- A lot to keep track of for all of the jobs.

- And where I have it on the screen, I'm like, where's this final precinct?

Let's get your business together, come on.

And waiting for all of that to come in and then counting like one, two, like over and over, hand counting to make sure that I had these numbers right.

And it ended up, it was 70 and then 71 the next day.

It's wild to me that Democrats in the House flipped the numbers the same way as the congressional delegation, like just the randomness of that.

And then of course, the Senate is like a near tie, as we're talking now.

But there were a lot of surprises.

There were the suburban areas are like, well, we thought they were going to lose.

They did lose.

And then there were a lot of surprises of everyone else that lost.

And I'm just making this bulleted list of like, these are all the Republican incumbents who lost.

I'm like, okay, and them.

And let me add another person and another person.

And it was so significant.

- I had my list going of the districts I thought would be competitive, even long shot competitive for Democrats.

And I was having to add names over the course, like Donnie Loftis in Gaston County didn't have him on my bingo card at all, and he loses.

- And one thing we haven't talked about is the unaffiliated voter and what that means going forward.

Is that now a roadmap in some of these districts to put an unaffiliated where you didn't at one point think a Democrat could win.

And that would actually, depending on where she caucuses, make a difference for the Democrats as well.

- April Montgomery is a name that we didn't know before.

We all know now because she's going to be, you know, big important role.

- I heard she may not caucus with anyone.

She's going to go along.

- It was interesting, the Democrats initially said she was going to join their caucus and they had put out a correction a few hours later saying we don't know where she's going to caucus.

She hasn't said yet.

- But I don't think it matters where she caucuses.

It comes down to where she votes.

And so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

- But also Democrats, they have, there's a Democratic governor with Josh Stein.

And so House Democrats don't need a super majority.

A super majority is just to override a veto, assuming that everybody gets along.

We've seen when Republicans don't get along within themselves, right?

I think Democrats will try to get along at least to start, right?

- Trying here.

Paul, are unaffiliated voters moderates?

- Unaffiliated voters are right of center, right of center economic voters.

One of the reasons why they supported Donald Trump in 2024, because he was going to fix the economy.

They turned against Donald Trump in 2026 because he failed to fix the economy.

He focused on everything else but doing that.

But here is the takeaway everybody needs to understand.

One, there was no ideological shift in North Carolina in 2026 because neither party has ownership of this state.

Unaffiliated voters have a net gain in one year than both political parties have combined together in a 10 year period of time.

If you look at the last 10 years in North Carolina, what you saw in 2026 is the open window of the new North Carolina where we're going to be hyper competitive.

You're going to have opportunity.

When we redraw legislative districts in 2031, you're going to have probably a best case scenario, a swing toss up house map, just because of the demographic shifts.

That's not an opinion.

That's mathematical analysis based upon what's taking place in this state.

- One of the things that really struck me with that was that some of this, the population growth, we used to see these really deep blue districts in the urban counties like Wake and Mecklenburg, and now they're starting to blossom out into these really red counties like Gaston and Johnston that are suddenly going.

- Well, that's the outward migration.

We've seen that take place.

That's the outward migration.

Johnson County didn't grow because of Johnson County.

It grew because of Wake County and the cost of living, which affordability.

Why are they leaving in Johnston County?

It costs too much in Wake County.

Why were they concerned about affordability in 2026?

Because the cost of living.

- All right, Campbell, let's talk about Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

He won North Carolina's Senate seat over President Trump's hand-picked, it was literally hand-picked Republican nominee.

Cooper took 58% to Whatley's 39% of the vote.

Race was called minutes after the polls closed.

Roy Cooper's replacing Thom Tillis.

You know, people called me and said, Michael Whatley pretty much as soon as the poll closed walks out there and throws in the towel.

- And then his mic stopped working, he couldn't hear his three-minute concession speech.

(laughing) - So Roy Cooper would have been, was he a good candidate for Democrats?

- Yes, he was an excellent candidate.

- Like an A plus, an A, an A minus?

- Is there an A plus plus plus?

I mean, he was an excellent candidate.

He is proven in North Carolina, I think we've talked about that, how many times he's had statewide office.

He is a disciplined candidate.

If it had turned into a negative campaign, you wouldn't have seen him go rogue or go off the rails or anything.

I mean, I think it's really fascinating.

We were talking about it before the show.

Roy Cooper was elected without needing a single election day vote.

I mean, let that sink in.

