- [Host] We examine the gubernatorial race, as early voting concludes and Super Tuesday awaits.

And the UNC system takes final control over any potential campus decisions to leave the Atlantic Coast Conference.

This is "State Lines."

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[thrilling music] ♪ [thrilling music continues] ♪ - Hello again.

Welcome to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me on the Allstar panel this week, our good friend, Senior Political Analyst for the John Locke Foundation, Mitch Kokai, to his right Dawn Vaughn, Capital Bureau Chief for "The News and Observer," Political and Election Reporter for "Carolina Public Press."

Welcome to "State Lines," Mehr Sher, and Political Correspondent for "Cardinal & Pine," Michael McElroy.

Thank you so much.

Good morning.

Hello.

- Thanks for having us.

- Hello.

Good evening, good weekend.

Alright.

The "Carolina Forward" party released a poll this week tracking the North Carolina Gubernatorial Primary State Attorney General Josh Stein is leading the Democratic primary field so far with 49% support.

Second place is uncommitted with nine 39%, with 8% supporting former State Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan.

There you see Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson.

He's leading the GOP field with 57% support, followed by state treasurer Dale Folwell, and Attorney, Bill Graham.

Nine percent each.

22% of Republican primary voters polled are undecided in that poll carries a 2.6% margin of error.

Dawn, for what it's worth, seems pretty accurate.

It was for likely voters.

Take it away.

- Well, you know, anything can still happen, but we're probably looking at a Stein Robinson matchup.

The undecided might be like likely primary voters who decide they're not gonna vote after all, or they don't like anybody, or they'll decide when it's right, the ballots right in front of them, and they have to make a decision.

But Stein and Robinson have been in the lead all year, in their respective primaries, and it looks like they've maintained that, they're raising plenty of money, they're getting a lot of attention whether or not how much they talk to, you know, those in the media.

So that looks like the, the matchup that's coming.

And I wrote a story this week where the lead was "Buckle Up," because assuming that's how it goes after the primary, the rest of this year is gonna have so much national attention, mainly because the governor's race is tied to the presidential race too.

- Mahr, you're covering elections and democracy for "Carolina Public Press."

What do you make of the gubernatorial race?

After Tuesday, we should have some more clarity on the big two, and where does it go from here?

- I mean, I have to agree with Don.

It seems like that's the matchup we're looking at, and both of them are very ideologically different.

They're on opposite sides of the aisle, so it'll be interesting to see what direction North Carolina decides to head in.

I think what I'm very interested in, and I did report on this a couple of weeks ago as well, is the campaign finance investigation of, into allegations of campaign finance violations that may have been committed by Mark Robinson.

They amount to about $500,000.

So I'm interested to see whether we're going to get an outcome, or whether that investigation is going to reach its conclusion before the general election, it did not reach its conclusion before the primary.

So that's what I'm keeping my eye on, and to see how that affects voters and whether that affects how they vote.

- Mike, what do you make of the, all those folks double digits?

Second place in both primaries is uncommitted.

Do you believe voters are really that undecided in this primary field?

Or does some folks just don't want to tell the pollster, "This is who I really support?"

- Well, I may be a rarity in the politics world, in which I hate polls with all of my body, but I don't think they tell us much.

And, but I will say that this poll, which is a fine poll for polls, shows us what we kind of already knew.

We've already known this, but the thing that jumped at me in the data was 44% of respondents said they planned to vote in the primary, the Republican primary.

So this was tilted toward, you know, Republican, likely Republican voters.

And that still had head-to-head matchup of 1%.

Well, Robinson over Stein win, a 1% Dan Bishop over likely Jeff Jackson win.

So even among heavily Republican are more tilted toward Republican voters, they still, it was a very, very close result.

And that's well within the margin of error.

So what we knew, what we know, is what we knew, which is this is gonna be a super, super tight election even with Trump and Biden.

But what isn't close is the difference between these candidates on the issues.

There is stark differences, reproductive rights and climate change, just number two of them.

Those happen to be very important issues for young voters.

And young voters are engaging in record numbers according to Next Gen America that tracks these things and talks to these voters.

Now admittedly, young voters have historically underengaged, but they are engaging in record numbers.

And so it's gonna be super close.

But the, I think the issues are the more important thing and there's this stark divide, and the more voters learn about that stark divide, I think the more clarity they'll get.

- Mitch, he says the, the poll might have leaned Republican.

