NC News Roundup year in review: what happened (and what didn't) in North Carolina news

This is due south on WUNC. I'm Jeff Tiberi. It has been quite a year in news and politics. And just this week, the Lumbie tribe has gained federal recognition after a 137-year battle. We'll discuss it on our Friday News Roundup, which takes on a year-long focus today. We'll review the lack of a state budget, immigration raids, and an election that took six months to conclude. Voters should not have to fight tooth and nail. to have their lawful votes counted. And what would a year in North Carolina News and politics be without redistricting? The motivation behind this redraw is simple and singular. Draw a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation. It's the Friday North Carolina News Roundup reviewing the expiring calendar ahead on due south. This episode of Duce South was recorded on December 18th.

From the studios of North Carolina Public Radio in Chapel Hill, this is due south on listener-supported WUNC. For the final time this year, it is our Friday, North Carolina News Roundup. And across the next hour, we will review many of the biggest stories that played out in our state and also that stemmed from Washington here in 2025. Hey there, I'm Jeff Tabiri. Glad to have you along. Here we go with some sounds of the year. A new ruling in the case over whether thousands of North Carolina voters could have their 2024 ballots thrown out. The lawsuit will likely decide the winner of a seat on the state Supreme Court. State Republicans said the new map will make it easier for them to win an 11th seat in Congress. The North Carolina State Board of Elections is now under new leadership. This morning, a new board was sworn in creating a Republican majority. House and Senate Republicans haven't reached an agreement on any spending proposals. The impasse includes both the full budget bill and separate legislation to fully fund the Medicaid program. President Trump's immigration policies will have the full support of the North Carolina General Assembly. We believe it's our calling to help those who are afraid right now. People need food and people need to feel safe. When we talk about there's more to come for most of the small businesses that were impacted by this storm, it will come too late. A year of major change across the country and, of course, here in the Old North State as well. Here to help us through the details or a few of the reporters who track the big. small and plenty of other stories here in 2025. Colin Campbell, Capital Bureau Chief, WUNC, Brian Anderson, statewide politics reporter for the Assembly, also creator of the Anderson Alerts newsletter. Claudia Rivera-C., political reporter at Enlase Latino NC. Don Vaughn is with us. Capital Bureau Chief of the News and Observer, also host to the Under the Dome podcast. Last, never least, on the line from the district, Danielle Bataglia, Capitol Hill correspondent at McClatchie. Hey, y'all. Hey, Jeff. How's it going? All right. We're going to cover a lot this hour. We're going to drop in some micro updates along the way. Things that are worth mentioning, just we don't have a lot of time to delve into all of them and with great specificity and nuance. Let's begin with a major recent development that now, certainly slots among the years most major stories. The Lumby tribe is gaining federal recognition. Danielle, you forecasted this for us. It's here. It's happening. Put this 130 plus year story into a brief bow. This is big for them. It's been 137 years. They've been fighting since 1888 for federal recognition. And back then, it was for helping them get money to pay for education for their children. Now this fight has gone on. 1956, they finally passed federal recognition, but they did not get the full federal benefits with it. So there have been so many people from President Trump, President Biden, Kamala Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris.

how it's going to play out when all these provisions take effect. I think there's still the potential that Medicaid expansion gets cut back in North Carolina, that it's going to be difficult to sort of thread the needle between the amount of federal funding that it takes to keep this law in place and hitting what's known as the trigger rule in North Carolina law, where if the federal government's funding for Medicaid expansion drops, then Medicaid expansion is 600,000 or so people who got Medicaid in the last couple of years get taken off the Medicaid rolls. And so it's a big... open question for how the legislature handles it and exactly how the details come down from the federal government. Food stamps, the SNAP program is another piece of that where costs are going to get shifted to the state, and this is a state that has not been able to pass a budget. There's a legislature that's not doing a whole lot this year, whether they can sort of get it together and find a solution to these problems next year is going to be a big one. The other aspect of the big beautiful bill debate that... And we touched on Thom Tillis's departure. That was kind of what triggered it. He was running for re-election. I think he was considering whether or not to stay in the race. And then when he crossed swords with President Trump over the big beautiful bill package, and particularly that Medicaid implications for North Carolina, that's when you got the primary threat from President Trump. And within a day or so, Thom Tillis was announcing his retirement. And that's a big shift in, you know, who our state leaders are at the federal level. Before we turn to our other panelists on this, because I'm sure there is. more to add from their perspectives. Let's hear from Thom Tillis in his own words. Republicans are about to make a mistake on health care and betraying a promise. It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office or in the cabinet room when I was there with finance where he said, We can go after waste, fraud, and abuse on any programs. That was Thom Tillis. I honestly don't remember if that was late June or early July, but that was in the midst of this budget debate. He speaks out against it, and Don Von Remind us within 48 hours, he's like, yeah, I'm out of here. Yeah, that was, I mean, obviously a huge story that Daniel can talk more about since she covered that closely. But I think a lot of what the fallout of the bill is a little bit of remains to be seen the way Colin was saying. And it's kind of an example, again, of the federal government. making a decision that the states are going to have to deal with, that the states are going to have to clean up. Because this is going to be, I mean, there is a fight in Medicaid, North Carolina this year, not about expansion, just about funding, rebase funding. Right. So there's a lot the state is going to have to deal with next year or in 2026. And this is just another example of it because if people are looking for funding and the feds aren't going to do it, you look to the state and where's the state going to get that money? Quite possibly just a T. are more things to come here across the hour, but I want to hear the voices of Brian Anderson and Claudia Rivera-Coto. So I'll give you just a moment here. I'm going to turn to each of you for a story of the year. Give us the top line or four, and quite possibly something we will revisit later in the hour, but I don't give you my...