- Explain that.

- It means he had a big enough, he got more votes in early voting than Michael Whatley got combined.

So he didn't need election day votes to be the winner.

And I don't think that's ever happened.

And I mean, we sat and talked about it.

And I would say very conservatively, it's a purple state, I can't imagine he's gonna win by double digits.

This man won by almost 20.

And then also so did every other person on the statewide ballot.

And we'll get to that later.

But ran a great campaign, but also Michael Whatley couldn't have been a worse candidate in this climate.

- Colin, for the guy like yourself chasing those interviews and local and regional media access into a major campaign, neither party gave it very much except a very friendly media outlets and huge turnout.

What does this do to the media?

What does it do for your job when they can win a US Senate seat?

Never debate.

- I think if you had a closer race, there might be more of an incentive for the candidates to put themselves in positions where they had to take tougher questions.

But this was one where voters were so angry at what was happening at the national level, they didn't really care about Roy Cooper's position on issue one or what Michael Whatley thought about this other issue.

So they didn't really have to compete on that level.

I'm hopeful that in the future we'll continue to be a close state.

And I think we will in different political climates where they will have to kind of come talk to us and get down on the weeds on the issues because voters will really be considering these candidates as opposed to a broader national vibe dictating how the race goes.

- Dawn, I remember we were joking about it being a 14 point race and the Cooper team says on the show, Scott found, oh, no way is this closer than that, it's gonna tighten up.

No, it went the other way, almost a 20% victory.

- Well, nobody wants a Dewey defeats Truman, you know, like front page, right?

So you don't wanna say, you know, I'm gonna lose and then you lose.

You don't wanna say I'm gonna win or, you know, vice versa, I mean.

But yeah, so I think everybody hedged their bets a little bit with, you know, going in.

You wanna have the optimism of what's gonna happen.

But what Colin was saying, especially with future elections, every vote counts, literally every person you meet out in the field at an event, every person that likes what you said during a debate, you know, if you have debates, like your interviews, quotes, everything, TV, all range of media, it's gonna be so much more important.

And Paul's talked, you know, many times about the rise of the unaffiliated voter and how Democrats and Republicans don't each individually own the state.

So I'm interested to see who's, what's that new political viewpoint, I guess, you know, as far as money on a variety of issues, all of it.

- Paul, Michael Whatley as a candidate is one thing.

Could anyone have beaten Roy Cooper in this climate in a US Senate race in North Carolina?

Could Thom Tillis have beaten Roy Cooper?

- No, and the reason why Thom Tillis would not have been able to beat Roy Cooper is because with President Trump out there trying to energize the base and everything else, Thom Tillis' path to victory was that we had to have separation from Donald Trump.

And I've said many, many times, Michael Whatley has to build separation because of the environment, that the failed expectations that Trump kept was created by not keeping his word.

And Thom Tillis had gone out there and tried to build that separation.

He would actually further suppress Republican vote.

You get what's called cross-polarization in American politics, and that's what would've taken place.

If you're either Republican or Democrat, when you go in election day, you have to have your base united.

And the reality is that we had a ceiling set for us, that ceiling was not above 40%.

And that ceiling was set by what was taking place out of Washington.

- Let's go back to Raleigh, where Democrats will control the North Carolina House for the first time since 2010, beginning with the 2027 so-called long legislative session.

Could be a very long session, in fact.

Democrats lead in at least 70 of the 120 House races.

It only takes 61 seats for a majority.

House Speaker Destin Hall has already congratulated, or did congratulate Robert Reeves.

Robert Reeves says he wants to be House Speaker, by the way.

And House Republicans say they'll keep working, Colin.

That's the setup.

Did you see the supermajority flip?

It doesn't matter, supermajority, Josh Stein's the governor.

- I mean, I thought the two scenarios were either Democrats come close to flipping the chamber, but not quite, or they flip the chamber by a couple of votes.

I didn't think we'd be in the 70 Democrats range coming back.

So that really, it gives Robert Reeves a fairly comfortable majority, where he doesn't have to necessarily keep his caucus in line all the time to sort of pass the bills he wants.

But the challenge for him is gonna be working with this narrow Senate to get something to the governor's desk.

And that's, I think, where Democrats are gonna have issues with not having the big numbers in the House that they're gonna have in the Senate.

- Kimberly, I was struck by the fact Robert Reeves went up on the Roy Cooper stage and declared he was running for the House Speaker.