The folks in the the "Carolina Forward" party reach out to me on Twitter and send notes and things, and they're very cordial, and I don't know who it is behind that, but they're very nice and informative.

They would not say they are a right anywhere near conservative group.

So what do you make of the poll?

I mean, any poll, it's just, it's just something to talk about to get our conversation started this week.

What do you, what does it say?

Is it gonna be a tight race, or do you think the voters will absolutely galvanize down ballot, much less with Trump and Biden at the top.

- It's gonna be a tight race.

It's gonna be a tight race.

And we know that because of what we see in the open Governor's race, but also what we see in the presidential front.

I mean, remember last time around, Donald Trump won the state's electoral votes, but it wasn't a landslide.

He won by less than 75,000 votes, or about one and a half percentage points.

And a lot of people who vote, really vote based on the presidential race.

And then they say, "Okay, well where am I gonna go beyond that?"

Sometimes they just say, "Well, I'll vote for everyone else in that same party."

But sometimes they pick and choose.

We know that one thing that really helped Roy Cooper, were the Trump-Cooper voters, the people who would vote for Trump, but then vote for Roy Cooper.

For me, the most interesting thing about the gubernatorial race, and you know, everything has been pointing since the day after Roy Cooper won re-election, to it being a Stein Robinson matchup.

I think people, if you had to tell... Make them bet money, would've said, right then, that those would be the people who would be up for it.

For Stein, he has won two statewide elections, but they were both very close, razor thin.

So does he get some of the advantage of having followed Roy Cooper, who was a very popular Democrat, and does he get an advantage from people who are concerned about Mark Robinson?

For Mark Robinson, does he really pay a penalty for all of the things that he has said that have rubbed people the wrong way?

And, as we know, there have been rumblings about things that we haven't yet heard about Mark Robinson's past.

And you have to assume Stein's people know them and are waiting, just waiting for the end of that primary to start unleashing them.

- I mean, Stein's a higher profile as Attorney General.

Very, very close race.

You know.

Robinson won lieutenant governor, but a lot of people don't know who the lieutenant governor is or what the lieutenant governor does.

They have very little power.

They sit on board some of... Dale Folwell, he's the state treasurer running against Robinson in the primary, in the Republican primary, his criticism has been... And Bill Graham, the other candidate, has been that Robinson doesn't show up for work, which really is just sitting on some boards.

And you have a nice historic house for your office.

The lieutenant governor also has an office at the legislature and supposed to preside over the Senate.

But we all know that Senate leader, Phil Berger, is the one that presides over the Senate most of the time, he did that.

Also, the last lieutenant governor, who is a Republican, Dan Forest, and Forest lost to Cooper this past time by a much bigger gap.

Still a small gap.

I think it was 5% or even less.

But that's a big difference than Trump winning North Carolina voters over Biden by 1.34%.

So we could be looking at Trump squeaking by, winning North Carolina voters again, maybe, maybe not, but then voters would choose Stein.

So... - On the not showing up for work thing, I had heard from someone who's been working at some of these campaigns that, among Republican voters, that was about the only thing to Robinson that would stick.

That if you said he didn't show up for work, that hurt him a little bit.

But all of the other things didn't hurt him, didn't hurt him with the Republican primaries.

- Not the financial stuff.

Yeah.

- The legislature gutted that...

The lieutenant governor's role is almost a figurehead role.

You can't knock the lieutenant governor for having a weak office.

That's by design.

- No, but they can... You know, they have very few things to do, that, like, by design.

So the criticism would be that you don't do the... You make it what you want.

So the race now for lieutenant governor, the Democratic front runner is Rachel Hunt.

So she's a current state senator, so she could use it to make it more of an education platform.

And two of the Republican lieutenant governor primary candidates also have education backgrounds.

Former Senator Deanna Ballard, who chaired the Senate Education Committee, and then Representative Jeffrey Elmore, who is a teacher.

[indistinct] And he's been on your show.

Yeah.

- To the undecided vote here, do you feel voters at the end of the day will be...

Fear of missing out, that FOMO effect where you have to vote, whether you vote for your candidate or vote against someone, can you afford to sit out an election if it's this hot and it's...?

The candidates are this different?

- I mean, I guess we'll have to see, but I do agree with you.

It is, you know, that there's a... And I agree with what everyone said here today, is that there is, like, a stark divide between these two candidates and there are a lot of pressing issues at play, so voters would wanna turn out for those.

