A Napoleonic moment in American Politics?

By Michael Bitzer

Of course, it can’t be a Monday morning without another crashing headline to start the week in politics. And this one gave me a pause to a past survey question that explored a concerning principle.

While in the Oval Office this morning, President Donald Trump was speaking about sending the military into American cities, and said the following:

Set aside if we can take his word that “he is not a dictator,” as soon as I saw this clip, I thought about a February tweet the president issued and a subsequent question that I had on the March 2025 Catawba-YouGov Survey of 1,000 North Carolinians.

Within a month of taking office, Trump sent out the following tweet:

This sentence is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, who created the Napoleonic Code of civil law before declaring himself emperor of France.

Trump Calls Mail Voting Unsafe. Actual Data & Opinion Shows North Carolinians Think Otherwise.

By Michael Bitzer

Just when you think it will be a quiet Monday morning before the start of classes in forty-eight hours, the President of the United States sends out a statement that nobody was expecting, attacking a particular vote method that North Carolina voters have utilized as one of three methods to casting a ballot.

Here's the full statement by the president attacking mail-in ballots, along with many other aspects related to election administration. 

If you ask anyone who studies election administration and voting processes, you will get some very pointed pieces of information to the above statement:

Who is a Candidate for Office? The Answer is More Complicated Than You Might Think

by Christopher Cooper

On January 15, 2025, Andy Nillson announced that he would be a Republican candidate for United States Senate. On August 9, he suspended his campaign, noting that President Trump's "complete and total" endorsement of Republican Michael Whatley, "played a central role" in his decision. 

Two weeks earlier, Democrat Wiley Nickel suspended his campaign for the Democratic side of the United States Senate race just a day after former Governor Roy Cooper entered the race.

Although all of these changes may seem odd (why would you declare and then pull out?), it's all completely normal. People routinely come in and out of candidacy at this point in the campaign season as part of what political scientists refer to as the "invisible primary." As distinct from the actual primary where voters have a direct say, no votes are cast in the invisible primary and the voters themselves may have no say so at all. 

85% of NCians Believe It is Important that Government Statistics Shouldn't Be Politicized

By Michael Bitzer

On Friday, August 1, after what most described as a lackluster employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed only 77,000 jobs were added to the economy, with the unemployment rate at 4.2 percent, President Donald Trump directed that the BLS commissioner, who oversees the data gather and statistics reporting, be removed.

In doing so, Trump stated "'In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.'"

Government statistics and data have traditionally been seen as apolitical--collecting and reporting as best as the government agency can, with traditionally adjustments with further data provided to previous months. A core belief is that government-researched and produced data is free from political influence.

Friday's BLS Employment Situation Summary report is one of thousands of government reports that track a variety of topics and issues in American society, produced typically by non-partisan experts and provided to the public and policy makers to help inform, understand, and ground debates around facts. 

In its Survey of American Democracy, the June 2025 Catawba-YouGov Survey of 1,000 North Carolinians asked about the importance of a variety of principles to American democracy, one of them being how North Carolinians viewed the importance of "Government statistics and data are produced by experts who are not influenced by political considerations."

It's Show Time in NC: Whatley vs. Cooper for the U.S. Senate

By Susan Roberts

    As my colleagues at the ONSP Blog have written and observed, North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race will turn out to be hugely expensive, perhaps the most expensive in the country if history repeats itself. One of many questions to ask is: are the candidates diametrically opposed and in what ways? Here are some ways that I’m considering how this critical race will play itself out heading towards November 2026.

The Midterm Cycle Divide

    Characteristics of midterm elections are widely recognized. Turnout is routinely lower, while voters of higher socioeconomic classifications tend to dominate. In general, mid-term voters are most often strong partisans and highly attuned to politics. Most political scientists, journalists and pundits would agree that midterms can be seen as a referendum on presidential performance, measured primarily by the number of seats won or lost by the party of the sitting president. 

Excerpt from forthcoming "Almanac of American Politics" on North Carolina

Special Contribution from Louis Jacobson:

For more than five decades, the Almanac of American Politics has set the standard for political reference books. In September, the Almanac will be publishing its 2026 edition, with more than 2,000 pages offering fully updated chapters on all 435 House members and their districts, all 100 senators, all 50 states and governors, and much more.

