Democrats flip the NC House... now what? | Hour 3

And again, thank you so much for your support. I want to welcome to the program Alex Baltziger. He is the executive director of the North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation. Alex, how are you, sir? Very good. Thanks for having me on your show. Yes, sir. Absolutely. By the way, if you want to get more information about the Free Enterprise Foundation, ncfree.org is the website. First off, Alex, tell people, what do you guys do? What are you all about? We do business intelligence for leaders around the state. We help them understand what the issues are that shape the economy in North Carolina. So that includes politics, as I think we're going to be talking about a little bit today. The election last night includes public policy. And like I said, the industries and the economy in North Carolina. All right. So what is the intel that you're going to be sharing with businesses after yesterday? Yeah, so the intel after yesterday, as much of your audience is aware, is there was a blue tsunami, as we would call it, of an election. And pertaining to our state government, which is where we're largely focused, as much of the power that resides in our state is concentrated in the General Assembly in North Carolina. We watch those races very closely. The Democrats flipped the statehouse last night, which is the first time they've held the statehouse since 2010. And they didn't only flip the statehouse, they flipped it to the point where they nearly have a veto-proof supermajority in the statehouse. And they actually do, if you count the one unaffiliated candidate from House District 51 that won her race without a Democrat being in there. And she's projected to caucus with the Democrats. So a substantial change in the North Carolina General Assembly following last night's results. So is that real? The veto-proof majority, it doesn't really make a lot of difference, though, because the governor's a Democrat, so surely they're all going to be on the same page, right? That's right. I only mention that for the scale of their win, which was substantial. But, no, you're right in terms of actual results. practicality, it's not going to make a whole lot of a difference, whether it's a 65 seat majority for Democrats or a 71 or 72 seat majority. Do you have any kind of a read on what might happen in the month or so before the new legislature gets sworn in? Because the Republicans, they're coming back into session. They still have a couple of veto overrides that they could try. They don't have the veto proof majority in the House at this time. But there are a couple of unaffiliated now because they were Democrats, but then Democrats primaried them in their own races this year. So then they left the party. So is it possible that the Republicans try to ram something through in the final days? That's right. I would definitely expect that to happen. Obviously, lawmakers are elected for two-year terms, and even though maybe the session date is technically passed, they view this as they're serving their term through the end of the year here. I would not be surprised whatsoever. In fact, everything I'm hearing points to exactly what you're saying, that they're going to come back and maybe take care of some things that Republicans might be worried about with the House flipping over to Democrats. That could include appointment power. It's definitely going to include some sort of spending. As you probably remember, there's some outstanding money left over from the state budget that will need to be allocated somewhere, so they're going to take care of that. We're going to be watching very closely to see what happens, but I think you're going to have an update here in the next few weeks through November with lots more to happen with this General Assembly following last night's results. All right, we mentioned the House. What about over in the Senate? Is it a one-seat or two-seat majority that the Republicans are still clinging on to? Good question. We're projecting the Senate is going to remain in Republican hands by a one-seat So Republicans, if they had lost one more seat last night, it would have been a split 25-25 Senate. And the lieutenant governor would be the tie-breaking vote, who's currently lieutenant governor Rachel Hunt, who's a Democrat. So the Senate came within about 300 votes of switching parties as well last night. And what we're seeing there is that one race that I mentioned around 300 votes. I forget the exact number. That's Danny Britt is the incumbent out there, Robeson County. And that race still has some provisional ballots outstanding. We're verifying the numbers on those. We're not projecting that that would be enough to flip that seat, but it's something we're keeping an eye on because that would obviously have a huge impact on the state. Yeah, so for people who think a couple votes here or there, they don't really matter, you're talking the entire balance of state government comes down to a margin of somewhere around 300 votes in Robinson County. The entire balance of state government comes down to those few votes. So that's right. That's right. So as people look at future elections, they got to make sure they're considering that. All right. So what kind of, what does this look like? Let's assume that the Republicans maintain the Senate, right? So you've got a split legislature and, You've got a Democrat governor. What then does that look like from sort of an economic