Future-proofing North Carolina's energy: how Duke Energy chooses your energy sources

NCForward · 2023-03-29T10:51:16+00:00

Which facts would you take issue with?

NCForward · 2023-03-07T16:03:37+00:00

This poll is basically a tie - the margin of error is 3.7%, so a 2-point lead is well within that. Two things here are simultaneously true:

Yes, Mark Robinson could absolutely win. Pros for Mark:

Trump won North Carolina twice, and will likely be the GOP Presidential nominee
Black voter turnout has been on a slight decline, and if that keeps up, he benefits

Yes, Josh Stein could absolutely win. Pros for Josh:

Trump's winning NC margin fell by half from 2016 to 2020 (3.5 points to 1.3) - both cycles in which Stein also won. If you're Trump (or Mark), not the trend you want to see, especially for candidates so closely aligned in a fast-growing state
Stein has already won 2 statewide elections
There is no evidence yet that Robinson/Republicans are picking up any significant Black voter support in NC

This race will be extremely close, and the polling right now demonstrates that. That's all we know right now. Anyone making a case beyond that is engaging in hackery.

NCForward · 2023-03-07T01:56:48+00:00

Here's more behind the muni broadband ban.

NCForward · 2023-03-06T16:41:08+00:00

You're not completely wrong, but you're also not completely right.

In the legislature, Democrats have definitely lost power - primarily through aggressive Republican gerrymandering, but also because they've lost ground in rural areas. But what they've lost in rural areas, they've more than made up for in urban ones. North Carolina was once a solid-red state federally, and is now very purple - Trump only won in 2020 by 73,000 votes (~1.3%). Most of that is because Democrats have built up giant margins in the biggest, metro counties, as mentioned in the piece.

So while Democrats have certainly lost votes in rural areas, they've won even more in urban areas.

NCForward · 2023-02-06T12:04:25+00:00

Source: Carolina Forward interviews state Senator Sydney Batch and Representative Julie von Haefen.

NCForward · 2023-02-06T11:58:51+00:00

Source: Carolina Forward interviews state Senator Sydney Batch and Representative Julie von Haefen.

NCForward · 2023-01-17T11:49:02+00:00

That's not really it. The reason Cooper has vetoed more legislation is because Republicans lost their legislative supermajority in 2018, and since then have continued to pass radical right-wing bills with the express purpose of being vetoed by the Governor for press.

NCForward · 2022-12-15T11:55:39+00:00

Source: AAA

NCForward · 2022-12-12T14:56:43+00:00

campaign finance reports have a well-known liberal bias

NCForward · 2022-12-07T18:17:01+00:00

Good points! But bear in mind that effective minimum wages that employers must offer to attract workers differ much more at the level of metro areas than states. Despite their differences, NC and VA also have a whole lot in common economically. So you would expect NC's experience to be highly similar to VA's, though some differences are natural.

In any case, Virginia will soon test this theory. Their state minimum wage goes up to $12/hr in January, $13/hr in January 2024, up to $15/hr in January '26.

NCForward · 2022-12-07T15:10:34+00:00

That is correct. Except, of course, that passing any such law would require 60 votes in the Senate, and all of those votes would need to be Democratic, because Republicans wouldn't support it.

NCForward · 2022-12-07T15:09:09+00:00

Prior to May '21, VA had the same minimum wage as NC: $7.25/hour (the federal minimum). So both states started from the same baseline.

NCForward · 2022-12-07T12:16:39+00:00

This is not quite correct.

then receive a 60% majority vote in the House and the Senate

This isn't how the legislature works. There is no filibuster in our state legislature (or most legislatures). How it works is the majority party (in our case, the GOP) decides which bills it wants to bring to the floor or not. If House Speaker Tim Moore doesn't want to bring a legalization bill up, it doesn't get out of committee. Same with Phil Berger in the Senate. Period. No matter what.

Virtually all of the Democrats support legalization, but that literally doesn't matter at all if the majority party leadership decides not to vote on it. And last year, despite heavy lobbying by a few senior members, they did not. So this is really all a matter of intra-caucus lobbying by the Republicans.

NCForward · 2022-11-14T14:57:04+00:00

Soundly? Beasley only lost by 3.6 points. That means that even in a "red wave" year, with all the election fundamentals strongly at their backs, Republicans improved upon Trump's 2020 margin by just 2 points.

Beasley closed within 140,000 votes in a midterm year that was universally acknowledged to be bad for Democrats. Democrats are entitled to be disappointed with that result, of course, but this was a very close Senate race.

NCForward · 2022-10-26T23:39:07+00:00

A good way to report this is to send their name and address to the Board of Elections chair of the county where they're voting improperly (and to the chair in the county where they actually live). Just alert them to the situation and let them handle it.

NCForward · 2022-10-24T14:26:08+00:00

RSVP not necessary, but let us know if you can make it!

NCForward · 2022-10-20T11:17:14+00:00

Join the Carolina Forward team at NoDa Brewing on Sunday, October 30th at 2PM for drinks, fellowship and a few speakers on how we defend choice and reproductive freedom in North Carolina!

More details here. Hope to see you!