Weekly Recap: A congressional battle between two families
North Carolina's 13th Congressional District runoff has been a family affair for Brad Knott and Kelly Daughtry. Former President Donald Trump has also endorsed in the race.
Let’s dive into the week that was in North Carolina politics…
A look at NC’s lone congressional runoff
This week, I took a deep dive into the Triangle-area congressional runoff between Johnston County attorney Kelly Daughtry and former federal prosecutor Brad Knott. You can check out the full profile for The Assembly here and a SparkNotes version of it here.
The 13th District runoff is set for May 14, with in-person early voting beginning April 25. In the March 5 primary, Daughtry secured 27% of the vote, which was just shy of the 30% needed to win the nomination outright. Knott finished in second at 19%.
In the final weeks of the campaign, both candidates will seek to present themselves as the staunchest conservative in the race.
For Daughtry, that means criticizing Knott for living outside the district, not voting in the 2016 and 2020 primaries and working as a federal prosecutor during the Obama and Biden administrations.
For Knott, that means attacking Daughtry for past donations to Democrats, which were first reported by the Carolina Journal, and a 2012 Facebook comment Daughtry made voicing her intention to vote for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, which was first reported in Anderson Alerts.
On Friday, Knott got a major boost with an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. While Trump’s support is highly impactful, the race is by no means over.
That’s because Daughtry has strong support in the most important county in the district (Johnston County) and lots of money at her disposal. Thus far, Daughtry has spent at least $2.3 million of her own money on the race. Her father, Leo Daughtry, has also kicked in at least another $300,000 to a pro-Daughtry super PAC. We will get updated figures by April 15.
By contrast, Knott has given his campaign at least $380,000, while his family has spent heavily though a pro-Knott super PAC. One of his brothers, Thomas, is a New York investor who’s donated at least $700,000 to the super PAC.
The biggest things to watch going forward: Whether Fred Von Canon (3rd place primary finisher) or DeVan Barbour (fourth place finisher) will lend their official support to either candidate, and whether Trump will personally visit the district to bolster Knott’s chances.
A Von Canon endorsement could prove helpful as the candidates fight for votes in Wake County, an area that Knott carried and where Daughtry performed worst.
A Barbour endorsement could help Daughtry greatly in Johnston County, where she bested Knott by a nearly 3-to-1 margin in the first primary. But if Barbour stays uninvolved or sides with Knott, that could deal a body blow to Daughtry.
As of now, both former candidates are staying on the sidelines. We shall see whether Trump’s embrace of Knott changes the calculus for Von Canon or Barbour.
How the Trump endorsement came to be
According to Knott’s campaign, two advisers, Jonathan Felts and Michael Luethy, worked behind the scenes to help connect Knott and Trump. However, it was U.S. Sen. Ted Budd’s support of Knott that left a big impact on Trump. It’s also worth noting that Knott’s other brother, Tucker, is Budd’s chief of staff.
When the race got down to two candidates (and Barbour was out of the race), Budd became involved by endorsing Knott over Daughtry.
The campaign gives Knott himself the credit for securing the Trump endorsement, in part because of his tough-on-crime messaging of putting away criminals while he was a federal prosecutor. That message left the biggest impression on Trump.
Transparency update
North Carolina state lawmakers have until noon on April 24 (start of short session) to respond to my request for minimal transparency— 169 of 170 state lawmakers sending me a single email of their choice.
This request comes after lawmakers included a last-minute provision in the state budget effectively exempting themselves and former lawmakers from the state’s public records law. Under the newly enacted budget, lawmakers are free to sell, destroy or disclose communications as they see fit.
As of now, a dozen lawmakers have provided records responsive to my request for a single email of their choice, though more have pledged to provide records and will soon do so.
Overall, 116 lawmakers have been completely unresponsive to my current or past records requests or a Raleigh News & Observer request for a single day’s worth of emails. After the April 24 deadline hits, I’ll share a story with the names of responsive and unresponsive lawmakers, and what information was learned along the way.