But what we see most prominently displayed is a culture war of sorts, because both of them have very different ideologies.

And I think it's reflective of where we're at in the state as well.

The politics in the state is deeply divided.

It's not just divided between the two parties, but within the parties as well.

We were talking about Mark Robinson's rhetoric and some of the things he said earlier.

He's made some controversial statements.

People have said some of the things that he said have been Islamophobic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Jewish.

And so if he becomes governor, will that lead to a divide between, or among Republicans because of that rhetoric if it continues?

I think there's a lot of different issues at play, and it's a heated election.

It could be a contentious election.

So let's see how the young voters turn out.

- Michael, it's one thing to vote Trump in 2020 and then vote Cooper for reelection.

How does Josh Stein convince a Trump voter to vote for him, since there's a retail branding difference between Roy Cooper of Nash County and Josh Stein, I think from Raleigh?

[indistinct] Chapel Hill even plays into...

It would play into the political debate and in the narrative.

- Well, the attorney general race is a statewide race as well.

And it was close, but he won those things.

And Trump has won, you know, every... Has won North Carolina every year that he's done it.

So there's overlap between...

Potentially between Stein and Trump voters anyway.

But I really do think, at least among young voters, everything I hear from them and from the organizations that track them is that, the idea of party loyalty, even candidate loyalty sometimes, is fading.

And it's about issues.

And I really do think that there's not much difference.

Any that can come to my head between Cooper and Stein on the issues.

There's nothing but distance between Robinson and Stein on the issues.

And I really do think, as naive as it may sound, that this is gonna be...

Ultimately gonna be decided by issues voters and not party of voters.

Because the party voters are here.

They're done.

They've got that mark already.

So it's gonna be... [indistinct] - And one last thing to note, you said, "What for the people who don't wanna show up?"

Well, if you signed up for the no labels party, you can't vote in any primary.

- You'll vote in the general.

You brought that up a few weeks ago.

- Should've picked unaffiliated then, right?

[laughs] [indistinct] - And unaffiliated is the biggest voting block in North Carolina.

- Yeah.

You can pick whichever ballot you want.

- And also among young voters.

- And the state law is helpful for that because you can, as an unaffiliated voter, vote in either primary anytime.

You can...

If you...

If there's a runoff you have to vote in the primary that you voted in the first time.

But each election cycle you could decide whether you would rather vote Republican, or vote Democrat, or not.

- There you go.

Staying on popular topics besides partisan politics, what's more popular than your local homeowners association where a State House committee is recommending some new legislation that would... Could limit actions of homeowners associations?

The State House did pass a bill last year, but the Senate would not address the issue, so this house committee is back.

It's gonna propose 30 day deadline on HOA records request, requirements that HOA boards get owner approval for annual dues increases greater than 10% a year, non-judicial foreclosures would be heavily limited for unpaid dues and fines, and homeowners would be recommended to enter mediation over over a lawsuit when you're arguing with the HOA board.

Ah, people love an HOA, they like the community pool and the this and the that, but they don't like their HOA board.

Sounds like Congress.

- [laughs] Well, I think that you would find some disagreement about whether people like HOAs that much.

I mean, I think some do, but a lot don't.

And it's because it's not all that transparent.

And it seems as if these groups have a lot of power to do things even though they aren't really elected in the traditional sense and don't have the, and aren't governments.

So it's a case of people saying, "wait a minute, why does this group have so much power over my personal property?"

And I think that, and especially when you're dealing with that issue that you mentioned, raising the dues, raising the dues more than 10%, having to have some sort of vote from the entire group rather than just the board.

I think this will play very well with a lot of people in the general assembly.

What'll be interesting to see is if the Senate has any more interest than it did before.

If not, it'll be an issue that dies once again.

- Well- - It sounds like they're trying to be more legislative branch than executive.

Where it's like telling you what to do and actually have more people involved.

But yeah, the Senate is good at saying "nope," in a lot of ways.

But, it's the House messaging what they'd like to do this session.

- When you opt in, Mehr, to you opting into an HOA, you buy a house you have to sign.

- [Mehr] There's no choice, right?

- Well, you have a choice whether you buy the house.

So you are opting in to joining a volunteer local government.

What's the beef here?

It's localism, it's democracy at its finest, right?

Democracy reporter?

- I mean, yes.

And I think that if these changes do go through, what we'll see is a lot more state oversight of homeowner associations limiting their powers.