Josh Stein's pushing that, which means the establishment will support Robert Reeves.

But there's a lot of House Democrats out there.

There may be a caucus out there that doesn't want him.

How does this play out?

- I mean, I think I've said it before.

I believe you go with the person who brought you to the dance, and that is Robert Reeves.

And he has been the caucus leader for multiple cycles.

He's led that caucus well.

He's been committed to taking back the majority.

So that's not surprising to me at all, that he would be the Speaker, and that he'll have the support of that.

And I think he's probably transitioning as if he's gonna be the Speaker.

- And he's not one of the most left-leaning members of that caucus, so the degree to which he needs to work with Republicans, he's probably in a good position as any Democrat to do that.

- Yeah.

- If you're Destin Hall, Paul, you're a former House Speaker now.

Do you wanna maintain the House Republican leadership position, or do you step aside and let new blood come in?

Because Marc Basnight stepped aside back in the day.

A lot of long-time leaders don't hang around once they lose a majority.

- Well, first of all, you can't say Destin Hall is a long-time leader just-- - No, one term.

(laughing) - I mean, that's the first thing.

So absolutely, he's gonna stick around everything else.

However, there's one thing to be said, two things is that, well, two things to be said.

First of all, Republicans are going to have to look for new faces and new brands.

We talk about building coalitions with unaffiliated voters.

I call 'em retread politicians are not gonna get the job done when it comes to our statewide elections.

We're gonna have to have a new face and a new product that we put out there.

Secondly is that within the chamber, Destin Hall is the most skilled, tooled person to lead that, but they're gonna have to modify their policy stands to understand that they're gonna have to be learned to be competitive in these suburban, urban districts if they're gonna wanna not just reestablish a majority, which they'll probably get back in 2028, but then how they're gonna keep that majority, that's gonna be the real task at hand.

- How deep is the bench of Republicans?

- The bench is not that, one of the things I just said, we don't need retreads.

We don't need to go through the bench.

- The bench just got wiped out.

- We need fresh faces, we need new looks, we need new agendas.

We have got to start from a rebuilding block.

Keep in mind, the party itself does not have ownership of this state.

Democratic Party does not have ownership of this state.

This is a free market system.

American politics is the most free market enterprise exists in the world, and you have to play to your marketplace.

If you do not understand and play to that marketplace, you're not gonna be successful.

We were successful in '24 because we played to the marketplace of those who wanted somebody to fix the economy.

We got slammed in '26 because we didn't fix the economy.

- I mean, I think the voters spoke, and that's what's gonna have to, they're gonna have to come together and come to the middle and get things done that help voters and help the economy and help with affordability, because they showed you that's what they care about, and they showed you in big ways.

And to the flip side of what he just said, Democrats have to remember, they have to keep these seats in these red districts.

So as much as they have depth in the urban districts, they now picked up a swath of people in rural North Carolina that they need to keep going into 2028.

- The voters are the marketplace.

And as I've said to many, many Republican legislators over the years, you call yourself a free market conservative, why don't you apply that to your politics?

- One thing I noticed about Speaker Hall, he's still Speaker for two more months now, on election night or even into the next day, which is around 1:30 in the morning, we're like, are we done?

And then here comes the Hall statement.

And he's already saying how he wants to work with Reeves.

And the relationship between Robert Reeves and Destin Hall these past two years was a lot friendlier than Reeves and former Speaker Moore, and way friendlier compared to Senate Minority Leader-- - Moore and Darren Jackson, you had the job before.

- Well, I was gonna say in the Senate, Sidney Batch and Phil Berger.

So the Senate is its whole own separate thing.

- But Hall's smart enough to know that, he gave like the thanks to everybody and you worked hard and we were disappointed, but then he also said looking forward to working with Reeves and the rest of the caucus.

And I think how he and Reeves interacted together these past two years is really gonna influence how they interact the next two years.

- There are 49 Republicans in the House in 2027, what does it matter if he wants to work with Robert Reeves or not?

- Well, he's trying, he's like-- - What am I missing?

- Here's the thing for Republicans, good news for Republicans, I hope that the Democrats don't wanna work with the Republicans because then Josh Stein loses his counterbalance which he's had the last two years with the Republican legislature.

Roy Cooper is where he is today as much because Republicans in legislature was his counterbalance and he came across these unaffiliated as right of center voter.

Josh Stein is going to have to inherit the Democratic Party and their ideological shift and manage that, he becomes a left of center governor, his path to re-election just got more difficult.

