The US Senate race in NC is underway (07-24-2025--Hour1)

What's going On? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeatclendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. What is going on? Everybody, Happy Thursday, Welcome to the program News Talk eleven, ten ninety nine three WBT. Enjoy this brisk weather because it's about to go away for like five days. Hey, it's gonna yeah, it was a heat dome. That's the that's the term everybody's using now. A heat dome be over one hundred degrees through like I don't know the rest of our lives. No, it's gonna be like Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday one hundred, one hundred and ten degrees here in Charlotte. Ugh, we will get through it. We will get through it, especially those who have opted out of the throttling of the air conditioning units by Duke Power. But Anyway, let's get to the big news here in North Carolina, which is that number one former Governor Roy Cooper, my good friend Ray as I like to call him, because that's what Hillary Clinton called him when she was campaigning for him in North Carolina, called him Ray Cooper. So tight, those two so tight. And then, if I remember correctly, Kamala Harris also referred to him as Ray Cooper at some point too early on. They then became very good friends, although he would not join her ticket. But anyway, regardless, Roy Cooper expected to announce that he is running for the Senate seat that Tom Tillis is not going to seek reelection. Two. This from the Charlotte Observer by Danielle Battaglia. Morgan Jackson, who is Cooper's advisor longtime advisor, told McClatchy, which is the parent company of the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News and Observer, and I think the Durham Herald Sun maybe I forget, but the McClatchy papers were told by Morgan Jackson yesterday that quote Governor Cooper would be making his intentions known in the coming days. But Axios had already reported that Cooper plans to announce his run next week, and attributed its story to multiple unnamed sources. Jackson told McClatchy that he would not confirm Axios's reporting, So it does appear that Cooper is getting into the race. The twenty twenty six Senate race is expected to be one of the most expensive in the country and closely watched as the swing state of North Carolina could help determine whether Republicans maintain the majority. This is a very favorable map for Republicans. I'm not saying that they can lose North Carolina and be fined, but they don't want to lose North Carolina. But it is going to be a competitive race, and it's going to be a very expensive race, and it will determine whether or not Republicans can expand their current majority, which they have a fifty three to forty seven seat majority in the US Senate. They could actually expand that majority, but they would have to hold North Carolina. They'd have to hold that seat that Tillis currently has. Now Republicans, well, this was written yesterday, so they're weighing names like Laura Trump, Michael Wattley to run in their primary Pat Harrigan, congressman, potentially as well Don Brown, a former JAG officer. He has already declared himself a candidate in the Republican primary, but the filing does not actually open until December first, Okay, so you don't have to drop down the thousands of dollars to file to run for US Senate. You don't have to do that until December one. So and on the Democrat side, you've got Representative former Representative Wiley Nickel. He's already declared multiple times trying to get as much media attention as he could, so he just made his announcement like twice. He's also declared that he wants to run for this US Senate. Se don't know if he will actually do so. With Cooper getting in. If he stays in, that would that I don't know what would happen, especially then if he's going to split, you know, depending on Cooper's positions on things, does he does Wiley Nickel run to the left of Cooper? And if he does that, is that then open up a lane for some other candidate, namely a bipock right, like a black, indigenous person of color, whatever like it could be. You could have somebody come in and try to take. That lane, the non white male lane. But we don't know. My suspicion, this is just a guest. The Democrats have not told me what's going to happen. I have not pulled every single Democrat who could run for the seat. But my suspicion is that Nicol bows out and they're just going to clear the field for Cooper. They want to avoid primary battle that might bloody him up a little bit and make him spend a bunch of money. So I suspect they're going to clear the field for him. Cooper has run in every election since the late nineteen eighties, so he is a fresh face obviously, and donelike Wiley, he has faced multiple statewide races. You know, he was attorney general for four terms I believe sixteen years total. Before that, he was in the legislature for many terms. In fact, he helped pass the most gerrymandered redistricting maps in America, got sued multiple times over it. Talked about how it's nearly impossible to comply with federal rules on how to draw the districts and stuff. But that was before the Democrats lost power and then used redistricting as a cudgel against the Republicans. He has statewide name recognition, that is true, and that statewide profile was amplified as he led North Carolina through the COVID nineteen pandemic, and everybody's got really fond