outlook? Because I don't know, like I'm trying to think back. I'd have to go back to like early 2000s, mid 2000s, when we had like the co-speakership in the House and we had we had some modicum of Republican leadership. ascendancy that was occurring at the time, but Democrats were still in control, but they had to kind of pay attention to some Republicans at that point. I'm not sure I've ever covered a legislative body that's been split like this. Yeah, this is my first time as well. So I do think like what I'm anticipating is a whole lot of gridlock here. I think Republicans over the last 16 years of governance have have kind of moved the state where they want it to be in terms of our trajectory on tax policy, regulatory policy, and so forth. And so I think the Republican position, which is what the Senate is likely going to hold, is going to be that the current trajectory of the state is better than maybe some alternatives, depending on what House Democrats start talking about. which is very up in the air. You know, Robert Reeves is someone who's willing to work across the aisle. He'll likely be the next house speaker context for your listeners. He's from Chatham County. He's somebody who has been willing to work across the aisle. He has pretty good relationships, but he has a large progressive faction in his caucus that is going to be, they have been consistently filing anti-business bills while they've been in the minority party. We don't expect that to change. Um, obviously governor Stein is going to have his own say on things too, but from what I'm projecting, I think the, uh, the conversations around the negotiating table for the state budget and other policy priorities are going to end up in a lot of stalemates. Yeah. Cause you could see a scenario. Well, these scenario would play out like progressive caucus advances, some crazy bills, um, Reeves and maybe more of the more moderate Democrats in the legislative in the House, they would be like, OK, we can't do all of these things. We're not going to do all of these things. So if they just then kick them over to what rules committee or something, right, they just bury them in committee so they never come out. You can do that for some, but you can't do it for all, because if you do it for all of them, then your caucus gets angry at you and then you got to deal with that. So you maybe you allow some of those bills to move. Bills that you're not going to take a hit on in the next election cycle if you were to vote for them because you don't want to run the bill up and then vote it down in the House, right? And that's where I think Robert Reeves has a very challenging job, and I don't necessarily envy him for that. if you look back at North Carolina history, too, over the years, I think you and I have become accustomed to the speakership being a fairly stable position. And I'm not implying that Robert Reeves is going to lose control of his caucus, but I am saying that it is a very challenging position for him to be in. And I would not be surprised if some legislation that is particularly anti-business, comes out of the House. And obviously, it's going to have to be considered by the Senate, which it may not be considered by the Senate, and I think that's likely, for it to actually make progress in moving towards law. Um, but, but I think you're, you're spot on with that assessment about how legislation will move inside of the state house. Yeah. In the house. Right. Because he could like you, he could let a couple of these anti-business bills come through. They've the Democrats vote. Yes. Republicans vote. No, it goes to the Senate. Senate blocks it. And then they can just beat up on the Senate. Like they, cause they know the Senate's not going to approve them. So that'll give them air cover, basically, to move some of the bills through. The key is what's the substance of the bills that they allow to move through? Can they defend them in a general election? Can they defend them? You can't do some crazy things. That's one of the places Robert Reeves does have something on his side, potentially, assuming he's in alignment with business sometimes. he's going to have to make that argument that now that we are the governing party in the statehouse, we would like to keep that status as a governing party. And so we don't want to do anything that's going to be particularly unpopular when we're up for re-election, a general election in 2028. Right. And if you're looking down the road, you want to stay in the majority through 2030, right? You want to win So this way you can then draw the legislative maps. That's right. And I think that's going to be his best tool for keeping some of these things at bay. Yeah, I agree. All right, we will leave it there. Alex Baltziger from the North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation. ncfree.org is their website. Thanks, Alex. We appreciate your time, sir. Thank you, Pete. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. All right, take care. The holidays will be here before you know it, and so now is the time to create precious and priceless family heirlooms that will last for generations. Take your old photos, slides, films, and tapes to create a video in Mint Hill. There, they'll turn those memories into the story of your lives, memories from past family events captured forever to pass down to future generations. Create-A-Video's skilled team will professionally transfer your family's stories onto easy-to-use USB drives or DVDs, that won't deteriorate over time like the old photos and tapes are doing right now. They will create a keepsake video that you can share and copy and keep forever. I can see it now. 