Public Policy Polling's Tom Jensen (Courtesy photo)

For the last 17 years, one of the nation’s most knowledgeable and accurate political pollsters has been based right here in North Carolina. Over the course of numerous primary and general elections during that period, Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling has dissected and accurately forecast literally hundreds of races across the country. And with this year’s election now just a few months away, Jensen is once again busily analyzing the trends in voter attitudes.

NC Newsline caught up with Tom in his Raleigh office late last week and learned that President Biden’s much-criticized debate performance has actually had little impact on voters thus far and that this November is likely to still be a nail-biter – both for the presidential race and for a number of statewide races here in North Carolina.

Prof. Chris Cooper of Western Carolina University

As the nation heads towards one of its most important elections in modern history, a major ruckus has arisen among some Democrats around President Joe Biden’s age and whether his performance in a recent presidential debate with Donald Trump indicates that it’s time for him to step aside in favor of a younger candidate.

In Part Two of our conversation, we shifted to some of the unprecedented challenges faced by Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, including his recent criminal conviction for falsifying business records, his search for a vice presidential running mate, his apparent attempt to disavow Project 2025 – a blueprint for a second Trump administration developed by his aides and supporters – as well as some of the things we can look forward to at this coming week’s GOP nominating convention and the Democratic event that takes place next month.

This interview was recorded July 8th, in advance of the weekend events in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

Bob Phillips, Executive Director of Common Cause North Carolina (Screengrab from press briefing)

The North Carolina General Assembly wrapped up its 2024 “short session” recently and once again, it was a tough session for many basic aspects of democratic government.

Whether they were unveiling secretly written proposals to overhaul state campaign finance laws, placing new unfunded obligations on election administrators, or cementing in place law changes that will make voting more of a challenge, lawmakers stuck to the same playbook they’ve used in recent years. All that said, as Newsline learned in a recent conversation with one of the state’s top good government watchdogs, Common Cause of North Carolina executive director, Bob Phillips, things might well have been worse had lawmakers not abruptly ended the session when they did.

NC Tenants Union executive director Nick MacLeod

North Carolina has always been a state in which the law has allotted very few legal rights to residential tenants. Unless the actions of a landlord are truly outrageous – and sometimes even when they are – tenants rarely prevail when they seek to push back against evictions or fight for better rents and treatment. And in the post-pandemic era of high rents and scarce housing of any kind, this situation has gotten significantly worse.

One organization, however, that’s working hard to resist this tide by helping to organize residents of housing complexes across the state is a group based in Durham known as the North Carolina Tenants Union. And recently NC Newsline got a chance to learn more about the group and its work and mission in a special extended conversation with its executive director, Nick MacLeod.

In Part One of our conversation, we learned how this newly formed nonprofit has been working hard in several communities across the state to build a movement dedicated to the idea that tenants should have more of a say about the homes in which they live.

In Part Two of our chat, we learn more about some of the group’s work with local organizers to help groups of tenants speak with one voice and negotiate for better rents and living conditions. We also talked about how state landlord-tenant law makes it virtually impossible for untrained tenants to represent themselves in court – or to even understand proceedings that can put them out on the street – and how providing people facing eviction with access to basic legal representation could make an enormous difference.

Duke Health OB/GYN Dr. Beverly Gray (Photo: Courtesy of Scholars@Duke)

It’s been two years now since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion care and since then, numerous states – including North Carolina – have moved rapidly to end or greatly restrict abortion access. In 2023, Republican state legislators in Raleigh enacted a law that both bans abortion after the 12th week of gestation and imposes several additional burdensome restrictions for early term abortions.

So, what’s been the effect of these changes – both on the health of women and the pregnancy care they receive and the health professionals who try to provide that care? Recently, NC Newsline caught up with one of the state’s best-informed experts on these subjects, Duke Health OB/GYN Dr. Beverly Gray, to find out.

