By Michael Bitzer
The latest Catawba-YouGov survey findings are out on the confidence North Carolinians have (or not) in President Donald Trump's decision-making on seventeen different policies and issues.
You can find the survey results and a breakdown of data at: https://catawba.edu/news/all-news/2025/yougov-7/
by Christopher Cooper
The 2026 storylines are already consuming those of us who pay attention to American politics, and I get why. Will Lara Trump run? Will Roy Cooper run? Will Phil Berger get primaried? Those are some compelling storylines--arguably even more compelling than who will be the next town commissioner in Webster, NC.
But, I encourage citizens, politics watchers, and even political scientists not to sleep on the 2025 municipal elections in North Carolina. As exciting as the storylines above are, the outcome will likely affect your life less than who wins the local elections your community in 2025.
So, let's take a look at what's happening in 2025--which offices are open, who's eligible to vote, and why does it matter?
By Michael Bitzer
In North Carolina, many western counties are still rebuilding and trying to get their lives back to 'normalcy' following the devastation of the September 2024 path of Hurricane Helene through many of the mountain communities.
On January 24, 2025, just days after being sworn into office, President Trump visited the NC mountains and said “I’ll be taking strong action to get North Carolina the support that you need to quickly recover and rebuild. We’re working on it very hard…” (see 7:48 of this video of the press conference).
However, a federal decision not to fully reimburse the recovery efforts has garnered wide-spread attention. A note: FEMA's decision was not to fully fund recovery efforts by the federal government at 100 percent, but rather continue funding at 90 percent.
Nine months after Helene's impact, the June 2025 Catawba-YouGov survey asked 1,000 North Carolinians the following:
"Do you approve or disapprove of FEMA’s decision to not extend 100%, but instead provide 90%, of federal matching reimbursement for North Carolina’s spending on Hurricane Helene debris removal and emergency protective measures for western North Carolina?"
by Christopher Cooper
What does North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis' retirement announcement tell us about the politics of swing states? I took a stab at answering that question in this piece for Politico Magazine.
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Dr. Christopher Cooper is the Madison Distinguished Professor of Political Science & Public Affairs and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His most recent book is Anatomy of a Purple State: A North Carolina Politics Primer.
by Christopher Cooper
On June 19, 2025, the North Carolina Board of Elections announced that, following North Carolina General Statutes, the Constitution, Justice for All, No Labels, and We the People parties would be terminated and all of the registrants registered with each of those parties would be reassigned to Unaffiliated status on June 24. The Green, Libertarian, Democratic and Republican parties will remain, as will the largest group of registered voters--the Unaffiliated.
As today is the last day of their existence (at least for now--they can always come back in the future--the Jim Palmer of party politics, if you will), it seemed like a good time to take stock of who was registered with these soon to be extinct political parties.
Could the congressional district that launched the careers of Madison Cawthorn and Mark Meadows be Democrats' best hope to pick up a seat in 2026? The math is daunting but some think it's not out of the question, as I explained in this piece in The Assembly.
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Dr. Christopher Cooper is the Madison Distinguished Professor of Political Science & Public Affairs and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His most recent book is Anatomy of a Purple State: A North Carolina Politics Primer.
By Michael Bitzer
With the appointment by the state auditor of three Republicans and two Democrats to the N.C. State Board of Elections, Republicans now control the state's election administrative agency.
In the announcement of the three Republican appointees (two new and one currently serving on the Board), Auditor David Bolick stated "We need full confidence in our elections..." and that "(m)anaging our elections is no small task. It takes time, dedication, and professionalism."
Catawba College and YouGov polled North Carolinians regarding their confidence in elections, specifically asking in August 2024*, "Regardless of whether your candidate or party wins or loses the election this November in North Carolina, how confident will you be in the safety, security, and integrity of the election in North Carolina?" and then in January 2025* asked, "Regardless of whether your candidate or party won or lost the election in North Carolina, how confident were you in the safety, security, and integrity of the election in North Carolina?"
Both surveys also asked the respondent's level of confidence in votes being counted in their county and in North Carolina. Each question used "very, somewhat, not too much, or not at all" when asking about confidence or not regarding votes being accurately counted.
By Michael Bitzer
In the March 2025 Catawba-YouGov Survey of 1,000 North Carolinians*, respondents were asked to express their level of confidence in a variety of policy makers, from the president down to local county boards of education. Beyond the president, most policymakers saw a mix of responses regarding confidence in their decision-making.
In responding to “How confident are you in the decision-making capabilities of the President?,” 43 percent said not very or not at all confident, while 41 percent said very or somewhat confident, with 17 percent expressing a neutral response. But as with most prominent political topics, partisanship is a key drive of confidence, or lack thereof.
by Christopher Cooper
The 2026 U.S. Senate election in North Carolina promises to be one of the most hostly contested U.S. Senate election--and possibly the most hotly contested election period--in 2026. The incumbent Republican Thom Tillis has come under fire from his own party and, not surprisingly, from the Democrats as well.
While I don't believe that Tillis is likely to lose the primary, the outcome of the General Election is much more unknown. The party of the President always loses seats in the midterm year and Tillis is the only Republican incumbent Senator up for re-election in a purple state.
The only problem for the Democrats: they don't have a candidate yet.
By Michael Bitzer
We've been fairly quiet here at Old North State Politics, but it doesn't mean things haven't been happening. In February, Catawba College and the Carter Center hosted the final meeting of the Commission on the Future of NC Elections, which released a 200-page report on eleven different aspects of what it takes to run an election in the state. I hope you'll find time to read and digest the important information from it.
And in other news: Catawba just released the findings of a new YouGov survey of 1,000 North Carolinians, which the press release is reprinted in this post. In the survey, we asked a number of current issues and news items to garner a sense of North Carolina's public opinions, as have many other survey outlets as well.
In this survey, North Carolinians shared their opinions about: