Election Day is a little over six weeks away. And from President Trump’s visit to North Carolina to the legal battle over voting by mail, there’s been a lot of national news affecting our region.
Chris Cooper is professor of political science and director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. He’s also the author of Anatomy of a Purple State, a book that examines North Carolina’s political landscape.
BPR's Felicia Sonmez sat down in the studio with Cooper to catch up on the latest election news. Below is a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity.
BPR: One of the big issues on voters’ minds here in the west is, of course, Hurricane Helene recovery. The state has only received about 16% of the federal funding needed to address the damage caused by the storm. At a recent campaign event for Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley, President Trump had this to say:
TRUMP: “We spent more than $2 billion in FEMA funding. And, you know, you’re waiting for some additional money to take care of some of the back, and I’m going to get that to you, Michael. Now, if Michael loses, I’m not sending it, okay? No, I’m only kidding. You’re getting it. You’re going to get it, Michael. So, he’s been bugging me."
BPR: What’s your sense of how those remarks might be received by voters here in Western North Carolina?
COOPER: Not well. Not well at all. I mean, this was not a time for a joke. He did say at the end, ‘I'm just kidding,’ right? Implying that the money's going to show up no matter what. But I don't think anybody who's lost their home or knows someone who’s lost their home or who’s seen their communities destroyed is really in a joking mood. I don't think this is going to help electorally. I don't think it's going to help with faith in government from folks here in the west.
BPR: Do you think, overall, President Trump's visit to the state helps or hurts Michael Whatley in his bid against former Gov. Roy Cooper in the Senate race?
COOPER: You know, I think it's probably not ultimately going to mean that much. I mean, the hope here was that he could raise name recognition for Michael Whatley. That's been a consistent problem in every poll that we've seen. But it ends up that a lot of the news stories were really more about what Trump said in general than what he said about Michael Whatley. And so I think the way the amplification of the event has happened is not really playing into Michael Whatley's hands. I don't know that it's going to hurt him, but I don't see much evidence that it's going to help.
BPR: Another competitive race this year is the election in North Carolina’s 11th District, where Democrat Jamie Ager is facing off against Republican Jennifer Balkcom for the seat of retiring congressman Chuck Edwards. With less than two months until Election Day, where does that race currently stand?
COOPER: Yeah, it's a great question. We don't have a lot of public polling. There was kind of a private poll that came out just the other day showing Jamie Ager up maybe a hair but within the margin of error.
But I think we need to look at that with a little bit of suspicion, right? This is something that was put out by a Democratic super PAC. So, we really don't know when it comes to kind of university-based polling or non-partisan polling. We really have a lot of vibes to go off of, really, more than anything else.
But I think what it suggests is this is going to be close, right? I think the Democrats feel like this is the best candidate that they've had since Heath Shuler left office in 2011. And they feel that maybe the time is right. Of course, Jennifer Balkcom is trying to run a campaign, but she had less than 60 days to raise the money, mount a campaign and execute it. As a result, we just haven't seen a lot of evidence from her yet. Not a lot of yard signs, not a lot of billboards, not even, really, a lot of ads yet.
BPR: And apart from Helene recovery, what are some of the other issues that you see as top of mind for voters right now?
COOPER: I mean, I think so much of it comes down to the economy, right? Some folks call it affordability, some say it's the economy. At the end of the day, it's about how much we can afford to live our lives. And I think that is connected to the issue of Helene, right?
I think the way the economy feels in the west is different than the way it feels in the rest of the state. And then you can also lay on top of that this war in Iran that is not popular. And I think there is a perception that that is also affecting things like gas prices, which in Western North Carolina are hitting over $4 a gallon in parts of our region.
BPR: And then lastly, there’s been a lot of back-and-forth over mail-in ballots in this year’s election. The Supreme Court recently blocked the Trump administration’s proposed restrictions on voting by mail. And earlier this month, North Carolina became the first state in the country to send out mail-in ballots to voters. Do you think all of the legal wrangling will affect how many voters cast their ballot by mail this November?
COOPER: It appears to be so far. So it does look like mail balloting is down a little bit from 2022, our last midterm election. You might think it'd go the other way, right? We have more voters, we have more people in the state. But yet the raw number of ballots both cast and accepted is down a little. We'll see how that plays out in the future. But right now it looks like North Carolinians are not super excited to cast votes by mail. So I would expect we're going to end up seeing 3, 3-and-a-half percent of total ballots cast by mail.
