ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — After almost four decades spent in North Carolina politics, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is now on a list of names circulating social media as potential picks for Vice President to run alongside Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee following the exit of President Joe Biden.
13News Now spoke with political analyst Jason Husser, a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Elon University in North Carolina and who is also Director of the Elon University Poll.
Is there a legitimate conversation to be had about Gov. Roy Cooper being a potential vice presidential pick, or is it more speculation than anything else?
At this point, discussion about Roy Cooper, the North Carolina governor as a vice presidential pick is largely just speculation. The governor has gone on record saying he had a phone conversation with Vice President Harris nominee Harris or soon-to-be nominee Harris. That's an indication that he is on her radar screen, but there's no clear evidence that he's going to move forward as a vice president.
In contrast, Governor Cooper's entire career has been very North Carolina-focused. He's been in elected office in North Carolina for almost 40 years now and he's won six statewide races in North Carolina. We don't have any clear evidence that Vice President Harris is moving forward with him as a vice presidential pick... she certainly has plenty of time to make up her mind about who's going to be the right VP pick. I would be expecting that the Harris campaign and surrogates to the campaign will be conducting a lot of different polling. I would not be surprised at all to see if Cooper's name is in the mix as a potential VP pick.
Has he been tapped on the shoulder before for positions beyond the state of North Carolina?
Governor Cooper has been in North Carolina politics for almost 40 years now becoming a member of the General Assembly in the 1980s, then winning six statewide races for Attorney General then as Governor. This is a person who's been courted to run for a lot of different offices over the years, including U.S. Senate races in which he was doing better than many of the potential Democratic nominees. If Governor Cooper had ambition to hold a federal office, he certainly has had opportunities. He's passed them up in order to stay in North Carolina, but at this point, he's term-limited out and so there's not much else he can do within North Carolina.
It would not surprise me if he's thinking maybe this is the time to do the next step. He's 67 years old, which means he still has some time left in his career if he wants to make a big jump into the White House.
What is his political branding? How is he viewed by North Carolina residents?
Cooper has been one of the only major statewide Democrats to be successful in the recent era in North Carolina. Barack Obama wins North Carolina in 2008. People started saying North Carolina is the swing state [but] since then, Republicans have consistently won at the statewide level, both at the presidential level and at most of our statewide races. With the exception of the governor's office, Cooper wins in a hair in 2016. He barely wins, it takes a recount in order to verify that he won it, so close.
But then 2020 comes along and Cooper is really the success story of North Carolina Democratic politics. Trump wins the state by over 1%. Most other statewide races go to Republicans handily, but Cooper, a Democrat still is able to pull off North Carolina with a several percentage point win. That was a part of the story that he didn't face the strongest Republican opposition in 2020. But it's also a story that Cooper has consistently proven he's able to win and get people to split their tickets in North Carolina. Cooper has been able to get a number of people who are voting for Republicans at one level, vote for him at the other level.
Is Gov. Cooper seen as a moderate? Someone who works across the aisle?
At one point, there was a lot of evidence of Cooper working across the aisle because Republicans in the state were in a position that they needed his support in order to pass legislation. More recently, Republicans have gained a large enough majority in the general assembly that they're able to over his veto. Once that happened, there was less need for Republicans to reach out to Cooper.
But in that period of time… there was a lot of evidence, Republicans worked with Cooper to pass legislation that was a priority to both sides. All that said, moderates are in many ways a near-extinct species in modern American politics. There are people who are more moderate than others but true moderates are extremely rare. I would put Cooper in the category of Democrats who are closer to the center than the party average. But I'm not sure I would say he's a moderate in terms of historical standards of someone who may have voted with the other side just as much as his own.
What would Gov. Cooper bring to a presidential ticket that others could not?
Cooper brings two potential things to a Harris ticket. One is he gives I think a boost in North Carolina. Vice presidential picks rarely move the needle enough to tip an election. Even presidential home states don't necessarily matter that much. If Al Gore had won Tennessee, he would have been president in 2000. That said, Cooper has proven that he's able to get North Carolinians to vote for him when they would otherwise be voting for Republicans. He did that in 2016. He did that in 2020 in which he outscored Trump's margins by quite a lot.
There is a chance if Cooper is VP that, that does put North Carolina more in play for Democrats. Most Democrats' maps to victory the race to 270 electoral votes sort of take North Carolina as, ‘Well, that’s probably in the lean Trump category. Let's focus on Michigan. Let's focus on Wisconsin. Let's focus on Pennsylvania.' With Cooper on the ballot I think North Carolina is more in play for Democrats than it would be otherwise.
The second thing Cooper brings to a potential Harris ticket is a wealth of proven experience. Cooper was a successful statewide elected politician in a very divided state for 16 years as attorney general and then eight years as governor.
We've polled on Cooper now for eight years here at the Elon University Poll and we've consistently found him doing pretty well in polls at least as well as one can expect to do in a state as closely divided and contentious as North Carolina politics throughout the pandemic. We asked a lot of questions in North Carolina voters about how Cooper was handling the pandemic. We found most voters thought he did very well with that.
Harris is running as a former prosecutor turned-US Senator turned-Vice President. She [Harris] is not running as someone who's run a large bureaucracy. Like a state-level government. So Cooper would be able to add some addition to the ticket of saying, here's a person who's run a really big organization. The state government of North Carolina is a huge entity. It's on par with a cabinet-level department at the federal level.
He also has very proven track record of working across the aisle or at least getting things done in a very divided government and whoever is elected president in 2024 is going to be dealing with that level of polarization in Washington.
So, is Harris guaranteed to pick a running mate who “balances” the ticket?
Every presidential nominee has had this sort of balancing act. They were trying to play off what characteristics of their vice president do they think will move the needle? Do they need someone who's going be in contrast to them?
For instance, if it's Hillary Clinton running, does she want someone like Tim Kaine? If it's George W Bush running, someone who is a Texas governor but not really that much federal experience he picks Dick Cheney, someone who had a wealth of experience at the federal level. Barack Obama, a new candidate who had only briefly been a US senator picks Joe Biden, who had been in Congress at that point for a very long period of time.
Someone like Roy Cooper would have the ability to balance Harris's ticket in terms of that level of experience. Here's a person who's worked in depth at almost all levels of a state government. A big state, an important swing state, and in a complex state that balancing of... experiences is something that sometimes presidential candidates care about.
But not always. We saw very recently with Donald Trump picking JD Vance to be his VP choice that it's not always a story about balancing. Yes, Vance balanced Trump's age and that he's much younger than Trump, but ideologically, yes, there's flavors of it. But, Vance isn't that different than Trump in terms of he's a person who's a newcomer to politics. This isn't a tried and true established candidate the way Mike Pence would be so oftentimes presidential candidates face this balance.
Are they going to try to pick a VP that's going to appeal to a group of voters who might be nervous about them? Are they going to try to pick a VP who has a different level of experience to try to have a, a well-balanced president, vice presidential choice? And it can also be a matter of trying to secure a nomination.