Alexandra Sirota (Photo: NC Budget & Tax Center)

Ever since North Carolina Republicans took control of the state legislature in 2011, they’ve pursued a sustained and aggressive effort to remake the state’s tax and budget systems. Repeatedly, they’ve enacted big cuts to progressive levies like the personal and corporate income taxes that primarily impact the wealthy, while slashing spending on core public structures like public education. So, what’s been the impact of this sea change? What impacts will the new state budget proposals currently under discussion at the General Assembly have? And what will the future hold if legislative leaders stay on the path they’ve charted?

Recently NC Newsline got a chance to pose those questions to an expert who’s been observing and chronicling the changes since they got underway, the executive director of the nonpartisan North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, Alexandra Sirota.

In Part One of our special extended conversation with Sirota, we took a look back at the past dozen or so years of fiscal policy changes that have been implemented by Republican legislators at the North Carolina General Assembly, and the impacts they’ve had on our state tax and budget systems.

In Part Two, our conversation shifted to the details of the latest budget bills under consideration at the Legislative Building as well a new proposed state constitutional amendment that would lower the cap on the state income tax, and according to Sirota, serve only to further undermine the health of an already inadequate tax code.

Melissa Price Kromm

If there’s been a most controversial bill to wend its way through the North Carolina General Assembly this spring, right now it has to be House Bill 237 – a proposal that would change state laws governing the wearing masks in public, the rights of public protesters and the complex rules that govern contributions to political campaigns.

The bill has drawn sharp criticism from a host of advocates and experts and one of the most persistent and insightful has been veteran good government watchdog Melissa Price Kromm of the group North Carolina for the People Action. As Price Kromm explained when NC Newsline caught up with her recently, the legislation poses a threat to the First Amendment and public health and threatens to flood state elections with huge sums of unaccountable and corrupting dark money.  Learn more about the bill that earned the latest veto from Governor Roy Cooper.

Erica Palmer Smith (File photo)

For several years now, researchers at the national Annie E. Casey Foundation have measured and documented how well each U.S. state is doing when it comes to the well-being of its children. The annual KIDS Count report looks at several important indicators in fields like economic well-being, educational achievement and health, assesses whether states are progressing or falling behind, and then ranks them one to fifty.

In North Carolina, the state group with which the Casey experts coordinate is the children’s advocacy organization, NC Child, and recently NC Newsline caught up with the group’s executive director, Erica Palmer Smith to learn more about how our state is faring. And the verdict, sadly, is well below par.

Click here to view the 2024 report for North Carolina.

Christina Baal-Owens (Courtesy: Public Wise)

It’s been well over three years since Donald Trump’s lie about the 2020 election was thoroughly debunked, but tragically many American politicians – even some who participated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection – continue to hold elected office or to seek it as candidates in 2024.

For Christina Baal-Owen, executive director of the national voting rights nonprofit, Public Wise, this reality and the threat it poses to our democracy is something of which all Americans should be made aware in the run-up to the November election. To that end, her organization has published what it calls an Election Threat Index that tracks and monitors the politicians who continue to promote Trump’s lie and who participated or supported the insurrection. Recently Newsline caught up with Baal-Owens to learn more.

House Democraic leader Rep. Robert Reives (Photo: NCGA)

North Carolina Republican legislative leaders sprang a big surprise on their Democratic colleagues and just about all legislative observers recently when they suddenly unveiled a new, out-of-nowhere and extremely complex proposal to rewrite state campaign finance laws.

The legislation, which would provide wealthy individuals with new ways to give unlimited amounts of cash to support North Carolina candidates while keeping their identities hidden, emerged as an add-on to a controversial bill on the wearing of masks in public. The proposal quickly raised the ire of Democratic lawmakers and good government groups who objected to both the substance of the bill and the questionable tactics used to advance it.

NC Newsline sat down with House Democratic leader, Rep. Robert Reives, to get his take on the bill as well as some other high priority decisions that face state lawmakers in the coming days.