Professor Michael Bitzer (Photo courtesy Catawba College)

North Carolinians received another powerful reminder recently that their state’s electoral politics are never boring, when Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis suddenly announced he will not seek reelection next year. The announcement has set off a flurry of activity in which it has sometimes seemed that more politicians are considering entering the 2026 Senate race than not.

So, what should we make of Tillis’s announcement and what it portends? And what do the latest polls say voters are thinking about Tillis and the people who might succeed him? Recently, NC Newsline caught up with the Director of the Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service at Catawba College, Prof. Michael Bitzer, to find out. We also discuss the Catawba College-YouGov survey of 1,000 North Carolinians on their confidence in President Trump’s decision-making across different policy issues.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Professor Michael Bitzer of the Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service at Catawba College.

WCU political scientist Chris Cooper (Screengrab from News & Views interview)

North Carolina was rocked by a political earthquake this past week when its senior U.S. Senator, Republican Thom Tillis, broke with President Donald Trump and then announced that he will not seek reelection in 2026. Tillis’s announcement – which came on the heels of his decision to oppose Trump’s hugely controversial omnibus budget bill – initiated a chain of events that has just begun to play out both in Washington and here in North Carolina.

So, what will this chain look like? How will Tillis approach his final 18 months in the Senate? Who are the candidates likely to be throwing their hats in the ring to succeed Tillis? And who among them are best positioned to capture the Republican and Democratic nominations? NC Newsline recently caught up with Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper to find out.

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

Mikaela Curry of the Sierra Club of NC (Courtesy Photo)

Among the flurry of bills approved by the General Assembly during the last week of June was an extremely controversial proposal that would make big changes to state energy policy, entitled the “Power Bill Reduction Act.” The bill would repeal a bipartisan 2021 law that committed our state to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 70 percent by the year 2030, as we move to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century.

Proponents like Duke Energy say the interim goal was unnecessary and that changes in the bill will help keep energy prices in check, but a new data analysis released by a trio of NC State professors found that the legislation would likely increase electricity bills for average households. So, what gives? What’s really driving this bill and why are consumer and environmental advocates so concerned? Earlier this week, hours before Gov. Josh Stein vetoed the bill, NC Newsline’s Rob Schofield sat down with Sierra Club advocate Mikaela Curry to learn more.

Click here for the full interview with Mikaela Curry of the Sierra Club of NC.

Phi Nguyen, Demos' Director of Democracy, and Sarah Ovaska of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (Courtesy photos)

A new report prepared by the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the national public policy nonprofit D?mos finds more than 1.5 million North Carolinians are eligible to vote but aren’t doing so. The report is entitled “North Carolina’s Missing Voters,” and it finds that these nonvoters — nearly 20% of the state’s estimated 8 million eligible voters — are more likely to be young, Black, or Latino.

What’s more, the report finds that the current situation is largely the result of a series of intentional policy choices made by Republican legislators that were designed to discourage voting by young people and people of color whom they fear will favor candidates from other parties. And recently NC Newsline sat down with Demos attorney Phi Nguyen and Sarah Ovaska of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice to get the details.

Click here for the full interview with Phi Nguyen and Sarah Ovaska.

Click here to read “North Carolina’s Missing Voters,” a joint report released by Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) and Demos, a national nonprofit public policy organization.

Sen. Lisa Grafstein (Photo: NCGA)

A new state fiscal year commences July 1, but North Carolina will not have a new state budget to greet it. Plagued by major differences over issues like tax policy and pay for teachers and state employees, House and Senate Republicans were unable to reach agreement before commencing their summer break and so the state will continue to limp along on the old budget for the time being.

Republicans did however find common ground on several conservative culture war priorities like weakening gun laws, banning diversity, equity and inclusion, and targeting the rights of transgender people and immigrants, and this past week, NC Newsline caught up with Wake County State Senator Lisa Grafstein to learn more.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Sen. Lisa Grafstein. 

ACLU of North Carolina Policy Counsel Reighlah Collins (Courtesy photo)

Conservative culture war legislation has been front and center of late at the North Carolina legislature, with GOP lawmakers advancing, among other things, bills to limit the rights of transgender people, promote censorship in our schools, ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state government, and force local law enforcement offices to devote limited resources to immigration enforcement actions.

And recently, we got a chance to dig even deeper into some of these proposals with one of the state’s most active and articulate civil rights and civil liberties advocates, ACLU of North Carolina Policy Counsel Reighlah Collins.

Click here for the full interview with ACLU of North Carolina Policy Counsel Reighlah Collins.

Equality North Carolina executive director Eliazar Posada (Courtesy photo)

The attacks on trans people at the North Carolina legislature are clearly part of a coordinated national campaign from the political right that has also impacted a number of other institutions. This week marks the end of Pride Month and it’s clear that the anti-LGBTQ movement led by the Trump administration has managed to temper the support of some traditional Pride Month supporters in the corporate community.

That said, as NC Newsline’s Rob Schofield learned in a conversation with Equality North Carolina executive director Eliazar Posada, many other Pride supporters have stepped up their efforts and despite the actions of some companies and developments at the legislature, the energy, enthusiasm, activism and long-term optimism among equality supporters in North Caroline remains high and on the upswing.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Equality North Carolina executive director Eliazar Posada.

Rep. Marcia Morey (Photo: NCGA)

In 2025, few societal phenomena pose a greater or more immediate threat to the mental and physical wellbeing of Americans than gun violence. Gun violence is now, quite shamefully, the leading cause of death for children and youth in our country. And when this sobering fact is combined with the ongoing rise in political violence – a fact brought home by the recent horrific political assassinations in Minnesota – it’s hard to describe the situation as anything other than a crisis.

Fortunately, despite the gun lobby money that continues block the enactment of sane anti-gun violence laws, many elected leaders remain undaunted and determined to build a better and safer state and nation, and earlier this week Newsline’s Rob Schofield caught up with one of their leaders, Durham County state Rep. Marcia Morey.

Click here for the full interview with state Rep. Marcia Morey.

Kris Nordstrom

“A new report from the state Department of Public Instruction confirms what school voucher opponents have been saying: universal voucher programs are a wasteful giveaway to disproportionately wealthy families who have already enrolled their children in private schools.” That’s the opening sentence from a recent essay authored by North Carolina Justice Center senior policy analyst, Kris Nordstrom.

And when one digs deeper into the data Nordstrom analyzed, it’s clear that his assessment is on the mark. The numbers reveal that, in the current school year, only a tiny percentage of vouchers went to students who attended public school in the previous year – a fact that makes clear the voucher program disproportionately benefits wealthy families who had already enrolled their children in private schools. And recently, Newsline’s Rob Schofield sat down with Nordstrom to learn more about this finding and the destructive impact vouchers are having on public education.

Click here for the full interview with Kris Nordstrom.

MaryBe McMillan, president of the NC State AFL-CIO (File photo)

For the past two decades, no single individual has played a more prominent or important role in championing the rights and wellbeing of average working people in North Carolina than MaryBe McMillan. McMillan, who grew up in Hickory, served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the North Carolina AFL-CIO from 2005 to 2017, at which point she was elected as the first woman president of the federation in the state’s history – a role that she has served in ever since and will retire from later this summer.

And recently, as she prepared for her final months in office, McMillan was kind enough to join NC Newsline to share some reflections on the state of the labor movement and on her years of service – the victories, the frustrations, and some of the key challenges that lie ahead for her movement and the working people it strives to represent.

Click here to listen to the full interview with North Carolina AFL-CIO president MaryBe McMillan.