unvarnished way. I think we will, but I can't promise you that. Brian, what's your story of the year? Story of the year for me is the prolonged state Supreme Court race that dragged on for over six months. And there was a lot of drama in putting the partisanship of the Court of Appeals, the state Supreme Court, pretty apparent and some reputational damage and longstanding fallout from that. But I had a story on just the never resident issue. dozens of voters who were falsely accused of never residing in North Carolina. And I remember going knocking on doors of people who were spouses of military people and a whole bunch of other folks who were very disheartened when this reporter for the first time informed them that their loved ones vote may not count. And... After the state Supreme Court opinion came out, I had a story on this matter, and I thought I was too late to it. And fortunately, that issue has since been resolved in the courts federally. More to come. I promise. I do promise on the Riggs-Griffon race. Claudio? I think one of the things is what the legislator did and didn't do. We have obviously some of the bills that were overridden the veto of the governor. From those, we have some relating to immigration, sheriff cooperation with ICE, another bill about teachers' use of guns in the schools, private schools. Those two, I think, were some big controversial bills. And then they also passed some small mini budgets, but they didn't pass a comprehensive budget, as well as something that Donovan was mentioning. The Medicaid funding, that's another big one that they weren't able to get into an agreement with. So they did do some stuff, but other stuff remained to be done. Right. A good summation. What the legislature did and what it didn't do, and perhaps most notably, the North Carolina General Assembly did not pass a comprehensive budget in 2025, making the bicameral legislature here the only one in the country to not pass a comprehensive state budget. Wrapping up many of the stories of 2025 reviewing what did and didn't happen across North Carolina and also some of the major stories and policy items that emerged from Washington, D.C. We're here with Brian, Colin, Claudia, Dawn, and Danielle. My name is Jeff. We'll continue our North Carolina 2025 review. In a moment, this is DoSouth on listener-supported WUNC.

This episode of Duce South was recorded on December 18th. Welcome back to the Friday News Roundup on New South. I'm Jeff Tabiri. It has been 122 years since Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first flight at Kitty Hawk. It lasted 59 seconds and changed the course of humanity. Aviation transformed the world, bringing cultures, economies, people, exploration, assistance, and so much more closer to one another. If there has been a greater contribution to mankind that has happened in our state, I'm unaware of it. And if you're unaware of it, the Brothers Plain, the Wright Flyer, it's on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in D.C. It's a free visit. It's pretty awesome. I suspect Don Vaughn has been to the air in space and seen the Wright Flyer. I'm throwing you on the spot here, Dawn. Yes, of course, many times. All right. And don't forget the Wright Brothers Monument, you know, out in the Outer Bank. So if you haven't been there, go check it out. All right. Continuing our review of the 2025 year now on Dues South, Friday News Roundup on WUNC. Immigration, enforcement. intimidation, this spectacle brought on by the Trump administration swept through North Carolina during the fall of 2025. So many directions to go here. But how do you encapsulate this major story to get us going, Claudia? Yes. So at first, during the 2025 year, we saw a lot of immigration enforcement being done by ICE in more subtle ways here in the state. And as the year went by, we started seeing other forms of federal enforcement and immigration, including the Border Patrol presence in Charlotte and Triangle. I think that was one of the biggest stories regarding immigration here in the state and the impact that it had. It was economical, but it was also for the Latino families in the state. We saw at least for 127 people were arrested in Charlotte and dozens of people in the triangle. And that had implications not only for the people that were arrested who are undocumented individuals, but also for other people who have different variations of citizenship here in the state. There are legal questions. There are, I mean, all sorts of debate, constitutionality. As we embark on a new year. It would seem as though this is, it wasn't a snapshot. It might have been a snapshot in time, but there are going to be other snapshots. Where does your mind go? I guess as we think about the next three years of this administration and it would seem the likelihood that this sort of. enforcement will continue. Yes, I think that is a possibility. Right now in Chicago, the presence of the Border Patrol has been seen again after they withdraw. So I think there are some concerns that that could happen here in North Carolina as well. And on top of that, just the changes in laws that are happening and the legislation that is impacting people that do have citizenships or do have some form of immigration, identification, and now it's being withdrawn or taken.

