North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper made national headlines when it was revealed he was a top contender for Kamala Harris’s vice presidential pick. However, Cooper quickly declined the potential offer, citing it “wasn’t the right time” for him to campaign on such a large scale.
The reason: an archaic law which allows for the lieutenant governor, Republican Mark Robinson, to serve as governor when Cooper is out-of-state.
“Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, is the most extreme statewide candidate in the country right now,” Cooper said in a podcast appearance. “Our concern was that in this race for governor, he likes attention — he likes to get extremist contributions from all over the country. If I were to be out of state at a campaign event, if I had been the vice presidential nominee, he could claim he was acting governor. The attention he would get would be times 10 and it would be a distraction to the presidential campaign.”
Cooper also appeared on MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” where he discussed his decision to step out of consideration for the role of Vice President. The network played clips of Robinson, referring to gay and transgender people as “filth” and another clip saying abortion is “about killing the child because you aren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”
The North Carolina governor also said he stepped away from the pool of candidates because he believes those being considered are more than capable of the job.
“We’re going to welcome them to Raleigh, or maybe Chapel Hill, but we’ll welcome them to North Carolina on Thursday of next week with a big rally kickoff winning North Carolina,” Cooper said.
He added: “I got that 2008 feel. We won North Carolina for Barack Obama; I have that same feeling now. We’re gonna really get to work here.”
There are growing concerns across the country after Rolling Stone, in partnership with the website American Doom, released a report documenting over 70 confirmed Trump-supporting “election denier” officials in positions of authority across multiple swing states, including North Carolina.
American Doom found eight different officials in the Tar Heel state:
- John Adams, Burke County
- George C. Hague in Pasquotank County, who has consistently posted anti-LGBTQ+ and racially insensitive memes on his public Facebook page. Some of these attacks were geared toward the Elizabeth City mayor, accusing her of trying to keep the public out of meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Byron Waters of Halifax County, who has posted memes calling President Joe Biden a “r**ard,” and reposts of ParagerU videos filled with conspiracies and misinformation.
- Anthony Iovino of Burke County, who has taken to Facebook to question Harris’s racial identity and calling those who are against Trump or Republicans “stupid.”
- Elizabeth McDowell of Mecklenburg County, who previously voted against certifying election results for President Biden in Charlotte’s home county in 2020.
- Mary Summa of Mecklenburg County, whose Facebook appears to have been scrubbed of all references to politics except for photos of her and her daughter at the March for Life in Washington D.C.
- Tim DeHaan of Surry County
- Jerry Forestieri of Surry County
Elections scholars believe Republicans are going to utilize the certification process to challenge election results in these swing states if Harris reigns victorious. Lizzie Ulmer is a senior vice president at the States United Democracy Center, an organization which tracks election deniers both in federal and state agencies. She said election deniers are zeroing in on the certification process as a way to call the results of the election into question.
“From the influence of calling for hand counts of ballots, to the pressure to not certify an election … it’s all connected to this broader effort to change the rules, so that, if needed, election deniers can change the results of an election,” Ulmer says. “It makes sense that certification has become one of the tactics used by the election-denier movement to throw sand into the gears of running a free, fair, and smooth election.”