News & Views

Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper

Tectonic. Generational. A Blue-nami. A bloodbath. Just a few of the terms out there today as people in North Carolina, around the country — and around the world — try to make sense of what just happened in American politics.

North Carolina had arguably one of the biggest shifts in the country — our U.S. House delegation went from 4 Democrats and 10 Republicans to potentially 10 Democrats and 4 Republicans, depending on the fate of longtime Republican congresswoman Virginia Foxx, who is currently 99 votes behind her Democratic challenger Chuck Hubbard. This is in unofficial results with provisionals and military votes still to come.

The state House saw a similar flip. Democrats now appear to have a working supermajority, rather than a superminority, In the Senate, Republicans seem to have held onto a slim 26-24 majority – if Republican senator Danny Britt survives a likely recount in his very tight race.

And yet, voters also passed three constitutional amendments supported by Republicans.

NC Newsline Editor Laura Leslie sat down Wednesday with Western Carolina University political science Professor Chris Cooper, who’s been slicing and dicing the data behind the votes.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper.

Tom Jensen, director of Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Months of campaigning and endless political commercials draw to a close Tuesday as voters cast their final ballots in the 2026 midterm elections.

Thirty-six percent of North Carolina’s registered voters cast ballots before Election Day. New records were also set during the early voting period, with more than 2.7 million people voting in person by October 31, the final day for early voting.

As NC Newsline reported Monday, unaffiliated voters outnumbered registered Democrats and registered Republicans during the last four days of early voting.

The U.S. Senate race featuring Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley is drawing the greatest attention, and that is likely to influence the outcome of a number of down-ballot contests.

On the eve of Election Day, NC Newsline sat down with Tom Jensen, director of Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling, to discuss the mood of voters, the impact of mid-decade redistricting by Republicans, and how key races are leaning.

Click here for the full interview with Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling. 

Mack Paul (Courtesy photo)

One of the most successful public economic development projects in modern American history is North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. Nearly 70 years ago, when a collection of public officials, academics and business leaders unveiled their vision for RTP, the undeveloped region found between the towns of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill was characterized as one dominated by possums and pines.

Today, as is documented in the new book by the late writer Allen Paul and his son, Raleigh-based lawyer and civic leader Mack Paul – “Miracle Road: The Story of Research Triangle Park” — RTP is home to more than 350 companies and 65,000 workers. What’s more, it has been the font of scientific discoveries that have changed medicine, agriculture, computing, and everyday life around the world.

Recently, to learn more about the book, the remarkable story it tells and why he and his late father took on the project, Newsline caught up with Mack Paul for an extended conversation.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Mack Paul, co-author of “Miracle Road: The Story of Research Triangle Park.”

Alexandra Sirota (Photo: NC Budget & Tax Center)

The latest public opinion survey shows generally strong support amongst voters for a trio of proposed constitutional amendments that will appear on the North Carolina ballot this fall that address incomes taxes, property taxes and voter photo ID.

However, Alexandra Sirota, the executive director of the nonprofit North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, says while all three amendments may sound superficially appealing, when one digs below the surface, it quickly becomes apparent that each one will likely have long lasting and deeply problematic impacts while providing few if any real benefits to average North Carolinians.

Click here for a rebroadcast of  Newsline’s interview with Alexandra Sirota, executive director of the nonprofit North Carolina Budget and Tax Center.

Lee Rainie, director of Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center

President Donald Trump created a new task force last week focused on artificial intelligence, which he has renamed “super intelligence.”

Tech leaders have called repeatedly called on Washington to create guardrails for the industry, with Anthropic warning its own investors that the rapidly advancing models could pose “existential risks to humanity.” But even with that dire warning, none of the leading developers appear ready to slow the pace of development.

So, what’s next for industry? Will we see guardrails at the state level in the near future.

To learn more, Newsline recently sat down with Lee Rainie, director of Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center.

Will AI make work easier or workers obsolete? A new NC survey looks at what workers think

The Center recently conducted a nationwide survey that found U.S. adults fear artificial intelligence will undermine people’s sense of meaning and weaken social bonds, even as daily users report increased use and benefit from the bots.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Lee Rainie, director of Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center.

Amanda Rosa of Extreme Weather Survivors

It’s been two years now since Hurricane-turned-Tropical Storm Helene devastated a large swath of the southeastern United States, including much of western North Carolina. But as anyone paying even a little attention is painfully aware, Helene was just one of a growing array of weather-driven disasters to impact our world in recent years. What’s more, as the impacts of climate change and continued expansion of human development into once natural areas continues, the potential impacts of these disasters – storms, wildfires, floods, extreme heat, deadly air pollution, drought – are only going to get worse unless society takes several swift and decisive actions.