depending on what country you come or the circumstances in which you got that either green card or other forms of identification. So I think those are some of the concerns for our community. Yeah. After the November raids, Danielle Bataglia, we heard Senator Thom Tillis with some really pointed comments and questions. Where do those stand? You know, that is a good question. And I was hoping to ask him about it because that he has asked that, you know, they explain why they did what they did in Charlotte and, you know, provide information about who was arrested. And, you know, just the, I don't have the words to describe, but basically the... the legality of what they did while they were down there. And I have not heard that he has received that information back, but that is something that they've told me they are actively working on. It's not something that they're just saying to get a sound bite out, but they want answers to this. And I suppose that just it's an open-ended. We'll see here in, you know, the next couple of months what kinds of answers come and then perhaps more peripherally what kinds of legal challenges also come and whether this enforcement and behavior continues or if there are some. new avenues or variables to all of this. In the name of time, I'm going to just roll it forward. We're going to move to a different topic. 2025 saw the end of the 2024 election season. It was not a quick process. Brian Anderson alluded to this just a few moments ago here on due south. Allison Riggs and Jefferson Griffin were entangled in a rather long election dispute. Riggs was the Democratic incumbent. Griffin, the Republican Challenger. The contest was for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Brian, if you would, pick it up there and then Colin or Deon or whomever, just jump in. Yeah, so basically on election night, it looked like Jefferson Griffin was on the verge of winning. And it was still within the recount threshold. And so as these votes come in for ballot curing and other legitimate processes, Riggs narrowly overtakes Griffin. And so that triggered a lawsuit from Griffin, a Republican Court of Appeals judge. And he had made a number of claims, some of which were accurate, some of which were inaccurate. Notably, he challenged people for not having driver's license and social security numbers and some clerical things. There were other people that were just falsely accused of never residing in North Carolina. And there were some military and overseas folks he challenged as well. But out of all this drama, the Republican... Majority Court of Appeals and a Republican majority on the state Supreme Court decided basically in favor of Griffin without an evidentiary hearing in many cases and that exposed some problems later.

a federal Trump appointed judge stepped in, intervened, and ordered the election to be certified for Riggs. So that's kind of your mini overview of what happened. But the lasting consequence of this is going to be just maybe some added distrust perception of partisanship on our judicial system. And so there have been a number of election administrative changes since then that we can get into. But yes, the election is over, but the effects are not. And I wonder if this is going to be the playbook going forward for really close races. I mean, we see even in just this year's municipal races, there was a lot of the, if it came down really close, there was people challenging individual voters and continuing to protest the election results and appeal the process. This just feels like the situation with Jefferson Griffin, even though he didn't end up winning, is going to be a playbook that losing candidates in close races may use again and may actually be successful. in the future, particularly if they have a stronger case. If their information is actually accurate, in the case of Griffin, a lot of times it wasn't about the voters that he was challenging. So something of a test balloon, but if one of you all will just build on it, you're saying the things, but I want you to connect them. I mean, this is an effort to undermine elections and election integrity. And in this instance, where there wasn't any evidence of malfeasance. So there certainly was voters who did not have. proper information on the registration forms. The question is, who's the onus on? Is the voter being punished for something they did not do wrong? Or should maybe there be election law changes in future election cycles? And one thing I did have to note is, you know, Griffin has taken a lot of heat and potentially rightfully so. But if you really wanted to dig into the crux of this, this was part of a North Carolina Republican Party. plan and effort and really spearheading this lawsuit. So it wasn't so much one rogue person, but a party apparatus that was really trying to lay the groundwork for revisiting and frankly rewriting longstanding election rules. Brian Anderson, Claudia Rivera-Coto, Don Vaughn, Daniel Bataglia, and Colin Campbell with us here as we wrap. up the year that was in North Carolina news and politics. Quick trivia question, don't blurt it out. Half of you're going to know this. You might all know this. Prior to this year, when was the last time that the North Carolina General Assembly failed to pass a budget? No state budget this year. As you know, when was the last year in which that happened? Please send your responses to do south at WUNC.org will pull from those correct responses after this taping of the roundup, and we will send one of you a snap. Do South Mug. But let's stick with, I mean, okay, trivia question, fun. But Don Vaughn, there's no budget. There's no state budget for the first time in a while, maybe a while, maybe not a while, remind us of... remind us of just how significant a lack of a state budget is. It's a really big deal. I won't give away when it happened before. But the time that it happened before, there were a series of smaller spending bills. I mean, I don't remember the exact count. It was a lot. And it did include a variety of things where these. I think it was only three of these, like not even many budgets, just like kind of just, you know, tiny little spending bill that had some money in it. So it's not even comparable to that.

