Recapping the 2020 Election

Family policy matters in engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you also better equipped to be a voice of persuasion, family values in your community, state and nation. Thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters on John Rustin Preston of the North Carolina family policy Council and I'm excited to be joined by our counsel and director of community impact the jury Royal are working to depart a little bit from our typical format in today's program because were going to talk about the election results from the 2020 general election will jury.

Thanks for being with us a man. This was quite an election season was in that it was very challenging time in a lot of unique circumstances leading up to the election well on all fronts nationally and then on the state level, and certainly with North Carolina's increased prominence in the national collection CME were one of the top three most competitive states in the country and that is brought a lot of attention, a big spotlight and a lot of money on our state a mean there were just hundreds of millions of dollars pouring into North Carolina from outside groups from the national parties and from the candidate's campaigns to try to persuade voters to support them and is expected a lot of the statewide elections in North Carolina were going to be won or lost by razor thin margins and that's pretty much what we saw exactly and like you say, we see a lot of the national interest. I think we have the distinction which I think we had in the last Senate race that Sen. Tillis was running is the most expensive Senate race in US history so jury one of the interesting things that we saw in North Carolina, especially as we were waiting for the election results in the presidential race was to get a final vote count in North Carolina and see which way our state went whether North Carolina was going to go to entrance direction again or was going to support former VP Joe Biden. So what happened, I knew what we see there and what was North Carolina. One of the last states to actually announce who one in the presidential race. And yeah, that was part of the unique circumstances leading up to the election that our state legislature recognize that there were going to be some unique situations as far as people trying to cast ballots and concerned about their health and the virus and so they made new allowances in the state law. As far as how the election conducted been receiving mailing ballots that they would allow the balance as long as they were postmarked by election day to be received within three days after the election and still be counted and that was passed by Republicans and Democrats and signed by Gov. Cooper. But then there was a court challenge to that long puts the effort was to extend that time and now in that court effort was successful.

Gov. and the State Board of elections and Atty. Gen. believe all were involved with the consent agreement, which extended the time instead of just three days after the election all the way out till 12 November and so that's why North Carolina was slower than most and showing what their final vote tallies today will is really interesting and I think we were in some respects sitting on pins and needles because that the national presidential race was so close, but North Carolina was one of the last and one of the closest states, with respect to that. In fact, Donald Trump, one in North Carolina with just a few less than 75,000 votes out of over 5 1/2 million votes cast, which is really remarkable to have such a close race here.

Of course the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Tom Tillis and Democratic challenger Carol Cunningham was relatively close. Although it was decided by about 95,000 votes in favor of Sen. Tillis in these other congressional races are pretty much all the incumbents that were running for reelection to the U.S. House got reelected.

There were two districts that had formally were held by Republican representatives one U.S. House district to that was held by George holding and then U.S. House District 6 that was held by Mark Mark Walker in both of these incumbents decided not to run again after there was redistricting in these districts changed and that was court ordered redistricting that required that the district maps be withdrawn and change. These districts really from leaning Republican districts to leaning Democrat districts and sure enough. What we saw in these districts is that there the Democrats one and so our congressional delegation which is 13 members shifted from 10 Republicans and three Democrats to eight Republicans and five Democrats. So it was interesting to see how redistricting classroom impacted the ultimate outcome of these elections, especially in those two districts now no district briefly mentioned to overall even though North Carolina. The numbers change with more Democrats now serving in the house that overall across the country, Republicans actually gain seats in the House of Representatives, which I again according to polling was a big surprise to a lot of people. Well, exactly.

And also were still waiting to see what the makeup of the United States Senate is going to look like to it's it's still fairly close now there are two runoff elections in the state of Georgia.

Folks are really sitting on pins and needles waiting to see what the outcome of those races or those elections are in early January and so they could be really pivotal in determining what the majority makeup of the United States Senate looks like in with a presumed Biden Harris administration along with the.

Although an Obama much slimmer margin. The Democratic majority in the United States house having a Republican majority in the United States Senate is going to create this divided government that we hear so much about that is going to keep things from going too far left but also from going forward. To the right as well so it's going to be interesting to see you and there will be a tremendous amount of additional money and additional attention focused on Georgia as these two U.S. Senate races continue to to develop exactly so that every January to guess right now with the current makeup of the Senate's 53 Republican 47 Democrats and now helps with Georgia still outstanding. It's 50 Republicans in 48 Democrats are derived it's it's literally could be a time.

If the panel have org or the Republicans could they gonna lose at least one see in the Senate the way things stand now well on the statewide races in North Carolina that are more state specific. I think one of the most amazing results in unexpected results that we saw is is it appears now that Republicans actually swept the eight seats that were up all North Carolina appellate courts that the state Supreme Court and the state Court of Appeals.