And I mean, it would have far reaching statewide effects.

There are 14,000 homeowner associations in the state.

And over the past three years, there have been 357 complaints to the State Attorney General's office.

So it does seem like there's an issue there.

There is some contention there.

Perhaps this could be a solution, the changes that are being proposed, but there's a lot of unknowns.

I think questions that I have about this are is how's this gonna be enforced?

Which state agency is going to oversee this?

And we're gonna figure that out once the legislative session begins in April.

- Mike, don't you just know that Attorney General's just ready to field all those HOA complaint calls if a bill passes and they have oversight over HOAs.

However, to the point, I mean, Senator Frank Iler down in Brunswick County, which is a lot of new growth down there, a lot of homeowners associations.

He's hearing it enough and has heard it enough for so many years.

He is doing what his people want him to do down there.

And what do you make of this issue?

Is it even something to worry about if you're a citizen?

- Well, I mean the... thing that keeps clanging around in my head is that an HOA can initiate foreclosure for unpaid fees or dues even if your mortgage payments are off awesome and perfect.

And that's, it's just insane.

It's just insane.

So some, something has to happen.

I will say that these homeowners absolutely deserve this kind of protection, but I mean, evictions and foreclosures are going through the roof in North Carolina.

And so I think people who work two jobs just to keep their rent paid, rent's going up, wages aren't, I think they are deserving of protections as well.

So yes, I'm glad to see that the General Assembly wants to do it.

'Cause I know that the General Assembly hates telling other groups how to work.

[group laughing] - You know it's bad when- - Tell 'em verbally achieve- - You know it's bad when journalists can't even be non-partisan and balanced on the issue of HOA.

You just see the fuel rising up.

And by full disclosure, I'm an HOA president and I'm probably due for retirement to be quite honest.

[group laughing] Last week, the sixth congressional district race for US House involved alleged false endorsements.

Well, this week, this is interesting.

A deep fake artificial intelligence created video completely misrepresented Republican candidate Mark Walker.

In fact, there's two videos.

I was only able to find one of them.

What we are going to show you is a deep fake, it is a fake political ad.

It is not Mark Walker speaking, but it's something you need to see.

Check this out.

- [AI] This race has been much harder than I expected for Congress.

I am in way over my head this time wishing I could just go back to living in Summerfield in a nice home with my family.

Colonel Castelli will most likely win because he has the serious military background and leadership skills I simply don't have.

Also, I have been caught in so many lies.

The public now knows more about me than my own family.

I hope you will forgive me for dragging you into this and we can still be friends.

We'll talk next week, okay?

- Alright.

[claps] That's done on purpose, Mike.

And that purposely misleads voters, I don't care who you are.

What do you make of that?

That this is where we are in politics now.

Propaganda.

- I will say this, AI generated the audio, but it didn't just do it on its own.

Somebody asked it to do that.

And I think that's, it's very scary.

The thing that... scary things are sometimes funny and the... scariest and funniest thing to me is how completely off his mouth those words were.

And so what really then scares me is when the sophistication and the competence of the people using these tools matches the technology's ability to actually do it.

I will say that it must be said that the candidate Christian Costelli said he has nothing to do with the super pack - [Kelly] Sure, it's a pack, yeah.

- That did it.

He gave the News and Observer some strong quotes against why they should never have done it.

And he said something like, his communications manager probably doesn't know about this yet, but I'll be happy to tell my communications manager, which he probably should have known about it.

But it's widely condemned.

But this super pack also said Mark Robinson endorsed Costelli when he only did that in the previous election, not this one.

- Okay.

So it's, it's weird.

I think the terrain that it speaks about is very dangerous and very weird.

It's gonna get much worse.

Again, once it's competent, it's gonna be really a problem.

But disinformation has been around forever.

These kinds of things have been around forever.

I mean, Nixon's team was rife with it.

So it's not a new problem.

Excuse me, but the effects and dangers are going to grow.

- Mehr, that's clearly on X.

It was on Twitter, it was posted, so it's on your phone.

And you know how small a screen is.

My eyes aren't that good.

How good was that ad to be a fake and to purposely mislead?

- I think it was pretty good.

It was kind of funny to watch [laughs], but this is a major issue, on a serious note.

What you just mentioned is that the propaganda's been around, disinformation has been around, but the technology has changed.

I mean, deep fakes can be very convincing.