year. That's the trivia question. And it really, I think the biggest takeaway is that this was also a political battle and, again, a future battle of looking at money and future tax cuts. The children's hospital is a big thing, but the biggest thing really between House Speaker Dustin Hall and Senate leader Phil Berger are these future tax cut revenue triggers. And in other words, are you confident enough that the state is going to bring in enough tax money? overall to fund everything so you can reduce the income tax rate. And there's a lot of economic uncertainty, and that's kind of where the issue here, the phrase fiscal cliff, you know, has come up a lot. But what's also interesting is that House Republicans had a majority of Democrats vote with them for their budget proposal this year, which was a huge... Just I felt like to me, just as a budget writer, a really huge news event this year. And so far, they're, you know, they're sticking to it. They're digging in. There probably will be a big budget bill in the spring. After? Maybe. I don't know about that. After primaries. I've been fooled before. The whole, you know, Lucy Charlie Brown football thing is really the story of when you think anything is going to happen at the legislature. Yeah, I think that's tax cut issue is like all the other budget disagreements stem from the tax cut issue because if you. Keep the tax cuts as scheduled in place. You don't have the money to do the level of teacher raises or state employee raises or other spending that the House and the governor are pointing to him. We have this really fascinating divide in state politics right now where the Senate Republicans want to do things a certain way on tax policy. And the other side of the token is the governor. All of the Democrats and all of the House Republicans right down to the House Freedom Caucus are all in favor of putting these tax cuts on hold at least for a little while. Well, just change it, make it slower. It's a known unknown. But I also want to just maybe even widen the lens, whatever, I don't know the best way to say it. You do the tax cuts, but then you also have these economic factors where under the Medicaid auspice, you have rising health care costs. And state government has to meet that new demand. And you also have the inflationary realities that are hitting all North Carolinians. And teachers don't get a raise. They don't get a raise for several years. They get what are very small raises relative to inflation. And the tax cuts have kind of compounded in different functional ways. Well, yeah, starting teacher pay. That's what House Republicans and House Democrats and the governor want is to raise starting teacher pay. So it's the highest in the southeast. That's a big thing and raises for others. But the Senate position is, okay, you know, if you, you can also not spend so much. So I think that's what we could be looking at what's going to be, you know, significantly defunded.

you know, in the future. I mean, let's just make a bigger point. Even putting the budget aside, someone asked me earlier like, Brian, what would be your hot take for the year? And I don't think it's that much of a take. But it kind of felt like this year in the General Assembly was largely a waste of time. They spent a lot of time in session and don't have a lot to show for it, both in terms of the budget and in terms of major policy bills that either move the needle in a more conservative direction or just have impacts on real people day to day on. any sort of important level. It's because they don't have a super majority. They're one vote short in the House. So the only bills that they passed that were significant and not a everyone agrees way is the overrides that Claudia had mentioned. And they needed Republicans couldn't have done that without the help from some Democrats. But I will say, I took some heat for calling it the sleepy session. But if you just quantitatively look at the numbers of how many things were actually passed. It's the least productive session. If you measure that as productivity, since Republicans took over in 2011. And since 2011, Republicans on multiple occasions have not had a super majority. And I think, yeah, sorry for into that. But I think that also shows that, like, for the Republican majority, there are some different priorities. And that was shown throughout the whole year of 2025. For me, that's a big takeaway from this legislative session. Yeah, there's two different Republican parties. There's the Senate Republicans and the House Republicans. And they just don't agree on much. So a lot of things went through one chamber and then just completely died in the other chamber and never made it to the governor's desk. And as listeners remember, there is a provision in place that keeps previous spending measures in. The beast keeps running. So they don't have to come to an agreement. They've also been in power for 15 years now. So they've done a lot of what they wanted to. And at the end of the day, there are enough Republicans who go, all right, if we're not compromised on this, we're just going to go home. And that's what they have effectively done as it pertains to this state budget issue. Wrapping up 2025 here on Do South Friday News Roundup, the annual roundup, call it what you will. Let's move to the umbrella of change and go under it. Some notable things here, DMV, treasurer. and auditor all have seen some significant changes. We're going to pinwheel this pretty quickly, but Colin remind us of the DMV, changes at the DMV. Yeah, so Paul Tyne, who's best known up until now as being a party switching former state lawmaker, was brought in by new governor Josh Stein to be the fix it man at the DMV. They've been through several different iterations of governors pledging to fix DMV and then failing in the lines are still two or three hours long. Tyne seems to actually be making some progress. Time numbers are coming down. You now have to, don't have to stand in line as much. You can wait in your car and these pulling in new technologies, filling some of the vacant positions, opening some new DMV offices. So a lot of seemingly progress. We're not there yet to where the DMV is not a hellacious experience. But it's certainly improving and seems to be on. a glide path to get there in the next few years. I'm going to defer to y'all on when I can go get my real idea. I still don't have one. I've been traveling with my passport. It's worked out just fine. I have no interest in the DMV until my trusted panelists, our trusted panelists here tell me that it is time and it is safe. Jeff, do it, do it now. Don't do it during school sessions when all the students have to get their ideas. Can you hear me? I am literally for our listeners who can't see this, obviously. I'm in a separate studio, so it's not to breathe anywhere near y'all. I don't need to go to the DMV right.