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Number four, immigration and border security. Number five, the war with Iran. Number six, jobs and the economy. Number seven, the cost of healthcare premiums. And coming in at number eight, AI data centers. Only 3% ranked them as first choice. So, then beyond that is abortion and crime. So, uh, no, I don't believe it was the data center, uh, issue at all. Did not play a role at all. It was all about affordability, cost of living. And then of course you have people like, for example, the vice president, JD Vance, um, you know, he's saying it's about the war in Iran because he is equating the, um, cost of living to be the gas prices. And that's Iran war. See, so he's making that connection because he can't say that it's based on inflation because that's really what's driving the cost of living stuff and the government role in all of these different sectors. So he can't say that. So he's going to say the Iran war. And that's also coincidentally, what his pal Tucker Carlson is advocating and what they're arguing in the relationship to Israel, which is also one of the things that J.D. Vance tweeted today. He said, number one, end the war. Number two, focus on cost of living slash inflation. Number three, put America first. Number four, change our relationship to Israel. Okay, so. J.D. Vance making the Tucker Carlson argument, which we have all heard. All right. The dirty secret here is that People want everything for free and they want everything. That's the secret. And it's been that way forever. Nobody, nobody is the adult here. I mean, nobody like you start talking about cutting any kinds of entitlement programs, right? Trump said, no, we're not touching Medicare, social security, none of that stuff, right? Nobody is, nobody wants to touch any of these things. I've talked about this. Medicare, Social Security, these things are going to run out of money in about five and a half, six years. So Roy Cooper is going to be there working on whatever solution. He's going to make stuff cost less. That's what he told us. Not sure how that's possible when like 45% or so of all the spending is for those things. So that's the largest chunk of federal spending. What are you going to do about that? Well, you're not going to do anything about that. Tax the rich, which won't cover the cost. But, you know, envy sells. So they will do that, I'm sure, but that's not going to cover all the costs. So they're going to have to do something, but they can't do cuts. Right? So what are you going to do? Nobody knows. Because nobody wants to tell people the truth, which is, We cannot afford all of the things. In fact, that's the problem they've got in Europe. They've got such a rich welfare system. They don't have enough people paying into the system for all of the people that are on the welfare system. And I don't mean like just, you know, food benefits and housing allowances. I'm talking all of the retirements and pensions, like all of that stuff. You created this massive welfare state in Europe. And now you don't have enough people of working age to support it. And so what are you doing? You're importing all these people to prop it all up. And you see what's happening in Europe, right? That's where we're headed. All right, real quick. Every government number gets revised, right? Every projection gets walked back. Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real. It's in your name. And 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to calendarmetals.com. That's calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. All right. I am now going to turn over these valuable airwaves to you people. I have a lot of text messages to get to. I'm going to try to get to them all. They have been accumulating during the show. One real quick note here first from Austin Padgett. He is a co-host of History 102 and the Austin Padgett Show. He looked at some of the numbers and he said, mathematically speaking, it was not the Iran War either. For example, if you look at Texas, Governor Abbott got 58,000 fewer votes this year than he did four years prior. He said the GOP actually did not do that badly by the standard average midterm number, okay? So if you're just comparing average midterm to average midterm, the Republican turnout looked pretty similar. Democrats, however, voted like it was a presidential election. Why? And he hypothesizes that unlike a lot of people on the right... who think nothing's happening, we ain't got anything, right? The left understood how existential Trump's actions are for them. So they're like, that's why they've been running around like crazy. They've been war gaming out all sorts of ways to, you know, do nullification and get him out of office because they recognize what it is that he is doing. Whereas the demoralization right, they have been, well, demoralizing people. um uh this is from tim high price uh here's my uh post-mortem high prices slash inflation iran war after promising no new wars continuing the ukraine war listening to uh lindsey graham and Benjamin Netanyahu, failure to deport all the illegals, failure to get the establishment Republicans and other swamp creatures to congeal, so codify presidential orders. Thanks, John Thune, Mitch McConnell, Mike Johnson, et cetera. Continued