NC Gov. Roy Cooper wants another term. His first is ‘defined by the coronavirus pandemic’
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper sailed through the March primary election, giving an acceptance speech about growing up the son of a public school teacher and working on a farm.
He touted his successes since being elected in 2016, including repealing the controversial House Bill 2, and his work on goals like closing the health care coverage gap.
But he said something else in that speech, too: “With the challenge of the new coronavirus, I want you to know my team is up to the task, that we are prepared and we are ready to move North Carolina forward.”
Just hours earlier, North Carolina had reported its first case of COVID-19. All of a sudden, the coronavirus pandemic — the statistics, the shutdowns, the reopenings — commanded Cooper’s attention above almost anything else.
A week later, Cooper issued the first of many executive orders aimed at controlling the spread of the virus, declaring a state of emergency to coordinate the state’s response to the pandemic. More came swiftly, shutting down schools and restaurants and limiting gatherings.
Now, seven months have passed, and the restrictions have begun to slowly lift. Most businesses — if they survived — have reopened, but many still struggle. Many schools have opened for some in-person learning, though more than half the state started the school year completely online.
The issues of Medicaid expansion and teacher raises dominated the 2019 state budget battle between Cooper and the Republican-controlled state legislature. The battle turned to a stalemate and eventually, resulted in no new budget at all. Teachers did not get raises. In summer 2020, the General Assembly passed $350 teacher bonuses and step raises. Cooper signed it into law. Medicaid expansion, which Cooper championed, wasn’t passed.
If not for the coronavirus pandemic, those two issues likely would have repeated themselves as main themes in Cooper’s campaign facing Republican challenger, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest.
Instead, the first-term governor’s handling of COVID-19 largely will be on the ballot.
Several polls over the past several months have showed strong support for Cooper’s handling of the crisis. But others pushed back, through attempted legislation and lawsuits. During the spring statewide stay-at-home order, swells of ReOpen NC protesters took to the streets downtown. Soon, Republicans sent him bill after bill that would reopen and lift restrictions on businesses, including bars, gyms and bowling alleys. Cooper vetoed them all.
Cooper, 63, did not agree to an interview about his campaign for this story, despite several interview requests.
“Everything is defined by the coronavirus pandemic and how the nation has responded to that, and the state has responded to that,” N.C. Central University political science professor Jarvis Hall told the N&O earlier this summer.
Donald Bryson, CEO of the conservative Civitas Institute, told the N&O this month that COVID-19 “sucks the oxygen” out of the room when it comes to the election.
A ‘measured’ approach
Cooper often mentions growing up in Nash County, where his mother was a teacher and his father was a lawyer. Cooper, also a lawyer, has been in politics since the 1990s and served in the state Senate and as attorney general before running for governor. Cooper and his wife, Kristin Cooper, who is also an attorney, raised three daughters.
Cooper’s political strategist is Morgan Jackson, who has been advising him for 20 years.
They met when Cooper was in the state Senate in the 1990s. Jackson was working for the North Carolina Democratic Party when Cooper ran for attorney general. Jackson has had his own political strategy company since 2007 and has been involved in all of Cooper’s campaigns since then.
That includes the 2016 gubernatorial election, when Cooper barely beat incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, campaigning that he would overturn HB2, the law that required people in government buildings to use bathrooms matching the gender on their birth certificate.
But that was almost four years and a pandemic ago. COVID-19 is now the filter in how voters see the election, just like everything in their lives, Jackson told The News & Observer in an interview.
He credits Cooper’s “steady hand at the wheel” handling of the coronavirus to explain why he’s leading in polls against Forest.
Cooper’s campaign approach is different than Forest’s, which relies on in-person retail politics. Cooper’s campaign events are all virtual, and he has had few public events outside of weekly news conferences that are all remote, with reporters calling in by phone. The governor has far outraised Forest in fundraising.
Cooper made a short public appearance this summer during a protest in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. He joined protesters outside the Executive Mansion and briefly removed his mask to speak to a reporter, a move that his opponents criticize and regularly highlight in anti-Cooper publicity.
A Republican Governors Association ad against Cooper claims, “When he told you to stay inside and closed your business, he marched with protesters.” Forest’s campaign ads tout what he would do instead of Cooper. “When I’m governor, I will never tell a business owner they can’t make a living,” Forest said.