now for many reasons. But noted Brian Anderson. All right, that's the DMV. Don Vaughn State Treasurer's Office is embarking on some big changes. This is the sole fiduciary of North Carolina. Yeah. Brad Briner is a really different take than former treasurer Dale Falwell, both Republicans. But he's looking at just really changing how they do things and a lot of that. is, again, we've talked about things that decisions made this year. That will be the, you know, impact on the future. One story I spent a lot of time on this year was people in the state employee retirement system and wanting to know if they'll ever get a COLA cost of living adjustment in their pension, not just because the legislature wants to use extra money to give them, but just like naturally, and it's looking a little more optimistic. So I feel like there's some pain being felt financially. at right now, but it might end up long-term gains. And he seems, he seems pretty popular and kind of with the DMV too, that it's something that there's, you know, an overall bipartisan, like kind of support of like, okay, we'll see, you know, if this ends up being good down the road. All right, DMV, treasurer, Brian Anderson, remind us. Auditor or governor? Which one are we talking about? Let's go audit. Well, some would say the auditor is the governor, or is that where you were going on? He runs for it. That's where I was going with it. I mean, there was a bill last year, and it gave the incoming auditor, now auditor, Dave Bolick, some increased powers. Perhaps the biggest notable shift is that Republicans now get a majority on state and county elections boards. Auditor Bolick now has some extra appointment power that was previously afforded to Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, and would have gone to Democratic Governor Josh Stein. And so we've seen a power shift from Democrats to Republicans. That's going to have some sweeping impacts coming into the upcoming midterms as far as where do you have these early voting sites. So in some ways, the... Powers of the governor is now the power of the auditor. A couple minutes before we've got to come up on a break. Another very notable changes that has happened with policy here in recent years is the whiplash pertaining to DEI and DEI efforts. I don't know who wants to take this one. You've all covered it. But Don, please jump in here and tell us about DEI in 2025. Yeah, I can take a little bit. The anti-D-I bills were the ones that were not over, that Stein vetoed and were not overridden because no Democrats were going to vote with Republicans on it. So that failed. The new legislation failed. However, what we're seeing at, you know, at the end of 2025 is going back to the parents' bill of rights. And that becoming this political football, really, especially for House. Republican Majority Leader, Brendan Jay Jones, who is leading the charge of looking at making compliance, basically, in Chapel Hill Carborough schools first. And then after they brought them in for really contentious grilling, then they're looking at Bunkum and there's a tip line for other schools. So this is a thing that also, you know, things are on camera. And I think things, if there weren't cameras and committee meetings, and it really.