out-of-control spending, failure to keep promises. Good luck getting all of that in any candidate ever. Jay says, my main takeaway is no Republican in North Carolina ran a campaign. Hopefully it does not so far over The edge we cannot recover does not go so far over the edge. 704 number says, tax the rich means tax and destroy the middle class. Of course, those in power will always reap financial benefits. Democrats say they want to address corruption. Really? They're the ones most guilty of it. Making things affordable means government subsidies and higher taxes. Yeah, I mean, that's the... That's the irony of all of this. And, you know, I think Dr. Cooper's point about there being a red undertow jibes with that. All right. I don't know if this is Jacob or Steve. You're giving me two different names. Um, you Republicans must be stupid to think you could have won this midterm. I'm not sure any Republicans thought they were going to, I've been saying from like, I don't make predictions on elections, but I can look at the historical record and the party that controls the white house loses seats in the midterms. That's the norm. That's what I was expecting. Uh, just look at the Trump rating since he took the office. Actually, when he took office, it was pretty high. Cause remember he won, um, It was Liberation Day. That's when his numbers started tanking. It was all the tariffs. He's the one to blame. Any other president, regardless of the party, would have done better than him. I'm not sure about that. He truly destroyed what we Republicans have built for the past few years. Just a reminder, Trump has been the leader of the party for a decade. So, not sure. I mean, if you're talking about pre-2015? 2016? David says, I knew it was going to be bad, but wow, I thought we would have had a lot of split tickets in North Carolina, but I was wrong. Blew all the way down, even the judges. How likely do you think the Dems can find 11 Republicans in the Senate to remove Trump? I think it's possible. 704 says, when Trump is on the ballot, folks turn out because he does what he was hired to do. No need to turn out for Watley, Gramnesty. folks, because they largely obstruct the will of voters and get, I mean, how, well, wait a minute. How do you say that about Wadley? Why do you think Wadley was running around? I mean, Wadley was picked by Trump. Trump's picks, Darlene Graham. She didn't like, they were accused of being rubber stamps for Trump. So I don't know if that, that sounds like an excuse for Trump voters not turning out. Trump over-promised and under-delivered. I believe the Democrats will make the same mistake. Gray says, everyone wants a quick fix and cannot see the big picture of what Trump is trying to do. All I can say is watch out for what you voted for. Yeah, and what you didn't vote for. Because I'm going to get the same crap, you know. We're all living here. We're all going to now have to suffer under Democrat control. Tons of bad candidates. This is from Eric. Tons of bad candidates this cycle, and I think a lot of forward-thinking conservatives sat out because they did not want to be tied to Trump. Watley was a horrible choice, a guy with no record to run on, whose entire platform was essentially, Trump loves me. Paxton had tons of baggage. Darlene Graham's entire platform was, you loved my brother. The fact that all three ballot initiatives won by huge numbers statewide shows voters will get behind actual causes. Um, seven Oh four says Pete, people aren't going to have to worry about the price of gas. They ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till the Democrats get in and start what they did before getting rid of the fossil fuels, uh, shutting down pipelines and trying to force electric cars on everybody. Same as before. People seem to forget that. Okay. Says three reasons for blue. DSA branch of Dems promised all free stuff, health care, food, etc., etc. Second, people angry at Trump going back on word regarding wars. Third, economy, economy, economy. People don't understand it and have attention span of a net. John says, American people are making less money and paying for more living expenses than Every time Trump talks, beating his chest about how great everything is going and how amazing all his projects and renovations are going, it pushes people blue who tell them the economy is most important and they will make things affordable. Money talks. To that point, he says, don't confuse my personal observations as the proper correction that's needed. Socialism will make the economy worse. But when one side says what people want to hear, they get the votes. Trump and MAGA never said what the people wanted to hear. Right. Well, again, elections are about what media make them. And the only way that to break through that is to force the media to cover the stuff that you're talking about. And Trump lacks message discipline, right? When it comes to talking about the economy and certain economic indicators and stuff and when you're telling everybody that everything is fantastic, it's never been better and all of that, like people have firsthand knowledge, right, of their own economic situation. And so even if the economic numbers are good, you can't tell people that what they're experiencing is fantastic if they're not experiencing it. Now, their perception of their experiences may not be completely accurate, could be driven by media narratives as well. That's also part of the equation, but you still have to