- You're saying let Josh Stein own it now.

- Yes, let Josh Stein own it.

- I think you've got though, I think what's the counterbalance now is going to be a close, close Senate.

It's either 24, 26 or may end up as a tie.

- There's expectations by all these young Democrats that showed up to vote over 100, an increase with the 18 to 29 year old of over 120%.

There's this expectation amongst young Democrats for them to do that.

I would love to go into '28.

- Those young Democrats did not show up because of state politics.

They showed up because of federal politics.

- I would love to go into the '28 election cycle with Josh Stein having to deal with failed expectations within his own party.

- Control of North Carolina Senate is hinging on one race.

It covers parts of Robinson County, Scotland County, down in that area where Republican Danny Britt is leading Democrat Catina Hamm by 268 votes.

The margin is close enough to trigger a recount that Hamm could request it.

If this holds up, a Britt win would give Republicans that 26 to 24 Republican majority, but a Hamm win splits the Senate 25, 25.

And guess what?

You have a Democratic Lieutenant Governor, Dawn, who's able to break ties.

Guess what happens on those big votes?

It's a Democratic Senate in practice, correct?

- Well, it's gonna be so, you know, we've like both chambers are just gonna be so much fun to cover.

I feel like that's it.

I'm excited as a reporter, just because there's so many different things at play in Lieutenant Governor Rachel Hunt.

She's already been in the State House and the State Senate.

She's, you know, a pretty reserved, I feel like, Lieutenant Governor.

Her job is to preside.

Now she has significantly more power.

And even if it's not a tie, if any Republican-- - One Republican vote.

- Within their own caucus, there's just so much at play.

- She's a Hunt.

That makes her a Democrat.

I don't think there's any stretch of the imagination she's gonna carry the flag.

- To the point though, reporters and people can say things are changing.

It's gonna be an exciting time.

A lot of skeptical viewers, I mean, people have watched this show.

We're on a PBS station.

Oh, you're celebrating the Democratic victory.

Is that what reporters are doing?

Or is this the end of boredom and gridlock?

- It's about interesting stories.

- But I have to say, that's how people see it.

I'm not wrong.

- I mean, our legislature has been pretty definitively one party government since, you know, the 2011 session.

So it's sort of been business as usual for a while.

So a shakeup is always interesting to watch.

It's not about who the shakeup is.

But when the power dynamics are this close, you know, the Senate, I think, is particularly interesting.

The most likely scenario, if the vote holds up in Robeson County, you get that 26-24 split.

And then you have a big question mark of, in terms of the policy that actually affects voters, are Republicans and Democrats gonna work together?

Or do you have a block of Republican senators who blocks all of the Democratic agenda and we have total gridlock, no budget for the next two years?

- There's no predictability.

And that's what's going to be fun for journalists to cover because everything is so much more interesting.

The issues are either going to be, what's the future of medical marijuana now?

Senate Republicans liked that, House Democrats liked that.

Is that something?

- You get some juice.

- You know, what does that mean, some of the quieter voices in the caucus and what their priorities are?

- Bill Rabon hangs around a little longer.

- Rabon won, was reelected.

- But a couple things.

First of all, keep in mind, there's a roadmap that's already been established here.

And quite frankly, in 1995, Marc Basnight had a 26-24 Democratic Senate.

And he managed that.

Whoever emerges as a Senate leader, if they manage that, they're going to get back their majority, they're going to be expanding the majority in '28 because that's how the map is set.

Redistricting will kick back in.

With the 26th Senate, there will be no redrawing of state legislative districts.

You got a Republican majority on the Supreme Court.

There'll be no redrawing of congressional districts in 2027, which the Democrats could do if they take over the Senate.

So there's a strong incentive for the Republicans in the Senate to work together because they're going to play long ball.

And there's also a very strong incentive for them to enable Democrats and enable Josh Stein to enact parts of their agenda because that's going to be an agenda that will most likely not play out in the 2028 cycle.

- Does the Britt lead hold for the Republicans in that area?

- The Britt lead should hold for Republicans for the very simple reason, most of the provisional ballots cast there are Election Day provisionals and they favored him overwhelmingly on Election Day.

- Kimberly, Senate.

- I mean, I think it's going to be a wild ride.

And I think it is going to also, they're all going to have to figure out how to take a balanced approach.