was talking and working with people or if the legislation initially had any, you know, compliance rules or punishments, then I think things would be a little bit different. Quickly. And my understanding also that in the short session that might start in May or April, they could come back to those bills that were overridden by, that they could override some vetoes of the governorate. So they're not done yet. Those could be. discuss then and voted for. Yeah. It just takes two Democrats to be absent for it to happen. Those are collectively, across last few minutes here, we're reviewing some of the major changes that have played out in 2025. In 2026, there will be another major change transpiring, and that is a race, a contest, to replace an outgoing U.S. Senator. We will discuss that on the other side and also discuss redistricting, because why not? It happens every other week around here in North Carolina. Wrapping up, the 2025 musings, news and politics and so much more here on D-South. We'll be back in a moment. This is WUNC. This episode of Duce South was recorded on December 18th. Welcome back to listener support at WUNC. It's due south. Friday news roundup 2025 style. Let's acknowledge the recent birthday candles of one Charlie Scott, an ACC legend, basketball All-American, and later NBA champion. Scott's most enduring legacy went beyond the 27 points per game he averaged with the Tar Heels in 1970. You see, Charles, as Dean Smith always called him, was the first black scholarship athlete at UNC Chapel Hill, which is, as you know, the oldest public university in our nation. The South wasn't necessarily ready for Charlie Scott, but when Coach Dean Smith took the young recruit first to a restaurant to break bread and then to church, the transformative wheels were in motion and segregation in one notable way ended. Charles Charlie Scott is 77. We're reviewing the year that was with Claudia Rivera-Coto, Don Vaughn, Daniel Bataglia, Colin Campbell, Brian Anderson. Hopefully I'm not forgetting anybody working through some of the big stories of the year. Noted this major change coming at the... U.S. Senate here in about a year, we'll know, presumably, in less than a year, whether it's Roy Cooper or Michael Whatley. Those are the presumptive favorites in the spring, March primary. Let's hear first, before we hear from Danielle Bataglia, from Michael Whatley. This was the former state and national chair announcing that he would be getting into this race. I am very proud today to announce. that with a complete and total endorsement of President Donald Trump, I am running to be the next senator from the great stage. Doni, I'm just going to cut right to a complete and total endorsement. Right now, whatever, 10 months before, 11 months before this race, is that a good thing or a bad thing for Michael Whatley? What do you think?

I've been asking that question to a lot of people. And it sounds like in the primary, still what you want, it's the gold standard to get the endorsement from President Trump. I don't know how that plays out in the midterm general election, though, because, you know, Trump's favorability is windling. That's not a word. It's draining. And even in North Carolina, we're seeing it fall. And so. You know, I think that Republicans have a lot to overcome if they want to take back both chambers in the midterms. The economy is not doing great. We keep hearing it is. But, you know, when you go to the grocery store and you try to shop, your wallet's hurting right now. So I think. Going in with that endorsement is great in that primary, but when you go up against Roy Cooper, I'm not sure how that plays out. If you said windling, by the way, I think that could be a good, like we could add that to Kaffee. We could just have a, you know, just a new little lexicon of political words here. You mentioned Roy Cooper, the longtime political fixture here in North Carolina. Of course, Roy Cooper has jumped into this race as well. And here's just a clip from Governor Cooper on Senate candidate Cooper here from 2025. I need to run for the United States Senate because I've been able to work with Republicans in North Carolina, and I have been able to try and stop them when they do bad things. And that is Roy Cooper chatting on MSNBC, now known as MS Now. Don Vaughan, Roy Cooper hasn't lost a political race. And I think I was in diapers maybe by the last time. No, I was probably four or five. I was not in diapers, to be clear. But Roy Cooper's in this race. I mean, this is a captivating. It's going to be a captivating, very fascinating, one of the biggest U.S. Center. It's an open, take it away, Donovan. Yeah. So, so Roy Cooper has won a lot. He's also. run in those races for strategic reasons, too. I mean, you know, just he wants to make sure he's going to win. So he was, you know, his favorable as far as, you know, who his opponents were for governor. Obviously, you know, the North Carolina voters decided they wanted, you know, they wanted him over Dan Forrest, over, over McCrory. So he's. been kind of enjoyed that bubble of winning, even though, you know, some races have been closer than others. And this is going to be a really big fight. And it's a different way than he's run in the past. But. You know, everybody, Democrats, Republicans always say that Cooper is very good at fundraising. Money goes a long way to help getting you elected, you know, spending all the money on advertisements and everything else. He also has a significant amount of name recognition, things that maybe they didn't like about him if people didn't like his handling of COVID. That's five, it's going to be six years ago now. So that may not be a factor as much. So really, Republicans are the ones with the, you know,