But Jackson repeatedly calls Cooper’s response to the pandemic “measured.” Cooper, himself, has described it as “cautious.” In talking about the governor’s approach to tightening and easing COVID-19 restrictions, Jackson repeats one of Cooper’s phrases — a “dimmer switch” approach to lifting restrictions. That’s how Cooper has described the gradual, phased lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.
As of Oct. 14, there have been more than 236,000 cases of COVID-19 in North Carolina, with 3.4 million tests. More than 3,850 people have died. Of the cases, 206,000 are presumed recovered, according to N.C. DHHS. North Carolina has not seen a spike in cases like in other states, which Cooper’s administration credits to their approach to restrictions. But there is renewed concerns as the number of people hospitalized — more than 1,150 people on Oct. 14 — rises again as flu season looms.
Democratic lawmakers have defended Cooper as keeping people safe, while Republicans pushed on the economic fallout, too, and how slow Cooper has been to lift restrictions.
North Carolina entered Phase 3 of its reopening on Oct. 2, having extended Phase 2 several times and then moved to a Phase 2.5 — making “modest” steps by easing restrictions for mass gatherings, museums and fitness facilities.
The Phase 3 executive order, which reopened bars for the first time in almost seven months, was met with disdain from bar owners, who said it was too little, too late.
But at briefing after briefing, Cooper and Dr. Mandy Cohen, N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, have said they rely on the latest data and science as they lifted restrictions. Their repeated public health messaging of following the “3 Ws” of wearing a mask, washing your hands and waiting 6 feet apart from others is about getting people to change their behavior, Cohen told the N&O in August as the state’s coronavirus trends stabilized.
Jackson said Cooper’s campaign has adapted its messaging to whatever Cooper has done in response to COVID-19.
“It’s not the campaign leading it, it’s the campaign following it,” he said.
Budget battle, the sequel
Even during his COVID-19 briefings, Cooper and Cohen, a Cooper appointee, have brought up Medicaid expansion.
At a September press briefing, Cooper strayed from his traditionally even-keeled demeanor, visibly frustrated that he is still pleading for Medicaid expansion. He said that wouldn’t change if the next General Assembly — which has all 170 seats up for election — has the same leadership, even in a pandemic.
“This should be really easy, and so I think you have to look at this point in time as different from last year,” Cooper told reporters. “Yeah, we were having disputes over Medicaid expansion, but then a pandemic happened, and now a lot of people are hurting and now we’re fighting for every federal dollar we can get.”
Cooper reiterated this belief with The News & Observer earlier this month.
“My goodness, 39 other states have done this, including when [Vice President] Mike Pence was governor [of Indiana],” Cooper said, noting how North Carolinians’ tax money is going to fund expansion in other states.
“It is very, very frustrating and agonizing. I believe that not only is closing this health care coverage gap an urgent priority, I think it is a moral imperative,” Cooper said.
Cooper has said during the campaign that if voters elect a different legislature, Medicaid expansion will be passed and school funding can be more of a priority.
This summer’s short legislative session touched briefly on Medicaid expansion in floor speeches, but mostly focused on deciding how to spend federal CARES Act funding for coronavirus relief.
The governor said if the next General Assembly supports it, he wants to pass Medicaid expansion in the first few weeks of his second term.
In a 2016 N&O story about Cooper’s 16 years as attorney general before running for governor, Cooper admitted to taking time to make decisions.
“Sometimes you’re required to make a quicker decision,” he said. “But most of the time in government and public policy you make a better decision when you get all the facts, when you get public input and you get advice from people who know and understand the issue,” Cooper said then.
‘Doing the work’
Attorney General Josh Stein, also a Democrat seeking re-election, has known Cooper for 20 years and worked for him when Cooper was attorney general. Stein said he is proud of Cooper’s leadership fighting payday lenders when he was attorney general.
“First, he is a good person,” Stein said in an interview with the N&O this week. “He’s the kind of guy who would ask you on Monday how was your weekend and then listen to your answer. He genuinely cares about the people he works with and leads.
“Roy really is as he seems,” Stein said. “He’s not a showboat. He’s not out there trying to get a lot of attention. He’s about doing the work.”
Jackson, the governor’s campaign strategist, said Cooper spends most of his time focused on the coronavirus.
“A week in coronavirus is like a year. You see cases going up and down ... you are always on alert,” Jackson said.
In Cooper’s primary night speech, he said he wanted to reassure supporters that “the health and safety of North Carolinians is my first priority as governor in this state.”
Voters will decide this fall whether they think he deserves another four years to prove it.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published October 14, 2020, 5:50 PM.
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