The primary election is underway in North Carolina. The primary is an important part of the process to whittle down candidates for the general election ballot. For those getting ready to vote, BPR’s Lilly Knoepp spoke to political expert Chris Cooper about how to vote and what races are on the ballot in Western North Carolina.
Lilly Knoepp: How are you talking about this season of the election?
Chris Cooper: Across the state, we have over 100 ballots that have already been returned by people who've already cast their primary ballot for 2024 by mail. All 14 congressional districts have at least one person has returned one.
So the election is here. It's not something in the future. It's in the present tense.
Now, look, it's incredibly important to vote in this primary for a lot of reasons and to pay attention. We expect voter turnout will be, of course, much less than a general election. I'm looking at probably somewhere between 30% and 40% of registered voters are actually going to show up and cast a vote here. But given the way many of our districts are drawn, it's really in this primary election where voters have the most choice and where voter’s choice makes the most difference in the end.
Knoepp: North Carolina is a really important state nationally. Can you explain why we hold that position as a purple state and really a bellwether for the conversation across the nation in this election season?
Cooper: Of all the states that voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, his margin was the smallest in North Carolina. Of course, we have a Democratic governor, currently anyway, Roy Cooper. That's going to be an open position [in this election].
By really any metric and by any definition, we're a purple state. We're a state that's neither red nor blue, so people think we are important one because we could go either way but also because it gives folks sort of vision into what the real battleground of American politics looks like - for good, bad or indifferent. I think that's all represented here in North Carolina.
In the primary election, some of these things aren't going to be as much at play. But we still have some fascinating primary races. They're going to tell us things like does the MAGA wing of the Republican Party get the primary vote or does the more establishment wing of the Republican Party get the primary vote? Also, the Democratic party did a great job contesting elections. In other words, just getting folks to run for all these open seats. Is that enough? Is that going to make a difference? Is that going to inspire Democratic turnout? These are all questions we get to answer through North Carolina.
Knoepp: Looking at the region, pretty much all the races are contested this year - which is significant. What's at stake during the primary season?
Cooper: If you live – actually even if you don't live in in the city of Asheville, you still rely on the city of Asheville for good or bad. So the Asheville City Council is up and folks are going to be able to make some choices there. We've got eight candidates running, one incumbent is not running and so that's going be a really interesting and important race. So they use the primary to whittle down that field before the general election.
We've got school board elections going on throughout the region and then of course all these statewide primaries at work here in Western North Carolina, too. These [are] big primaries. For example, on the Republican side, we've got 11 folks running for lieutenant governor of the state. That’s an office with frankly, not a whole lot of power, but we have got a whole lot of folks running for it. That's going to be really interesting one to watch.
In the gubernatorial primaries: of course, on the Republican side, Mark Robinson is the very controversial front runner, but a lot of folks including me are watching to see, hey can a Bill Graham who can write a big fat check perhaps challenge him? Or can a Dale Falwell who is a sitting member of the Council of State possibly challenge Mark Robinson?
On the Democratic side, you've got a competitive primary there for governor as well. Josh Stein is of course the favorite, but you’ve got Mike Morgan, a recent state supreme court justice, also running. So interesting race there as well.
Knoepp: Let's get into the nuts and bolts of how this election is going to work. One of the interesting things in North Carolina is the way that the primary election works for unaffiliated candidates. Can you explain that a little bit and how you're thinking about what that will show us as we head into the general election?
Cooper: Absolutely. Unaffiliated is the largest group of registered voters in the state of North Carolina and the largest group here in Western North Carolina, so they have a choice to make in the primary. I would technically called it a semi-closed primary system. What that means in practice is Democrats can only vote in the Democratic primary. Republicans in the Republican primary. If you're an unaffiliated voter you get to choose your own adventure. So those unaffiliated voters are less likely to turn out but if they do turn out they could really be the difference makers here. So let's just play with that for a second. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that some left-leaning Unaffiliated voters decide to choose the Republican primary because it is the more competitive primary. Are they going to move the field to the center? Or are they really not going to have much of an impact at all? So this is a group that's hard to get on one page. But if a candidate can do it that's where we get surprises.
And if you're thinking, well that never really happened, Chris, I'd ask you to sort of look back pretty recently at Madison Cawthorn, former member of Congress right here from the 11th congressional district who lost in his primary for a host of reasons; one of which is unaffiliated voters showed up for that Republican primary. And they said Madison Cawthorn, we want to get rid of you.
Knoepp: Absolutely. That's the election that comes to mind for me too when we talk about the impact that Unaffiliated voters can have in this region. What else do you want to remind folks as they get ready to turn out to the primary? This year photo ID is required to vote. What else are sort of important day-of reminders?
Cooper: There's a number of changes to our election system – some are on hold with the courts because this is North Carolina that's always the way it works – but some we are actually implementing here. So we do have voter ID. It is the law of the state whether you like it or don't like it. It sort of doesn't matter at this point. There are exception forms. There are ways that folks, if they don't have an ID, can get a free ID, or if they lose one the day-of, there's a way that they can be dealt with but if you've got an ID you need to bring it and if you don't you need to have a plan soon.
For the folks who are used to voting by mail, which is an increasing number in the state of North Carolina, the return date has been moved to the day of the election. There used to be this grace period a few days afterwards you get that ballot in now. It has to be received by the end the close of business on Election Day.
So, if you have not mailed in your mail ballot, and it's getting close to Election Day. You may want to sit on that and see if you can make it in to vote in person to make sure that your vote is counted.