memories of that. So that's definitely going to parlay into support for him. It will redound to his benefit, I am certain. And also he according to the the McClatchy right up here, that he worked with Republicans to achieve Medicaid expansion. Okay, he did not work with Republicans to achieve Medicaid expansion. Okay, Republicans did that on their own. Republicans did that, and then he signed it because he needed a win. He had blocked every budget. He vetoed every single budget, including those with big pay raises for teachers. Right. He sacrificed everything in every budget cycle, vetoing every single budget except for the very last one, which was when Republicans expanded Medicaid, which now is probably going to be unwound because of the big, beautiful bill that was passed up in Congress that did away with the little clever loophole that the Republicans used in order to pass the costs of the expansion on to the federal government, thereby in seeing our national deficit and our crushing debt that will be paid by generations to come. Okay, so Roy Cooper candidate number one, well number two if he count Wiley Nickel. But let's be clear, no one's counting Wiley Nickel. Okay, So it's it's Roy Cooper, and I suspect the field will clear for him. Nobody else will challenge him. And because my goodness, like, look what he did to fellow Democrats in the legislature when they crossed him. He primaried them, right, he got them primaried. So I suspect that he will issue the same sorts of ham fisted, heavy handed threats against Democrats that try to run against him, that they will have, you know, no role in Democrat politics if if they challenge him, I would have no reason to believe he would not issue a similar threat to his fellow Democrats like he already has in the past. He's done him multiple times. Like I said, he primaried these these other lawmakers because they didn't toe the line for him on every single veto override vote. And he did it with the HB two debate. Oh, that's right, the HB two debate. That might not actually be helpful to him. Now, Oh, what a difference fifteen years makes. But also now we have a Republican candidate. After Lara Trump said she will not run for this Senate seat, we got Michael Watley, the RNC chair, the former North Carolina GOP chairman. He is expected to run for the Republican nomination. We'll do that bit up next. All right, if you're. 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Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. News Talk eleven ten ninety nine three WBT seven oh four five seven zero eleven ten is the number dial if you'd like to join the program. That is also the same number as the WBT text line, coincidentally driven by Liberty Buick GMC wbt's text line. You can also email me Pete at the petecalnarshow dot com. You can hit MP on Twitter at Pete callener. We got the smoke signal reader out back, the telegraph wires coming through loud and clear. So yeah, we are good to go. All right, So we've got Roy Cooper on the Democrat side, over on the Republican side. This from Politico Lara Trump, who the President had previously asked to run. This is Eric Trump's wife, so Donald Trump's daughter in law. She has decided to remain as host of her weekly show on Fox News. She's expected to back Michael Wattley, with whom she co chaired the RNC last year, and the two will likely appear together in the near future. According to the people who were granted anonymity to discuss the plans in advance, public announcement is expected in the next week to ten days. Wattley is the chairman of the Republican National Committee. He's also been a key figure in North Carolina GOP politics and is reportedly preparing to enter the race. This from The Carolina Journal Wattley's anticipated run. This is by Donna King. By the way, Wattley's anticipated run signals a major development in North Carolina's political landscape. A former chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, I believe he held that post for five years, Wattley has been a close ally of President Donald Trump and has played a central role in shaping the GOP's election integrity messaging. His rise to RNC chair in twenty twenty four solidified his position as a national conservative leader with deep state level routs. Not deep state level, but deep state level roots okay. During his time as NC GOP chair from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three, Wattley helped Republicans expand their legislative majorities. Supporters say he positioned the party for long term success in statewide elections. His entry could deter other Republican hopefuls, especially if Donald Trump offers an early endorsement, which from the reports I have heard from various sectors and people, that will occur. However, conservative challengers may emerge depending on how the primary unfolds. So far, Andy Nilson of the Triad has already declared his candidacy for the primary, supporting a Trump hat. Also I mentioned em earlier, Don Brown. He ran for Congress. He ran for the seat that Dan Bishop vacated when he ran for Attorney General. Don Brown ran for that seat. He was not successful in the Republican primary. Mark Harris won that seat, won the nomination, and then won the seat in the general. But Don Brown has declared plans to challenge till Us in the GOP primary, so we don't know if he will intend to continue that run. If Michael Wattley is the guy that walks into the race with