Of note: Senate leader Phil Berger’s office still hasn’t responded to the Dec. 5 letter I sent them after they requested I narrow my original request for maximum transparency. As a result, I didn’t send them a request for a single email of their choice. Rather, I will let them respond to the revised request I gave them last year. All other lawmakers were asked to disclose a single email of their choice by April 24 and also provide communications they sent or received between Jan. 1, 2023 and Oct. 3, 2023.
If lawmakers didn’t like my original request last year for maximum transparency, surely they should no issue with the absolute bare minimum transparency asked of them.
Is NC a swing state?
I looked for an answer to this question after I received an email.
The answer I found: Technically yes, but also technically not.
According to The Associated Press, the term “swing state” refers to states where voters have “vacillated between Republican and Democratic candidates in the last three or four presidential elections.”
Meanwhile, “battleground states” are ones where “candidates from both major political parties have a reasonable chance for victory.”
So which is North Carolina?
The last four presidential elections in North Carolina have produced the following victors:
2020: Trump (R)
2016: Trump (R)
2012: Romney (R)
2008: Obama (D)
If you go by the AP’s definition and look at four cycles, North Carolina would be a swing state. But if you go by the AP’s definition and look at three cycles, North Carolina would be a battleground state.
My ruling: I’d call North Carolina a battleground state at the presidential level, but a swing state more broadly, especially as Democrats have won gubernatorial races in three of the past four cycles.
🐦Tweet of the Week
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, especially because it wasn’t a story I wrote. This week, I called out an inexcusable practice from my alma mater: WRAL’s continued refusal to credit certain outlets or reporters and instead present work published elsewhere as their original reporting.
Case and point: Jeffrey Billman at The Assembly broke a story about Yolanda Hill (wife of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson) shuttering her Balanced Nutrition business, which had come under heavy scrutiny from GOP operatives who don’t want to see Robinson elected governor. The story in The Assembly published on Thursday morning and included an email of Hill giving clients a farewell message. WUNC and Fox8 had no problem crediting The Assembly. Only one outlet did: WRAL.
Thirty hours after The Assembly’s story, WRAL wrote a piece where it presented Hill’s email as one that was “obtained by WRAL.” Nowhere in the story was there any mention of The Assembly.
I rung in the 2024 new year by writing my first column in over six years. In it, I called on WRAL and other news outlets to eliminate non-compete clauses in hiring “agreements,” a common that aims to stymie the competition by preventing unhappy and disillusioned employees from leaving to work for a rival news organization.
I’ll repeat what I wrote back on Jan. 1: “News outlets that publicly espouse values of free speech and public access to information ought to first look in the mirror and embrace those values from within.”
📖5 essential reads
Mark Robinson’s Wife to Close Family Nonprofit After Scrutiny (Jeffrey Billman // The Assembly)
UNC’s $97 Million Online Education Gambit Hits Headwinds (Pam Kelley // The Assembly)
The GOP’s Family Feud (Bryan Anderson // The Assembly)
With staff shortages plaguing child care and mental health facilities, NC lawmakers asked for funding (Colin Campbell // WUNC)
One-on-one with Vice President Kamala Harris (Tim Boyum // Spectrum News)
FUTURE READ:
Anatomy of a Purple State: A North Carolina Politics Primer by Chris Cooper, Western Carolina University Political Scientist (a promising new book coming out before the November election that will be looking at the messy state of NC politics and how it got this point)
🏀 March Madness Bracket Contest Update
A couple weeks ago, I invited folks to submit their March Madness brackets. And the results are in: Congratulations to “Perry's Picks” and “All Wins, No Loss Bracket.” These two brackets will finish in the top two. The outcome of the UCONN-Purdue matchup on Monday will determine the order of the top two finishers.
The winning bracket will get an all-access Anderson Alerts membership through the Nov. 5 general election, while the second place bracket gets an all-access membership through the May 14 runoff.
So if you made either of these brackets, please shoot me a note to claim your prize!
What to watch for this week
Barring major breaking news that requires my attention, I don’t anticipate returning to your feed this week, as I’ll be taking this coming week to work on some in-depth stories.
Thank you for your continued support of this newsletter!