Stein attacks tax Amendments, Cooper drops 'policy' & rural strategy failing
Plus, 'No centrist Democrats left', Library Assoc. pushes back on H1073, and this weekend is the 6th anniversary of the BLM riots in Raleigh
Welcome back to the Old North State Update. This is edition #22 for 2026.
Today marks the start of the sixth anniversary of the Raleigh BLM riots.
Roy Cooper was evacuated from the executive mansion, leaving behind businesses to be looted and burned.
NCGA
The General Assembly was off this week, so it was quiet bill-wise. That is, until the NC Library Association dropped a statement trashing a bill aimed at required compliance by school districts with the Parents’ Bill of Rights law.
Stein criticizes tax amendments
Gov. Josh Stein held a press conference this week, during which he highlighted gaps in prison staff hiring over lack of competitive compensation, marked by the announced closing of Craggy prison near Asheville, which has been chronically understaffed due to the remote location.
Stein made a number of comments on taxes related to the current schedule cutting the personal and corporate rates, but also on two constitutional amendments passed by the legislature that will go on November’s ballot.
The governor was asked about the amendments by a reporter. Specifically, he was asked, and this is a verbatim quote: “Were you surprised to see former Democratic representatives vote with Republicans, representatives Cunningham and Nasif Majeed?”
Stein dodged answering the question as asked.
“What I was surprised at is the willingness of this General Assembly to tie the hands of future General Assemblies which may experience crises that we can’t even imagine today,” Stein said. It is incredibly imprudent and fiscally irresponsible to set a cap on an income tax at a level that we’ve never even been that low before.”
Stein went on to call the tax cuts a “cynical shell game,” went on to sound just like his predecessor, Roy Cooper, claiming the cuts would only benefit the wealthy and corporations.
“And what that is is a cynical shell game that will take the burden off of very wealthy people who can afford to pay a little bit more in income tax and put it on the backs of regular people, anybody who pays a sales tax for anything. Because in the time of a recession you have two ways to raise revenue. It’s either sales tax or income tax,” said Stein. “And what these guys have done is a millionaire protection constitutional amendment.”
He also called the amendments a “financial straitjacket on future legislatures” before calling for putting more money in people’s pocket’s with a “tax credit.”
Speaking of tax credits, the governor was also asked about the House overriding House Bill 87 with the help of outgoing Democrats that he assisted in targeting during the primaries. The bill would enter the state into President Trump’s school choice tax credit program - at zero cost to the state.
Stein again claimed he hasn’t seen the final guidance.
Well, the fact is the IRS and Treasury Department have both issued details last year with updates posted earlier this year. And the current guidance is clearly enough for the 28 states that are already on board as of April 15. (Two other states have apparently joined since that date.) There is even an advance election form specifically for governors.
Stein is stalling. He knows this is not brain surgery, it’s a tax credit that costs the state nothing. But it bolsters school choice, which, to his base, is bad.
In other tax-related news…
Attorney General Jeff Jackson is suing Vinfast for breach of contract, which was given huge ($1.2B) in taxpayer funded incentives by former Gov. Roy Cooper in 2022.
“Roy Cooper sacrificed $1.2 Billion in taxpayer money for Joe Biden’s Green New Scam with nothing to show for it except a demolished church,” said NCGOP Communications Director Matt Mercer. “We deserve better leadership than what Cooper delivered with his Temu Tesla EV fantasy.”
U.S. SENATE
No Centrist Democrats Left
Michael Whatley hit Fox & Friends this past week where discussion turned to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has been making it known she’s meeting with certain 2028 presidential hopefuls, including squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Whatley told the hosts, “There really are no centrist Democrats anymore because they’re being driven out of the party.”
“The fact is, that party is going further and further and further to the left,” said Whatley. “You know, it’s a woke mob at this point in time, and you see it. You see it in the leadership of that party, and every single candidate is bowing to that wing of the party.”
“This is not where mainstream North Carolina or mainstream America is, and yet that’s where the Democrats really want to go,” Whatley added. “That’s where the energy of the Democratic Party base is.”