a Trump endorsement in his pocket. Right, So back to the Politico story. Wattley was elected RNC chair in March of twenty twenty four, led the party, alongside Lara Trump, to sweeping victories up and down the ballot in last year's elections. Republicans believe that Wattley's connections with donors will be an asset in what will likely be one of the most expensive races in next year's elections. And that is true. Okay, that is true. There's a reason why Republicans believe this. It's because it is true. Okay. Michael Wattley, when he was North Carolina GOP chairman, went all over the place and got donations from all over the country from all sorts of people. He brought in all sorts of national figures to help with various races up in Asheville when I was up there, he brought Ted Cruz to town and did a meet and greet campaign event at the time for I'm trying to remember what race would that have been twenty Probably it may have been the Well because Madison Cawthorne was there. Tim Moore was there, but he was still Speaker of the House. Trying to remember who it might have been Tillis. It may have been Tom Tillis's last reelection. That would make sense because that would have been in twenty Yeah, I think so at any rate, or maybe it was maybe it was eighteen, but anyway, So Wadley has a very thick roll ofdex and when he went to the RNC, now obviously the network that he is able to build out gets even bigger, right, and he's going. To need that. Any candidate is going to need that, and so he would be the best positioned as far as I know, Like, I haven't heard any other names of any other Republicans in North Carolina that have expressed an interest in running for this seat. There's also you know, you always got to keep in mind that it's the midterms in a Republican presidency, and that usually does not benefit the party that is in power in the White House, right, The president's party generally loses seats in the midterm elections, and you know, maybe that changes this time. It has there are anomalies, right that has occurred in the past, and so it's possible we could see that trend break differently this time around. That's possible, But Watley is able to walk in. While he doesn't have a lot of name ID like Roy Cooper has, he does have a huge fundraising donor network, not just in. State, but out of state as well. He's also going to likely have Donald Trump's endorsement because Donald Trump, you know, seems to to love Michael Wattley. He's he's always touting him. He's always pointing him out and saying Watley did a great job. So, like, I got to believe that Trump would make that endorsement. He Trump is expected to announce Wattley's replacement at the RNC around the time that he announces his Senate campaign. So I made some notes to just kind of, you know, handicap the race a little bit. I'm not making a prediction, don't. I think anybody would be a fool to make a prediction on this Senate race now, especially now, but even you know, going into the election, because North carol these races are always super close, these US Senate races, They're always very very close, you know, two points one to two points, that's what we're talking about. Democrats are targeting North Carolina as a potential pickup opportunity in a map that otherwise favors Republicans. This is from the political article, and that's true. The overall national map for the Senate races that are open this time around or in twenty twenty six. Those you know, there are a lot of seats that are solid Republican seats. There are a lot of Republican seats that they don't have to defend this time around, a lot of Democrat seats they do have to defend, and states that are purple or voted for Trump with a Democrat US senator that's giving them some adjita, you might say. So they've got some challenges. The map favors Republicans. We'll go over some of the handicapping notes here in a moment. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. 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Just talk eleven ten ninety nine three WBT seven oh four five seve eleven ten. Email is Pete at the Pete calendershow dot com. Here is one email from David If the North Carolina Senate race ends up becoming a battle of Wattley versus Cooper, with Wattley having the Trump war machine behind him, Cooper will get his butt handed to him on a silver platter multiple times. Well you only have one butt, David, so it will be like an old school wrestling match, no holds barred, loser leave town. Yeah. I again, I don't make predictions on election outcomes any longer, not since twenty sixteen. I don't make these predictions. I'll just wait and see what happens. Just like you. People can believe, you know, and hope and think that they can, you know, read the tea leaves, and maybe they're right sometimes, but nobody's right one hundred percent of the time. So and then of course you never hear people. Say I was wrong. I was totally wrong. Listen to me for future predictions. You know. This is from somebody on the text line regarding Roy Cooper. Not only am I opposed to his political decisions, most of which were simply vetoing legislation, but I really dislike his condescending way of communicating with the public. He sounds like mister Rogers addressing a group of kindergarteners. This was one of my biggest beefs with Cooper and Cohen, C and C during the I call them the C and C music factory. But anyway, during their COVID briefings, they