I know in the Sixth Congressional District, it was more about false endorsements, but deep fakes, AI-generated videos, AI-generated robocalls and texts can also lead to voter suppression efforts and voter intimidation, and that's not something new either.

We saw that in New Hampshire just about a month ago, well, I guess now you would say two months ago, in January during the primary, where there were AI-generated robocalls in President Joe Biden's voice urging voters not to vote.

And then New Hampshire authorities investigated this.

Then we had the FCC decision, the Federal Communications Commission decision, making robocalls illegal, AI-generated robocalls.

So the fact that the FCC has taken action on something like this means that this technology is a concern in this election.

And based on conversations I've had with different experts over the past couple of weeks, we're probably gonna see a lot more of this, so maybe we'll see even more regulation.

And we also saw a similar instance in 2020 on the last day of the election.

North Carolina had the most AI-generated robocalls, about 1 million.

So this is an issue that we're gonna see a lot more of in different ways, whether it's deep fakes, whether it's texts, whether it's calls, and I think voters and the public at large have to be careful about the source, whether this video is coming from the right source, whether the information is confusing, and verify it.

- Dawn, the big deal's that's that's a fake video.

So we're all laughing and joking about a fake video, but now it's in our conscious that there was a fake video about Mark Walker.

How do we separate that and go completely dismiss versus the next wave of something's gonna happen before Super Tuesday?

And then how do we make sure that kind of misinformation doesn't stick?

- It's laughable at first.

Like you were talking about competence, like, it's incompetent, but also only because we know that that's not Mark Walker's voice.

If you've ever talked to Mark Walker or heard him speak and, like, why would he say that and everything?

But, yeah, it's lying.

It's fake.

It's lying.

What's the penalty?

We don't have any state lawmakers on this episode, but I would ask them, well, what are you gonna do in the next session?

Are new laws necessary?

Are different penalties necessary?

What is gonna be the accountability for doing this sort of thing?

Because, y'know, you're lying, you need to be held accountable.

- Mitch, by the time this is done, it's done.

You can go after whoever you think made the video, but here we are.

I mean, you dropped the bomb, if you will.

- Yeah, this is bad and there should be some discussion about what to do to block it in the future.

I'm not as worried about the example that you've played because it is so outlandish and Mark Walker never would've said that, but the problem is, like the discussion earlier about a call from Joe Biden telling people not to vote, maybe that would seem outlandish too, but some people might hear it and think, "oh, the president's telling me not to vote.

Maybe I shouldn't vote."

There could be much more realistic things where you play something that's supposedly some backdoor conversation that people had that they didn't want people to hear and it comes across as very realistic.

I think that would be the real problem from these deep fakes.

- Alright, we've got about a minute and a half.

I want to touch on the United Nations now calling the Cape Fear River's pollution with PFAS, or Forever Chemicals, now a human rights violation.

The Chemours Chemical Plant, formerly operated and owned by DuPont, over in Fayetteville, dumped these forever chemicals in the river for decades and some North Carolinians have petitioned the UN to consider the issue.

PFAS chemicals are used in non-stick cookware, water-repelling clothing, pizza boxes, and other products.

They're manmade so they never break down, Mayor.

The UN panel's called out everyone from the EPA right down to the Fayetteville local officials.

What's your take on this, the UN getting involved in an issue in Fayetteville, North Carolina?

Does it matter?

- Well, I think it matters because it's a novel development.

We haven't had an international body address this issue within the human rights framework, so that is unique.

But I think it remains to be seen whether there will be any tangible consequences.

In the statement that the UN issued, they condemned Chemours and DuPont and they also said that the EPA should hold the polluters accountable.

What that accountability looks like, we don't know.

The US government hasn't given a comment on this, to my knowledge.

So we'll have to see what consequences come from this, whether there's a debate on human rights and PFAS or whether there's some sort of tangible actions and more accountability for companies like Chemours.

I think something that the public should remember is that Chemours has, y'know, Chemours and DuPont have known that these chemicals are hazardous for people and continued to manufacture them and lied to the public about them for decades.

- 15 seconds.

Last word, Mitch.

Does the UN matter in North Carolina and Cumberland County?

You've got just a few seconds.

- My guess is that this won't end up leading to anything.

People who are concerned about this might say, "UN, get your own house in order."

- There you go.

Well, thanks, panel.

Thanks for joining us on your first episode of "State Lines".

Thank you for watching.

Email us at statelines@pbsnc.org if you have comments.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thank you for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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