the steep incline here as far as trying to attack Cooper, where Cooper just can easily run on his record. And Cooper doesn't, as best we can tell, have any sort of serious primary opponents at all, so he doesn't really have to run in the primary. He can sort of turn its attention to the general election. Michael Whatley has... I don't know that they can get super far without a Trump endorsement, but former superintendent of public construction candidate Michelle Morrow has jumped in that race. We've seen some grassroots support for Don Brown, an attorney who's running sort of further to the right than Michael Whatley on some issues. So, you know, there's going to be a primary for Michael Whatley that he's going to have to at least fight a little bit, whereas Roy Cooper sort of has a glide path to just... start treating, you know, November as the end point. An important subject there, Colin, which you're alluding to is if you don't have to really run a primary, you don't have to really spend money allowing your war chest to carry through to the general election. Yeah, and when you've got a race that, you know, people are estimating anywhere between like $500 million to maybe even a billion dollars get spent on this between all the outside groups. I mean, the more you can save your firepower for going in a particular direction, the better off you're going to be. It may very well be the most expensive U.S. Senate race to come. It's going to be the most expensive U.S. Senate race potentially in American history again coming out of North Carolina. And during the primaries, as you were mentioning, he has the Trump endorsement in that I think he would help him. But as well, we have seen in the past, I was looking for this name before, that Congressman Madison Cawthorne had beat a Trump back candidate back in 2020. So in that sense, it is helpful for some people, but it could also not guarantee that he's definitely going to win that primary. I was just going to say. to your point, Jeff earlier, and I think Don mentioned it. Like, you know, does this Trump alignment help or hurt Michael Whatley? The plain reality is there's just no escaping it. I mean, he is so aligned with Trump and helped Trump get elected in 2020 in North Carolina elected in North Carolina in 2020. Not. for president nationally, and was instrumental in his victory in 2024. He's an RNC chairman. There's no way you can separate the two. Barring Roy Cooper getting into some sort of unexpected scandal between now and then, this is a referendum on Donald Trump, and it's kind of inescapably so. And it's also Cooper's race to lose. I mean, he has high name ID compared to Michael Whatley. He's a known person, Cooper in this state. And so that. I think the mystifying part of this race so far has been you really haven't seen either candidate really going out heavily on the trail. I mean, you might expect that for Cooper if he's a favorite and has nothing to gain from more scrutiny. But for Whatley especially, it seems like they're kind of transitioning to getting him out there. and known more with events in Rocky Mountain other places. And it almost seems like sort of they're pandering to the base at this point for fundraising reasons because it's going to be so expensive. You see Roy Cooper showing up on some national left-leaning talk shows and podcast and the same for Michael Whatley showing up on the right-wing cable news networks on a regular basis, but not so much actually showing up at an in-person event somewhere in North Carolina with an open to the public audience. They're not making their case to voters yet. Not yet. There's going to be like kind of a slow burn toward the primary. It's going to ramp up a little bit.

in the months of follow, and then, you know, whatever, mid-summer Labor Day and then sprinting toward the finish line. Sprinting toward our finish line here as we wrap up the 2025 year that was in news and politics across North Carolina with an ear toward some of what is expected on the horizon and beyond in 2026 with Colin Campbell, Brian Anderson, Claudia Rivera-Koto, Danielle Bataglia, and Don Vaughn. We would be remiss if we did not mention Tropical Storm Chantal. Claudia, I'll kick this one to you first. I think you all covered Chantal. It was an incredibly damaging storm here in Central North Carolina over the summer. Yeah, so Shantel did a lot of damage, particularly on the triangle area. We did saw a lot of flooding here in Chapel Hill during July. And I think that was very devastating. And obviously, we are still seeing people recuperating from that because it impacted a lot of housing as well, infrastructure. And although there has been some money awarded for that and there has been some reconstruction done, there's still some private property that are still trying to recuperate. completely. And that in Helene is still a big factor in recovery. The storm itself hit in 2024, but 2025 has been a big rebuilding year for a lot of Western North Carolina, and they're still not there yet. Governor Stein says he's still pushing for another $13 or so billion from Congress may have another package for the state legislature in 26. So we'll still be talking about that as we have been for much of the past year. And recovery, to be clear, as you have talked about on the show, Colin, others have as well, has been so slow and so stagnant that they There have actually been breaks within Republican confines. I'm thinking mainly of Senator Ted Budd and the White House. Danielle Batagli, remind us of the specifics there. Yeah, that was interesting because you don't see a lot of Senator Bud coming out against the Trump administration. But there was a holdup with Kristi Noem getting funding back out to the state. And he held up her nominations until her nominations for her department in the Senate that needs Senate confirmation until she released that money. And so like that was a very interesting moment. to see him break from the Trump administration to help his constituents. Due South, Friday News Roundup, 2025 style. We're going to just kind of tick through some others because there's some really notable ones. I'm going to give you the, I'm going to give it to you and you're going to unpack it for us. Don Vaughn, Shrimp Gate. Lucky Dawn. That was like not, you know, everyone's like, oh, that wasn't on my bingo car. But, I mean, this really wasn't. The shrimp trailing band just, it was crazy to see, like, Just so many people upset at the legislature, not about what you think of the typical North Carolina political issue. This was a big deal in the Senate. Part of it was a surprise. It was a moment for state Senator Bobby Hanig, who's now running for Congress, to really...