talked to us like we were children, and it was infuriating. Now, I don't know if people enjoy being spoken to like that, And I'm just the outlier here, but I don't think I am. You know, I don't think I am. And I don't know if that's going to play as well with a like a national kind of audience. Maybe it does, but it doesn't really matter because they don't vote in our state elections. And maybe there are enough North Carolinians that to be talked to like this. We'll see another text. Wiley Nickel is the womp candidate, white upper middle class progressive womp whose base will be suburbs of places like Raleigh, Charlotte, and Nashville. Cooper, coming from Nash County, is the remnant of the rural white Democrat and has had to evolve to survive. Don Davis would be the BIPOC candidate if he chose to get in right, and I don't think he is getting in. He might. I would be surprised if he does. And here's the thing. Roy Cooper has enjoyed that Nash County origin story and that you know, the super syropy southern drawl that he has, the you know that makes him sound like mister Rogers talking to kindergartners. And is that going to be enough to get people to vote for him in this kind of a scenario. I don't think so. The governor's race and a Senate race are different and kinds of races. In fact, let me jump over here and do This is from our buddy Andrew Dunn at long Leaf Politics, who spent a lot of time with Michael Wattley during the twenty twenty campaign when he was in charge of the North Carolina GOP. And in twenty twenty, that's when Dan Forest was running against Roy Cooper, and Dunn worked for Cooper or worked for Forrest, and he says what I saw wasn't just a sharp strategist. I saw one of the hardest workers in North Carolina politics, methodical, focused, and tireless. The US Senate, as opposed to the governor's race, the Senate is a nationalized race. By its very nature, voters care less about personality and more about direction. Who controls the chamber, what's at stake for the country. That's the arena that Wattley is built for. He's got deep ties to national donors as well as conservative groups. He knows how to assemble a campaign team, and he knows how to message with discipline. Most importantly, he understands what this race will be about, which is a referendum on Trump era conservatism and whether North Carolina still supports it. Wattley is not a flashy guy, but he is aligned with the current moment, and that gives him a real shot to win. Republicans need someone who can turn out the base without hemorrhaging swing voters, someone who can run a focused, disciplined, and well financed campaign. Wattley very well might be that person. Don't underestimate him. I think that's sound analysis. Michael Wattley will not scare off suburban voters. He won't. He comes across as a nice guy, right, I mean, yes, he's a Republican, He's a Trump Republican, and so you know he's going to be a to defend the issues and the philosophy and. All of that. But he's not like a fire breather like along the lines of say Mark Robinson, He's not that kind of a candidate. He's not that kind of a person. So he's going to be much more palatable for a lot of these voters that you know, I don't want to feel icky when I pull the lever, you know. So let's take a look real quick at Roy Cooper. Actually, hang on, he's going to take more time, So let me do this for These are some of the notes I made about Wattley. It's true he's never been a candidate. Okay, he's never run for any office before, which is a pro and a con. The pro is that he's sort of a blank slate. He doesn't have any votes attached to his name, right, But as head of the party, he's made a lot of public statements. He knows a lot about campaigns. He's done a lot of media, so he knows how all of this stuff works. He's good on TV and that's important. He also has a vast network of donors to help him. He's going to have a lot of people that owe him. As former North Carolina GOP chairman and the former RNC chairman, right, there are a lot of people that he has helped win election and so he's going to be able to call them up and say can you help me, and they will, you know, feel obliged and want to do so. Now the flip. Side is he's going to be tied to everything Trump and GOP because of those roles. Right, They're going to be able to say he was the GOP chairman when the GOP did everything right. Here's another thing. He knows firsthand Roy Cooper's record here in North Carolina. So unlike say Lara Trump, Michael Wattley was here. For all of this. He was, you know, boots on the ground during all of Cooper's term, and so he knows the stuff that Cooper did. He is well acquainted with the issues and the weaknesses and strengths that Cooper brings to the table. Now, one of the things Democrats are already trying to do is to tie Wattley to Mark Robinson. Because Wattley was the chair and because as chair you're trying to get all of your candidates elected. He came out in favor of Mark Robinson. He was defending Mark Robinson, he for Lieutenant governor. He helped to get him elected. In all of this, and they're going to try to hang Mark Robinson around Wattley's neck. So there's that one final point real quick on Lara Trump. Thank you and kudos to Lara Trump for coming out as soon as she did when the writing was on the wall and the reports broke yesterday that Cooper was going to be getting in. Her initial statements prior to yesterday were that she was going to make a decision by Thanksgiving because the deadline defile is December one, and that would have completely crippled any Republican if she decided not to run. That would have been four months wasted for a potential Republican candidate to start their race. But by immediately coming out and saying I'm not running for this, it now cleared the field because everybody was waiting for her to say whether she would or would not run. And I said last time on my live stream, she needs to come out asap, and I woke up this morning and she had. And so thank you because you have not handstrung the Republican Party and their potential to get a nominee on the ground and running very quickly. