7 predictions for N.C. politics in 2025
How I see the 2026 U.S. Senate race shaping up and how incoming Gov. Josh Stein will wield power
Out of all the end-of-year media tropes, there’s one I particularly love: prediction pieces.
And so, here are my bold and not-so-bold predictions for North Carolina politics in 2025. All of them are designed to have a clear yes or no answer, so at the end of the year we can we how many of them came to pass. You’ll have the opportunity to weigh in on each prediction, too.
Roy Cooper will run for U.S. Senate
Somehow, we’re already reaching the end of U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis’s second term, and the prevailing wisdom is that outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper will challenge him for the seat in 2026.
Cooper certainly doesn’t need to: He’ll be nearly 70 years old by that Election Day and just served two pretty successful (from his perspective, at least) terms as governor.
But my gut says he will run: Cooper loves national politics too much and has not had the chance to directly participate in it. I think Cooper also values the chance to stay as the head of the state Democratic Party.
For this prediction to be successful, Cooper will need to have announced his candidacy or at least started fundraising behind the scenes.
Trump will endorse Tillis to head off a divisive primary
Tillis, for his part, has already kicked off his re-election effort with a high-dollar fundraiser in Washington, D.C. I would not have been surprised if Tillis had decided to retire from the Senate, but that does not appear to be the case.
The very online faction of the Republican Party has identified Tillis as a target, and there are already rumblings about who might pose a serious primary challenge to the sitting senator. I actually don’t think this will happen.
I predict that President Donald Trump will endorse Tillis very early in the cycle, preventing a serious primary challenge. Trump will use the weight of his endorsement to extract loyalty from Tillis, and give Republicans a better chance to hold on to the seat in the process.
Gov. Josh Stein will veto fewer than 8 bills in 2025.
Cooper just annihilated the record for vetoes in a gubernatorial term, applying the stamp to a total of 104 bills over the course of eight years. That equates to an average of 13 vetoes per year.
The success of these vetoes was mixed and came in cycles. Cooper’s last 29 vetoes were all overridden, but the 47 before that were sustained — representing all of the vetoes from 2019 through 2022.
I think 2025 will look more like the beginning of Cooper’s term, where there was a mix of vetoes overridden and sustained. But my prediction is that incoming Gov. Josh Stein’s veto pen will be relatively lightly used in his first year in office.
There are two reasons for this: I think Stein will take a more conciliatory approach to politics than his predecessor. He’ll be more likely let a bill become law without a signature. But I also think presumptive House Speaker Destin Hall will have a harder time controlling his caucus than former Rep. Tim Moore did. Fewer bills will be ultimately passed, giving Stein less opportunities to issue a veto.
Stein will sign a budget into law
Years ago, I wrote that Cooper would never sign a budget bill. I turned out to be wrong: Cooper did ultimately sign the 2021 budget into law in November of that year, breaking a three-year impasse.
I think 2025 will look more like 2021 than the other years of Cooper’s term. Stein will ultimately sign a budget bill into law, though including plenty of caveats about how he doesn’t think it goes far enough.
Rep. Cecil Brockman will announce his retirement from the House
Republicans sit one seat short of a supermajority in the N.C. House, and everybody is wondering whether they’ll have a “working supermajority” or convince a Democrat to flip, a la Rep. Tricia Cotham. Rep. Cecil Brockman, a moderate Greensboro Democrat, seems the most likely candidate.
I don’t think it will happen. Republicans have few carrots to offer him, and no ability to engineer a legislative district more friendly to him. And anyway, what I hear from Brockman is the voice of someone exhausted by the current political climate.
I don’t think he has the stomach for the wall of vitriol that would certain come his way were he to switch parties or regularly vote to override vetoes. Instead, I predict that Brockman will announce that this is his final term before the end of 2025.
Sen. Phil Berger will announce his retirement as Senate President Pro Tem
This is already a year with a major changing of the guard. With former Speaker Moore headed to Congress, the state House will have its first new speaker in a decade.
Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger has been in leadership even longer, since Republicans took control in the 2010 elections — setting the record for longest continuous term in that role.
I predict this will be his last biennium at the helm of the state Senate. I think 2025 will be the year in which the rank and file members of the General Assembly grow discontent with the way things are operating in Raleigh, and Berger’s post will be on the chopping block. Rather than retire or pursue higher office as Moore did, I predict that Berger will instead run for re-election as a regular member of the Senate in 2026.
Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt will use her position as Senate president to gain national headlines
The lieutenant governor position in North Carolina is extraordinarily weak, but it is constitutionally established as the president of the state Senate. Over the last decade, lieutenant governors have regularly presided over the Senate — but it has been exceedingly rare for there to be a partisan difference between the LG and the Senate majority.
Well, that’s where we find ourselves in 2025 — and in the current political climate, I predict that incoming Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt to use her position for maximum rhetorical effect. At least once this year, Hunt will earn herself a national headlines for using the presidency of the Senate to blast Republicans on a bill under consideration.
Important reads
Top spenders on social media this week
One final note
This is the last newsletter of 2024. Thank you all so much for reading this year, and I’m excited about what 2025 will bring. If you don’t mind, please forward this email to a friend or two who you think would like Longleaf Politics.
Happy New Year, y’all!