Of course, one necessary predicate to action is for average people and their leaders to fully grasp the severity of the problem and, in particular, the havoc that weather-driven natural disasters can wreak. And to this important end, a new nonprofit has emerged in recent years that aims to shed a light on these hard truths while at the same time providing a pathway for the millions of people impacted by extreme weather events to share their stories with similarly affected people, and find a measure of healing. The group, appropriately enough, is called Extreme Weather Survivors. And recently to mark the anniversary of the Helene disaster, the group was in western North Carolina to highlight the huge recovery challenges that remain. And this past week, Newsline caught up with the organization’s Director of Outreach, Amanda Rosa.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Amanda Rosa.

Matt Calabria, director of the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina

It was two years ago this past week that Hurricane-turned-Tropical Storm Helene inundated and devastated large swaths of western North Carolina with unprecedented rainfall and flooding. All tolled the disaster took more than 100 lives, inflicted more than 60 billion dollars in damage and wrecked many significant segments of the region’s economy.

For Gov. Josh Stein, who took office just three months after the storm hit, Helene recovery quickly became the Number One priority for his new administration and a multi-year project that would come to occupy a huge proportion of his time and attention. And with such a huge, unprecedented and unexpected logistical and political challenge suddenly on his lap, Stein quickly found an intelligent and dedicated administrator to serve as, in effect, the state’s recovery czar — former Wake County Board of Commissioners member Matt Calabria. And this past week, Newsline caught up with Calabria for an extended conversation about how things are going.

In Part One of our recent conversation with Calabria, we took stock of how the recovery  is proceeding – the successes, the challenges and the works still to be done — two years after the disaster devastated much of our state’s mountainous western region.

Mountain strong: North Carolina marks the 2-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene

In Part Two of our conversation, we dug deeper into several of these subjects – looking not just at the heroic work that’s been done to clean up the mess and rebuild the private homes and public infrastructure destroyed by the storm, but also the huge challenges that continue to confront the region’s economy and the wellbeing of the people who’ve stayed and are trying to rebuild their lives, as well as the need to better prepare for the inevitable future natural disasters that are sure to impact the state.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Matt Calabria, director of the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina.

Dr. David Wohl

We’re now several years, thankfully, past the COVID-19 pandemic, but as even a casual glance at daily news headlines reminds us, the challenge posed by infectious diseases is not going anywhere anytime soon. And with the arrival of fall weather and the holiday gatherings that will soon be right around the corner, it’s an excellent time to check in with one of the world’s pre-eminent infectious disease experts — Dr. David Wohl.

Dr. Wohl is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at UNC, and he’s spent over 20 years leading research into the prevention and treatment of HIV. In 2020, he helped lead the UNC clinical and research response to COVID-19. And this past week, Dr. Wohl was kind enough to make some time to chat with NC Newsline about how North Carolinians can best protect themselves and their families from any number of dangerous infectious diseases.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Dr. David Wohl , Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at UNC.

Emily Donovan, Clean Cape Fear

One of the most important and worrisome threats to our natural environment and human health to emerge in recent decades is a group of chemicals commonly referred to as PFAS. Also known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS are especially pernicious because they’re toxic, cause all kinds of health problems, and don’t break down in the environment. For the last several decades, corporate polluters spewed vast quantities of PFAS into the air and water in southeastern North Carolina, thus contaminating public water systems and thousands of private wells.

Thankfully, one especially important and effective group that’s emerged in response to this problem is the nonprofit Clean Cape Fear, and recently Newsline caught up with the group’s co-founder Emily Donovan as she returned from testifying before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan.

NC AG Jackson, DEQ reach $590M settlement with chemical firms over PFAS

Jason Husser (Photo: Elon.edu)

The fall midterm elections are just six weeks away and that means that North Carolinians will soon cast their ballots in an array of races that will both help determine the makeup of the next Congress and General Assembly, and whether future legislatures and governors will have two the most important tools they use to fund government – that is, income and property taxes – greatly restricted.

At such a moment, it seemed like an excellent time to check in on some of the latest public opinion numbers – both with respect to the election, President Trump’s popularity, and a policy issue that remains very much in the spotlight (marijuana legalization) – with Elon University pollster Jason Husser.

Click here to listen to the full interview Elon University pollster Jason Husser.