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. 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Steve in Indian Trail says, I like Laura Trump, but I'm glad she's not running, at least not now. Maybe she will run after Trump's presidency is over, which I would support. All Right, so let me go over some of the notes I've I jotted down here about Roy Cooper. Number one, he is popular, right, he won reelection. He's won all of his statewide races. He is perceived at least to be a moderate. Okay, people think he's a moderate, but he votes progressive leftists on all sorts of stuff. He has won every state wide race he's ever run in. He won in twenty sixteen, he won in twenty twenty, even when the state went for Trump. He can point to this is according to WRAL, they were correct. He can point to North Carolina's booming economy during his two terms as governor, even though the Republican led legislature is responsible for that. Boom, but he will point to it. But Michael Wattley can say, well, that was the Republican legislature that you vetoed everything that they tried to do. We boomed in spite of you. Roy Cooper has been able to tap into outside money and out of state interests, which he cultivated first in his HB two fight back in twenty sixteen against Pat McCrory. And speaking of HB two, that was a long time ago, a long time ago. The politics of that issue, transgender, bathroom access, boys on girls, teams, all of that stuff that has now changed. We were the canary in the coal mine on that. He was wrong on that issue. He was on the wrong side of that issue at the time, but he was rewarded for it because of the outside influences of money and media. Could he pay the price for it now? It's possible, Maybe he changes his stance on some of these trans related issues, right, that's possible now too. Cooper has never faced the kind of ad blitz and attacks that he's now going to face. Okay, the interest from out of state national money is it will be unlike anything he has ever experienced, because it's just not the same when you're running for governor in a weak governor state. And you know, Mark Robinson's candidacy like Josh against Josh Stein is a good example of it. People you know, started moving money towards the race and then you know, things were like, oh, we don't want anything to do with that, and then all the money dried up for Robinson and Cooper had all of the Cooper had a thick roll of decks as well, because he had cultivated that with HB two on the trans issue in twenty sixteen to defeat Pat McCrory. He has a weakness. I would submit in all of the vetos, of all of the budgets and all the teacher pay raises. Right, he can't claim credit for getting Medicaid expansion done, although he will try. But that wasn't him that did it. The big one, one of the big ones, the COVID lockdown policies, right, and the fact that he marched with BLM around the Governor's mansion with his fist in the air like the COMI fist and the mask dangling off of his face. He took his mask off during COVID. You're going to see that photo all over the place. That's my prediction. Okay, you're going to see that photo of him walking around with the mask because it's the perfect encapsulation of the elite right. I set all these rules, I lock you down, but then BLM comes to town and I'm going to march in solidarity with BLM, and I'm going to ignore my own mask rules because it serves a political purpose. Also major problem for him his disastrous respet to disasters, going back to the very first term twenty sixteen, Hurricane Matthew, Hurricane Florence, and then Hurricane Helene. They are going to tag him on all of that. You got people down East that are still not back in homes a decade after Hurricane Matthew, and that's on him. A recovery office that was so bad that Josh Stein had to set up a brand new office and just start from scratch. Where what's his position on ice? Does he have vetoes there that hamstrung ice? Does he have any foreign policy positions laid out? He does not. What's his stance on Gaza, because as a member of the Senate, you're going to have to talk about that. It's foreign policy related. So what are his foreign policy aims? Is he pro Israel? Is he anti Israel. Does he go full radical? What does Roy Cooper do on these issues? It's going to be difficult, yeah, because he may very well alienate his base, and if he does it early enough, maybe some people do end up voting for a candidate that's more radical progressive, left wing than Roy Cooper. Not enough to make him lose the primary, of course, but do they stay home in the general. These are all questions that we will be watching. 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 thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.