All week, candidates for Congress and other political offices traveled to Raleigh to submit official paperwork so they can run. Here are three things to know about the filings.
1. Will Stein weigh in on primaries?
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper essentially pushed out Democratic state Sen. Kirk deViere of Cumberland County in 2022 by endorsing a primary challenge from Val Applewhite. Since then, deViere has become a verb in Raleigh lingo that means primarying an incumbent.
While there are still two weeks of candidate filing ahead, we’re already seeing some early signs of contentious primaries.
Thus far, Democratic incumbents Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg County and Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County face primary challenges from the left. Cunningham and Willingham bucked Stein by voting to override vetoes he had issued this year and are the legislature’s most conservative-voting Democrats.
Meanwhile, Rep. Rodney Pierce of Halifax County faces a rematch with former Rep. Michael Wray, a conservative Democrat Pierce narrowly defeated in last year’s primary.
Finally, Rep. Amanda Cook of Guilford County faces multiple primary challengers. (Stein signed off last month on Cook filling the vacancy left by Rep. Cecil Brockman.)
Seeing as it’s Stein’s first election cycle with the bully pulpit of his office, I asked him at a news conference this week whether he’d endorse in the four known contested Democratic primaries.
He replied, “It’s premature. Let’s see how filing shakes out. We will have more announcements to come.”
DeViere left a coy response on X: “#following.”
2. Hurricane Fallout
Both major U.S. Senate candidates are officially in the race. Republican Michael Whatley filed his paperwork on Tuesday, followed by Cooper the next day.
I wasn’t able to catch up with Cooper at the State Fairgrounds (his team didn’t provide a head’s up to this reporter, ahem), but I found Whatley.
I asked him about a recent report by our Washington partner NOTUS that Democrats are hell-bent on making Whatley’s role overseeing Hurricane Helene recovery efforts a liability for his campaign.
Whatley took exception to Democrats dubbing him the “recovery czar.” He said President Trump asked him during a visit to the region on January 24 “to help make sure the needs of Western North Carolina were being relayed to the administration and that the relief from the administration was going to get into Western North Carolina.’
Trump said at the time, “We’re going to be here. We’re going to be working with our congressmen and women. They’re going to do a job and Michael Whatley is going to be very much in charge and you’ll get it done and FEMA is ready to rock.”
Whatley acknowledged that local officials have since struggled to get Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements and other federal funds. He said he’s been tapped to serve on the FEMA Review Council to consider structural changes to the agency.
“FEMA did not do well in the initial setup.” Whatley said. “The president is focused on making sure that we are not going to have this type of recovery again.”
Whatley also criticized Cooper for failing to swiftly get victims of Hurricanes Matthew and Florence back into their homes and for communications breakdowns in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Whatley cited a recent report from Republican Auditor Dave Boliek highlighting a slow pace of recovery from Matthew and Florence under Cooper’s administration.
“The administration under Roy Cooper was very, very slow and inadequate in terms of their response to all three of these hurricanes,” Whatley said.
What will it take to beat Cooper, who has never lost an election? Whatley replied, “It’s going to take good policy because good policy is good politics. It’s also going to take resources. We need to go out and we need to prosecute this race.”
3. Judicial Jockeying
Republican state Rep. Sarah Stevens of Surry County filed her paperwork on Wednesday for her bid to unseat Democratic state Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls.
At the crux of the race are two central criticisms of the respective candidates: 1. Earls says Stevens can’t be an effective check on a legislature she has spent years serving in; and 2. Stevens says Earls is too ideological to be a neutral arbiter of justice.
“She has voted to take away so many of the rights that I think are fundamental and important to uphold,” Earls said of Stevens.
“She seems to want to be a rule maker instead of follow the rules,” Stevens said of Earls.
In interviews, both candidates responded to the claims their opponent had leveled against them.
Stevens said she’s worked as judiciary chair to ensure proposed bills haven’t run afoul of the state constitution. Asked if she’d recuse herself on matters challenging bills she wrote, Stevens said she’d be open to it but suggested she’d prefer to be convinced in the courtroom that her bill was unlawful.
“If the law was wrong when I wrote it and these people can convince me that it was wrong and unconstitutional, I’m not above changing my mind,” Stevens said. “I promise to just be fair and impartial on the court. If there’s even the appearance of impropriety, I would step aside.”
Earls said she and Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs have worked hard to build consensus with their GOP colleagues on cases that have come before the court.
“We actually vote with our colleagues half the time,” Earls said. “Our performance on the court demonstrates our willingness to be open minded, to hear what the other side has to say, and to try to reach a resolution that’s best for everyone in the state.”