pay the lip service. Jeff with a G texts in, I am sick. I had a feeling it was going to go badly, but this is cataclysmic. That jar of black pills that was on my nightstand when I woke up is looking pretty tempting. Can't wait to see the demo communists first episode. in taking on affordability as promised. Will it be erase the border and reopen the Niagara Falls of humanity? Cut oil production? Close more gas and diesel refineries? Send our jobs back to China? Impeach Trump and every Republican they can find? They're already threatening incarceration. Lock them up. All of that. Yeah, that should help. Liz. I giggled every time You said your analysis, as my sixth grade sense of humor heard your analysis. That's what I said. I will be the first to admit when I am wrong, Scotty says. I flippantly predicted, since you don't, that the repugnacants would not lose as bad as the media slash everyone was predicting. I mistakenly thought that the majority of Americans Voters would have enough sense not to be putting the folks that don't know what a woman is and have never met an onerous tax they didn't love back into power. I honestly thought that the Democrats have gotten too loony slash socialist for the general population, regardless of the economic situations that stem from the war in Iran. Boy, was I wrong. I guess the good thing is now that the Dems will have the next two years to make total fools of themselves just in time for 28. Having said all that, What the repugnicants basically did to themselves they deserved for not being true to conservative values. Will they ever learn? Look, I said this multiple times last night. I've said it for years. The parties are realigning. I don't know what that looks like. Nobody's going to know what that looks like. And what we are watching is a fight over what the parties become and who will be the dominant coalition partner. The Democrats have two years. If nothing is better, flip the script. Chris says the people of this country was tired of the people like yourself who are Trump butt kissers. Oh, you totally nailed me. That's it. You got me, Chris. Looking past national races, Chris says many states may not realize what they have done to their local legislatures by choosing radical loons. We'll have quick consequences. They've been planning for years for this moment. We should expect to watch more states do what Virginia did last term, but codified in Fed in a federalist way in state constitutions to lock them in. Uh, I think they may have the states required after this to move forward, to get the 270 to nullify the electoral college. You have mentioned this on your show. Um, Yeah, they're very close to doing it. This is what, I mean, think about this. The one Senate district, state Senate district, Danny Britt holds a 300 vote lead. If he loses that with the provisional ballot count, if he loses that and you end up in a tie, that means Democrats control the trifecta. in North Carolina. And if you don't think that they will do to us, what the Democrats in Virginia are doing right now, right? Abortion as a constitutional protected, uh, activity, right? Non-cooperation with ice sanctuary state status. Um, assault weapons bans, like all of it. Like, like if you, like all you people who were like, what about constitutional carry? I'm so angry. Republicans didn't do that in the state. We had like three or two Republican lawmakers that were holdouts on that. And so you want to punish all the Republicans, kick them all out of power. Okay. Do you think you're getting constitutional carry now? Do you think you're going to be able to keep some of your guns now? Um, let's see, Kevin, the fake Republican. I put that name on a t-shirt and made a poster. Well, I am a branding expert and a giver. There you go. Wore it while handing out voting lists and it sparked some great conversations. Turned out your little label helped me persuade a few people to vote my way. Who knew your radio show would become an unofficial Roy Cooper campaign tool? Thanks for the help. You're welcome. I'm a giver. Like I said, this is what I do. Um, Democrats are in a rude awakening. If they think this election is going to solve the economy issues, it's not, it won't. That ship has already sailed. Furthermore, Democrats are going to be disappointed if they think this election is going to resolve their hate for Trump. It's not, it won't. Uh, they're going to be surprised to learn this election will reshape the Americas to a more Muslim centric society. They better be ready. They won't be, they will not recognize that. Um, David, uh, says a lot of reasons. There are a lot of reasons, apathy, Trump fatigue, influx of blue voters from other States. Um, misery loves company. I guess also one thing you mentioned last week, some people don't pay attention or they don't care. They just want to vote for the winning team. Uh, the nice Marie says, um, We can look at this as a bad thing, or we could be happy that the Democrats will release all the Epstein files, lower gas and grocery prices, and lower crime rates by not charging criminals. Right. Yeah, guys. So let's see how you're going to make stuff cost less. Let's see how you do it. You're going to have to find some new tools in your toolkit because nothing you've ever done has ever worked, really. So we'll see. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support. and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalinershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.