One of those races, the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court is still in the process of a recount right now is we are recording this and Republican Paul Newby, who's been on the Supreme Court already is facing Democrat Shirley Beasley who is the current Chief Justice and Justice Newby leads that race by 420 votes.

Again, as were recording this right now, so the counties are in the process of doing recounts and reporting those recounts to the state board of elections in that process will continue for up again as we are recording this for a couple more days, so it's going to be very interesting to see that. But if Justice Newby holds onto that victory in that seat. Then we will have seen Republicans win three out of three races for the north Carolina Supreme Court and five out of five races for the North Carolina Court of Appeals. So that's pretty remarkable and again I would save are quite unexpected. In all of those races they want as quite as close as the Chief Justice race but were decided by just a few percentage points. All of them very close. So what what are you going from that jury. Well, I think North Carolina has had a history of think of electing Republicans into the appellate court seats. They were listed as Republican, Democrat years ago and then they changed and didn't lose party affiliation for a few years and things changed in the during mesh that have nothing like the Supreme Court went from four Republicans three Democrats to its current makeup of justice Newby being the one Republican and six Democrats like you say with the returns. If they stay where they are now. That'll change in back in the other direction to be in three Republicans and four Democrats. Well it's going to be just very interesting to continue to watch that. Certainly not to to overshadow other races like the geek the race for governor North Carolina.

Of course our current governor Louis Cooper won reelection vesting Republican challenger and family. Lieut. Gov. Dan Forest by about 240,000 votes.

That was one of the largest margins that we saw all in statewide race and I really think in this race that sheer amount of money that the current Gov. Louis Cooper raised and spent was just astronomical in comparison to what Dan for span and I think Dan Forest much of his campaign strategy was built on a grassroots campaign style where he would go out and around the state meeting with groups of people large and small to help educate them about who he was, what he stands for natural thing. But when Kovic hid it really put quite a damper on his ability to conduct this grassroots style campaigning that he's been doing for years and so I'm sure that was an impact but just seeing the deep sheer amount of money that we Cooper spent compared to what Dan for span a minimum, it may have been 10 times you know 10. The one advantage for Cooper and also with spec to coded by Roy Cooper was on TV a lot and on the radio a lot with these almost daily press conferences that they were having with covert updates and things of that nature. So that really was an issue that played a pretty substantial role. Overall in this campaign, definitely. I mean, early on in the virus because about Hank's presence on TV a lot think his approval rating was over 70%. At one point that did change as time went on the believer again leading up to the election right at election time. A lot of the polling was showing Gov. Cooper ahead by 10 or more points in and like you say at the numbers us all and spending is like over 50 million compared to 4 1/2 million finance forest and then you only see a final vote difference of 4 1/2%. That's pretty circumcised is it's incredible well in as we look down these other counselor state races.

The race for Lieut. Gov. Of course Mark Robinson won that race and we had just on Democrat incumbent for Atty. Gen. who narrowly appears to have won that race by a margin of just over 10,000 votes. Also looking at the state legislature state Senate went into this election with a 29 to 21 Republican majority in the state house went into this election with a 65 Republican majority and 55 Democrats and expectations were that those margins were actually going to shrink down the calls that expectations were that these races will be very close and that the Democrats were likely going to pick up some seats in both chambers of the legislature and what happens or what appears to have happened. Republicans only lost one seat in the state Senate, so the 29, 21 majority shrunk down to a 28 to 22, majority Republican, but in the statehouse Republicans actually picked up what appears to be four seats from increasing their majority from 6555 to 6951, which is pretty remarkable in and pretty unexpected. I wouldn't call it a Republican landslide or Republican tidal wave by any means, but it certainly was a Republican friendly hogtied that brought in a lot more Republicans and a lot more Republican victories than what was expected. Morgan likely see some continued gridlock in the legislature. Gov. Cooper is going to continue to veto bills that don't meet his issue criteria, and the legislature may continue to try to override those vetoes and certainly will pass legislation that is consistent with the Republican majority and so it's kind of it's gonna be an interesting next two years. Certainly there will be some challenges but there certainly will also be some some great opportunities there jury without unfortunately were out of town but I want to thank you for being with us today. Thanks so much for all your great insights and for your just faithful service at the family policy Council, I would appreciate that so much.

Thank you for your leadership and thank you all for your efforts in working together with the six is vital and we were greatly encouraged by all that you do. Yet I agree so I listen.

Thanks so much for your support and make sure that you tune in next week to family policy matters. Thanks and God bless you been listening to family policy matters to listen to the show online into learn more about NC families work to inform, encourage and inspire families across both Carolina go to our website@ncfamily.org that's NC family.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family