Below are excerpts from the new chapters in the 2026 Almanac on the state of North Carolina and Gov. Josh Stein, written by Louis Jacobson. Jacobson — a senior correspondent for PolitiFact, a senior columnist for Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and a contributor of political coverage for U.S. News & World Report — has written for eight editions of the Almanac since 2000. For the 2026 edition, he served as chief author.

Readers can receive a 15% discount if they purchase the new Almanac at its website and use the code ONSP2026 at checkout. 

NORTH CAROLINA:

Few states have more political polarization between rural and populated areas than North Carolina does—and few states have margins between the two major parties so consistently narrow. But for several election cycles running, Republicans have come out ahead in federal races, although in 2024 Democrats put up stronger performances in downballot races.

Now That Roy's Runnin'...What's His Electoral Coalition Like?

By Michael Bitzer

In the midst of this heat wave, things are officially heating up in North Carolina politics. 

This morning, former Democratic governor Roy Cooper finally put to bed all the speculation and anticipation by formally announcing his run for the open U.S. Senate seat in the Old North State. 

Much analysis will be made over the coming days, weeks (heck, even months to November 2026), but I thought I would add to the discussion the "Cooper-electoral advantage": the strengths he appeared to demonstrate in 2016 and 2020 and that many Democrats hope he brings to 2026. 

Summer Heat Meets Campaign Heat in the Old North State

By Michael Bitzer, Susan Roberts, and Christopher Cooper

To say that the world of NC politics has been abuzz with news in the past 24 hours is like saying "it's summer...so it's hot in the Old North State." An understatement, to say the least. 

On July 23rd, press reports started with Axios, later confirmed by other outlets, that former N.C. governor Roy Cooper has decided to run for the U.S. Senate, a major 'get' for Democrats in what is likely one of the most competitive races for the 2026 mid-term.

The next morning had Politico reporting Lara Trump was out, but Michael Whatley, RNC chair, was in, with Trump's blessing. 

This sets up what everyone had been expecting: a potential clearing of primary field on both sides (at least expected) with two titans running for a coveted open-seat election. Here's our initial "3 Big Thoughts" as we digest and think about this epic contest:

Big Takeaways from Catawba-YouGov Poll on the Principles of American Democracy

By Michael Bitzer

Much has been made about the state of our polarized and divided politics, and if anyone needs a potential case study of that environment, one could look no further than the Old North State. But what about the core ideas and principles of American democracy: are North Carolinians as divided on the fundamental concepts of our democracy as we are in terms of public policies and pure partisanship? 

The Catawba-YouGov Survey polled 1,000 North Carolinians in June about their attitudes regarding various principles of American democracy: governing authority, civic participation, and rights & liberties (the links go to the spreadsheets for each category and the crosstab data).

In doing so, I wanted to explore what the levels of importance (very or somewhat important) that North Carolinians would place on critical components to the notion of self-governance. While I wasn’t sure what would be a sufficient number to say North Carolinians agreed on these democratic principles (ideally, all principles would garner 100 percent importance), I set the bar at principles garnering 80 percent (or higher) saying it was important as demonstrating a sense of agreement. Those principles that were between 60 and 80 percent show some critical differences when it comes to democratic values and ideas. 

While there were some stark differences over key principles and ideas to a democracy, 39 of the 51 principles garnered at least 80 percent of North Carolinians saying the principle was important. Obviously North Carolinians--and particularly partisans--believe that there are a significant majority of core principles of American democracy that are important to our civic health.

However, there were some fundamental issues regarding the importance of some democratic principles: a quarter were below 80 percent of North Carolinians rating them as important, most notably among rights & liberties. 

An Analysis of Registration Recovery Project Voters

by Christopher Cooper

The North Carolina State Board of Elections recently unveiled the Registration Recovery Project (RRP), which includes more than 100,000 North Carolina registered voters. As part of an ongoing project, I thought I'd take a look at the characteristics of these voters to learn more who is on the RRP list, who has their registration "cured" and the demographic and partisan patterns of both.

You can find the most recent iteration of this analysis in a pdf below. The first 5 pages (the analysis of the original lists) remains the same as the original report. The sections titled "Changes since the original list" and "who is curing their registration?" are updated once a week. The basic, summary statistics (figure 2 & discussion) are updated daily on Twitter & Blue Sky. 