have probably his most passionate speech that I've ever seen. He also served in the House before the Senate and just very upset about it. And the phrase shrimp great, I believe, was coined by House member Representative Keith Kidwell. It did not go to the floor in the House, but just to see people on the coast so upset about something that could impact their livelihood. And this was in June and I had actually gone out to the Outer Banks on vacation. when the decision came down and I, you know, left town the day before someone else was covering it. And I was in a store in Nagshead and hearing the people come in and shout that, you know, that the bill was dead and it wasn't going to move. So this was a local issue that was statewide and just just got people. And I need the refresher here to. The legislative building. No, it's Colin. I'm sorry. I apologize for cutting you up. I need the refresher here. Just remind me and listeners, this was going to be a change to the regulations around who could trawl or who could fish for shrimp in certain areas along the inner banks. Was that it? Yeah, that was that was it. And so the thought was this is pretty much going to limit people in the shrimp industry from doing most of what they do. So pretty much killing off an industry over concerns about sort of the overcatch and environmental aspects of it that evidently the Senate was looking to make changes on that front. And the shrimpers showed out in force. It was the single loudest day in the legislature with trucks, truck horns blaring. And you could hear protesters from mile away in the building. All right. I think we've got time. Well, I don't, we have to have time. We have to talk about redistricting. You can't talk about 2025 without just acknowledging that it happened yet again. This happens more frequently than like a James Bond sequel or a Friday the 13th installment. This took place, Danielle, starting at a national level, just give us the basic parameters of why they started it and what happened in North Carolina. Well, there are so few seats in the House between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans want to hold the majority in both the House and the Senate. This is really powerful moment for Republicans because they have also the president seat. So they could. theoretically get things accomplished, although you guys complaining about how little happened this year in the General Assembly, I found adorable because nothing seems to happen. I mean, reporters might be happy to have some off time. I'll just say that. But, yeah, so they want to. Go ahead. No. So redistricting starts with this Texas, Missouri, California. Happens all over the place. Eventually comes to North Carolina. And what's the upshot, DV?

So they want to gain one seat from the House in North Carolina. That is the first congressional district. It's Don Davis's district. He has been on the target list for the National Republican Congressional Committee for as long as I can remember, for as long as he's been in office. And so they saw this as a potential pickup for the president to... to get a Republican seat, well, a Democratic seat, and it's been a Democratic seat since the 1800s, to make it Republican. And at the bidding of President Donald Trump, they did this. And I just want to remind you guys, because it was such a frustrating sentence to hear that when Tim Moore was House Speaker, he had said to the media, we're so good at redistricting. We do it every year. And that is pretty much what's been happening. Danielle, I'm going to, I'm up against the clock, but I think you have had a front and center seat for this first year of Trump's second term, which has been chaotic. In so many other words, but chaos is the first one that comes to mind. Give us a sense, if you would, of just what it's like, what it has been like to cover all of the things, or to try to cover and keep tabs on many of the things here in 2025. Well, my cardiologist who only lets me have one caffeinated drink a day and it can't be coffee is allowing me to have three right now. So I feel like that tells you everything you need to know about covering this. But it is. It's very chaotic to cover, especially at the beginning of his term, we were looking at things and trying to write about it that would be changed within 12 to 24 hours because either judges stopped it or he changed his mind or whatever that we started a Trump newsletter to kind of. culminate everything into, here's what happened in the last week that you can read about and digest it easily. But it's nonstop. I've heard White House correspondence, which I am a member of the Correspondence Association, they have said, you know, under Biden, you could take breaks, you could breathe. We're keeping the news on 24-7 at our houses, just making sure we don't miss a thing because he is non-stop. I remember the three words, and I heard him a lot a year ago. I don't hear him as much now. Flood the zone. That has been the game plan, and that is what has happened across 2025. We are out of time. We will have much more news, information, roundup, conversation, and the like, trivia and all that bit for you. Trivia, by the way, the answer is what, Don Vaughn? What's the answer to trivia? 2019. That's the answer to trivia. 2019. Someone is the lucky respondent. I'm sure someone had that. We will be sending you a Do South mug. Big thank you to our panelists, as always for getting us up to speed and better understanding what is happening. Colin Campbell, Brian Anderson, Claudia Rivera-Koto, Don Vaughn, and Danielle Bataglia. Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Thanks y'all for the conversation. As always, this is DoSouth. New South is a production of WUNC and Abroad. service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Our producers are Stasia Brown, Cole Del Charko, and Rachel McCarthy. Danair is Thomas as our technical director, Aaron Kieber, is the executive producer. Theme music comes from Quilla. For Leonita Inge, my name is Jeff Tiberi. We will talk to you again soon.

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