Whatley went on to say that during the last election cycle, “we described it as common sense versus crazy. I think that’s going to be the same in 2026, and I think ultimately could be the same in 2028.”
Whatley linked Cooper to “radicals” like Texas progressive James Talerico and New York City’s Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Watch the clip:
Cooper’s Prisoner List Not Going Away
Whatley’s campaign account has continued to hit Cooper on the prisoners he let out of prison during COVID, including three that went on to commit crimes in Catawba County like murdering a 16-month-old child.
Medicaid Expansion comes back to haunt Cooper
Cooper promised to make healthcare more affordable while overseeing the state’s highest healthcare costs in the nation during his tenure as governor. Now he’s promising the same things with “make stuff cost less.’
But data shows North Carolina had the highest employer-sponsored premiums, significant premium increases under Obamacare, and negative impacts from Medicaid expansion - including hospital closures and budget shifts away from education and public safety. Read more at Breitbart.
“Make Stuff Cost Less” Policy
The post has a number of proposals but the main question still remains: HOW?
Making stuff cost less is not something he actually pursued or even commented on as governor when inflation, gas and food prices skyrocketed under President Biden.
Cooper went on MS NOW using some of the same talking points, which was less of an interview and more of an extended elevator pitch.
Cooper was apparently very happy with that interview, later providing a partial transcript on the campaign’s Substack — along with a fundraising plea at the end.
ADDITIONAL NEWS
Warren to headline NCDP Unity Dinner
Sen. Elizabeth Warren was announced as the keynote speaker for the NC Democratic Party’s Unity Dinner.
A few weeks ago, I noted Warren was dropping some of her $400K she’s raised on six senate campaigns, including Cooper’s. Read that update at Punchbowl News titled, “Warren spreads the wealth to state parties.”
Rural Strategy a bust?
There’s an article over at the NC Newsline (formerly Policy Watch) about NC Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton’s problem with engaging rural voters and, in particular, Black voters in rural areas.
“It’s not been a process that I knew was going to happen over a short period of time because the failures didn’t happen over a short period of time,” Clayton told Newsline. “Rural North Carolina didn’t leave us overnight, but we’ve got to invest in it for the long haul.”
Yes, more time. Like the ten years she cited when she took over in 2023.
It may be longer than ten years.
Rural areas in the South, including North Carolina, haven’t voted majority-Democrat since before the mid 1960s. NC Democrats have historically relied on urban areas to carry them in elections. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 cracked the rural margin a bit, but in 2016 voters in rural areas dumped NC Democrats in vastly larger numbers (over 200,000 votes) than they gained in urban areas.
Fast forward to the Clayton taking over.
NC Democrats have continued to lose ground in voter registration year after year under Clayton’s tenure. As of early January 2026, Republicans surpassed Democrats in registered voters for the first time in state history, roughly 2.315 million Republicans vs. 2.313 million Democrats, with unaffiliated voters becoming the the largest group, expanding at over 39% of registrations.
Politicizing the NC Supreme Court
Associate Justice Allison Riggs and Anita Earls are continuing their pattern of making public statements, often personal opinions, on cases the court has recently heard. The judicial code of conduct does not prohibit talking about past cases, but giving personal opinions that create an atmosphere of bias on a topic that might come back before the court is frowned upon. Read my thread on X.
Sen. Thom Tillis (?-NC)
Any doubt about how much outgoing Republican NC Sen. Thom Tillis despises President Trump was removed in a set of interviews last weekend.
(This article was for subscribers only until this morning. Upgrade to paid to get these articles sooner!)
Read more:
POLLING
Real Clear Polling’s average in the NC Senate race remains unchanged from last week with Cooper up 6.8 points.
GALLUP: Americans’ Rating of Moral Values Hits New Low
“A record-high 56% of Americans rate moral values in the U.S. as “poor,” up 12 percentage points from last year, and 80% say moral values are “getting worse,” up 14 points.”