• Aug 11th update

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Dr. Christopher Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His book, Anatomy of a Purple State, was recently published by the University of North Carolina Press.

NCians' Opinions on Their Confidence in President Trump's Decision-Making

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/

Don't Sleep on the 2025 Elections

 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?

North Carolinians' opinions on FEMA Recovery Funding

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?"

Thom Tillis and the Painful Truth About Swing State Politics

 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. 

So Long to Four of North Carolina's Political Parties. Who Were They, Anyway?

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.

Democrats' Long Shot Hope in the Mountains

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. 

How confident are North Carolinians in their elections?

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. 

NC Data Points: North Carolinians’ Confidence in Elected Policymakers

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. 

The Democrats Don't Have a U.S. Senate Candidate in NC Yet. Is This Out of the Ordinary?

 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.

NCians divided over Trump, believe tariffs will be impactful on prices

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:

• The approval/disapproval of President Trump, U.S. Senator Tillis, Governor Stein, and the Political Parties in Congress
• What North Carolinians believe will be the impact of potential tariffs on goods
• How inflation and costs are envisioned going into the future
• The firings of government employees in 14 different departments/agencies
• The suspension of military aid to Ukraine
• What should be the top priorities for North Carolina’s state government

I've include some charts to demonstrate the division in North Carolina opinion, especially based on partisan self-identification. 

There will be more data and findings released from this survey in the near future as well. 

Why Thom Tillis Shouldn't Worry about the Primary

 by Christopher Cooper

There's been a lot of attention about the potential for Thom Tillis to get primaried. In a piece for the Assembly, I explain why that's unlikely to happen.  

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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. 

The 2024 Election in the U.S. South

 

by Christopher Cooper

In recent decades the United States South has emerged as the most rock-ribbed Republican region in the country, but the 2020 election brought signs that the Republican stranglehold might be loosening. In those elections, Joe Biden won two southern states: Georgia and Virginia. In addition, voters in Georgia sent Democrats to the US Senate, and Democrat Roy Cooper was re-elected as governor of North Carolina. With the 2024 elections now behind us, what do the results tell us about the Democratic Party’s appeal in the US South?

 Gibbs Knotts and I addressed this question in the London School of Economics United States Politics and Policy blog and we thought some of the readers of Old North State Politics might be interested. Please check it out.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2025/01/29/the-2024-elections-how-the-democrats-hopes-were-dashed-in-the-us-south/ 

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Dr. Christopher Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His book, Anatomy of a Purple State, was recently published by the University of North Carolina Press. H. Gibbs Knotts is Provost and Professor of Political Science at Coastal Carolina University. His most recent book (co-authored with Jordan Ragusa) is First in the South: Why South Carolina's Presidential Primary Maters.

Analysis of Voters Challenged by Justice Griffin Part II

 by Christopher Cooper

On January 13, 2025 I wrote an analysis of the partisan and demographic patterns of the approximately 60,000 North Carolinians whose ballots are being challenged by Justice Griffin because of" incomplete voter registration." That analysis can be found here.

Since then, Justice Griffin has filed a brief with the North Carolina State Supreme Court where he outlines his case in more detail, along with his preferred remedy. In that brief, he explains that, in addition to the 60,723 voters with "incomplete voter registration," that I analyzed before, he is focusing his challenge on two additional groups of voters: (1) 267 "never residents" and (2) 5,509 "overseas voters without photo ID." 

As a result, I wrote an analysis of these groups of voters--available here. 

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Dr. Christopher Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His book, Anatomy of a Purple State, was recently published by the University of North Carolina Press.

An Analysis of Challenged Voters in the 2024 NC Supreme Court Justice Election

 by Christopher Cooper

As the fight over approximately 60,000 challenged ballots in North Carolina's Supreme Court Election makes its way through the legal system, I thought it might be helpful to take a look at the challenges to determine whether (and if so, how) challenged voter differ from the overall pool of people who cast a vote in November, 2024 in North Carolina.

Because the analysis includes a lot of tables that can look wonky when put into blogger, I put them in a pdf (accessible here). 

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Dr. Christopher Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His book, Anatomy of a Purple State, was recently published by the University of North Carolina Press.