N.C. needs more primary election debates
I’m inviting Republican candidates to join me for livestreamed debates before the March primary.
I’m a politics nerd. I freaking love debates. But I also understand why they’ve fallen out of favor.
In today’s media-saturated environment, people’s attention is fractured. Fewer people are willing to watch a full hour live, and so few people are actually persuadable that it doesn’t really make sense for candidates to take the risk and invest the time. Campaigns would rather control the message than take the risk of a real back-and-forth.
If debates were truly decisive, Dan Forest would be governor right now. He absolutely clobbered Roy Cooper in the one and only debate of 2020.
The bigger issue is that general election debates can only do so much. By the fall, most voters already know what a Democrat and a Republican are going to say on the biggest topics. The choice is clear. A debate might confirm impressions, and it can reveal competence and temperament, but it rarely helps you discover what’s actually different.
Primaries, though, are where debates really matter.
In a primary, voters are often choosing between candidates who mostly agree on the basics, which means the real questions are about priorities, judgment, seriousness, and what you’ll actually do once you get there. Especially in General Assembly races, that’s not always easy to sort out from mailers and social media.
Right now, we just don’t give voters many chances to see candidates tested side by side.
So I want to help fix it.
Between now and the March primary, I’m offering to host and moderate live-streamed debates among Republican candidates. Candidates can do it from a home computer. No travel. No studio. Just a clean, fair format that voters can watch live or catch later.
Here’s the structure I have in mind: We start with three-minute opening statements, then we run six to eight questions alternating back and forth between candidates. For each question, each candidate gets a minute to answer, the opponent gets a minute to rebut, and then the first person gets a minute to respond back. Then we wrap with three-minute closing statements.
The key is that these should feel like actual debates, not alternating statements. Within reason — and in my discretion as moderator — if the exchange is substantive and voters are learning something, I’m going to let the candidates engage with each other instead of cutting everything off the moment the stopwatch buzzes.
Afterward, I’ll give both campaigns the raw video files, so they can clip and use the footage however they want.
I’m particularly interested in hosting debates in these Republican contests, in no particular order:
Rep. Jake Johnson vs. former Rep. Mike Hager (N.C. House District 113)
John Powell vs. Clancy Baucom (N.C. House District 55)
Judge Michael Byrne vs. Judge Matt Smith (N.C. Court of Appeals, Seat 1)
Sen. Phil Berger vs. Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page (N.C. Senate District 26)
Sen. Chris Measmer vs. former Rep. Kevin Crutchfield (N.C. Senate District 34)
Rep. Jimmy Dixon vs. Marcella Barbour (N.C. House District 4)
Rep. Keith Kidwell vs. Darren Armstrong (N.C. House District 79)
I’m going to reach out to these candidates and try to set them up. If you’re in a different race and you’re willing to debate, let me know. I can’t promise I’ll land every matchup, but I’ll do my best to broker an agreement and make it easy.
Let’s do more primary debates in North Carolina.
Quick hits
The State Board of Elections just signed off on early voting plans for the primary, and in most counties it was routine and bipartisan. In my new column, I argue progressive groups are turning a handful of disputes into a voter suppression morality play, even though many changes are just resource tradeoffs that officials should be able to explain clearly.
Read the full column here, free with gift link: Not every early voting change in North Carolina is a Republican conspiracy
The removal petition against Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden was tossed in court last week, but the SBI investigation is still moving forward. In my other column, I argue he should resign now to protect the sheriff’s office and salvage what’s left of his own name.
Read it with gift link: For Charlotte’s sake, sheriff Garry McFadden should resign
Agree and disagree. Yes, way back in 2014, the Tillis/Rove team proved they could duck debates, hide from their party base, and guilt us into supporting him in November. That’s how NC twice elected one of the most liberal “Republicans” in the Senate.
Disagree on the Forrest assessment because he kept playing the “nice guy” shtick during the debate, while Cooper was in full attack mode. From a pure consumer perspective, Dan came across as weak. After early voting began, a center-right female friend told me she voted for Forrest, “but he’s not going to win.”