And nobody to everybody's point, you can't get too far out because you have to come back to the middle if you want to keep a lot of these seats.

- You can tell that, explain that to a lot of freshmen Democrats who got elected, who think they now have referendums, who ideologically are not aligned with mainstream North Carolina voters.

It's going to be a wild ride, but the wild ride, the rollercoaster ride is going to be much wilder on your side than I am.

- Freshmen do not have the power that they think they do.

- Exactly right.

- They'll learn pretty quickly.

I interviewed Republican Senator Jim Burgin the morning after the election.

He wants to be the next Senate president pro temp.

So we'll see how that goes.

- Yeah, and trying to act bipartisan is his selling point, I guess.

- One thing we have not talked about here, but Senator Sam Page, who beat Phil Berger, his stock right now is, whereas before a lot of the Berger allies may want to relegate him to a broom closet, because there is that one vote lead, he now is going to have, they're going to have to incorporate him and bring him into mainstream.

- And he's not 100% lockstep with the party.

That's one of the things he said in the primary.

- That's right.

So he, you know, we need to-- - I was told Sam Page only survived 10 to $12 million of the Berger team attacking him, but the stink of that hurting with unaffiliated voters, and he still overcame that on election night.

Because there was some concern that he might lose that race.

I got two topics left.

We can talk about the US House delegation or the Supreme Court, or we can do a little bit of both and around that.

- Let's do the House.

The Supreme Court felt like kind of was a dull one.

- The North Carolina US House delegation headed for a Democratic majority.

The Democrats are going to take control of the US House in 2027.

The Republican Congressman Tim Moore, Brad Knott, Addison McDowell, Richard Hudson, all lost.

Democrat Jamie Ager defeated Jennifer Balkcom in that open 11th district race.

She says she'll be back.

And over in District One, incumbent Democrat Don Davis defeated Republican Laurie Buckhout.

Two Democrats trail Republican incumbents by margins that do allow recounts.

Raymond Smith is trailing Greg Murphy, and Kimberly Hardy is trailing David Rouzer.

Republican Virginia Foxx is trailing Democrat Chuck Hubbard by 99 votes, also within the recount range, Paul.

- Yeah, and the way it's going to probably play out, Virginia Foxx is probably going to have a little bit tougher path.

I think Murphy's numbers hold.

I think Rouzer's numbers hold.

But here's the reality.

Without the redrawing of the congressional districts by Democrats in 2027, all those incumbents who lost, they will get those seats back.

Keep in mind, as I said earlier, mathematical adjustments are about midterm.

Midterm elections are about mathematical adjustments voter turnout.

The outcome of those races were determined by those Republicans in those districts who chose to stay home.

So when they show up in a presidential cycle, every one of those incumbents who lost, they go back on the ballot in '28, they win those seats right back.

- Kimberly, you represented Raymond Smith over in Greg Murphy's district.

Does his stock raise with this?

If he comes up short, or was he just a guy that got close that didn't get there?

But that was a race.

Greg Murphy, I was told, was worried that they took Republicans away to give them to Laurie, to the Republican nominee in District One, and almost took both out.

- Yeah, and Greg Murphy is just really entrenched.

It's the one that's a little shocking, 'cause how entrenched he is with Donald Trump.

Donald Trump came to the district.

J.D.

Vance came to the district.

Mike Johnson came to the district.

I mean, but I will say, there are a lot of steps left to take place before we're calling these races.

I mean, we have to cure the ballots, then the county parties have to meet.

They have until November 17th to ask for a recount.

So they are still in the process of making sure every single vote counts.

And I just wouldn't call any of these races right now.

- Final word to you.

- I agree.

We still have, because everything is so close and the margins are so small, we don't know yet.

We could have a whole show about what happens in the state Senate, but we won't know those results for a couple weeks.

- 30 seconds left.

Colin, before we're out of here, U.S.

House, the delegation?

- Yeah, it's gonna be like this for a while.

Maybe a complete flip from what we've seen before, but as Paul said, could easily flip back unless Democrats get control of both legislative chambers and try to redraw those maps before next time.

- Let me go on the record.

Paul Shumaker, he called it.

He called everything and people call you the prophet of doom.

I mean.

(laughing) - I'm a math guy that does politics, okay?

- Folks, what do you think?

Email your thoughts and opinions to the email address statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'll share it with this group.

If you've heard something that triggers some thinking, send us your analysis.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

I thank you for watching and we'll see you next time.

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