Campaign finance reports are in. Here’s what to know

Campaign finance reports are in (well, most of them) and we’ve got a roundup of some of the highlights from #ncpol candidates.

N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore pulled in nearly $290,000 in May and June, bringing his total receipts for the upcoming election to over $1.6 million.

Over in the N.C. Senate, leader Phil Berger raised over $306,000 in those two months for a total of $1.4 million so far in this election.

Berger and Moore are both running unopposed, but that hasn’t stopped them from raking in some of the highest fundraising totals in the General Assembly. Moore has used the money to give to some Republican candidates, like Donald Pomeroy, who is running for NC House District 104. Berger gave $5,000 to the NC Senate GOP Fund.

State Supreme Court races have become expensive affairs in North Carolina and this year is no exception. Democrat Lucy Inman, who currently sits on the Court of Appeals, has raised nearly $1.3 million so far, bringing in over $500,000 in May and June.

Her challenger, Richard Dietz, also a current Court of Appeals judge, has raised $403,000 so far, $97,000 of which came in the latest period. Although Dietz has brought in far less than Inman, that by no means makes this race uncompetitive. Democrats tend to outspend their opponents in this state, but that doesn’t always translate to a win on election night.

Running for the other open state Supreme Court seat are sitting Justice Sam Ervin IV and his Republican challenger, Trey Allen.

Ervin has raised more than $950,000 this election, including over $303,000 in the past two months. Allen has not filed his disclosure report for the latest period yet (though it was due on July 12) but had raised a total of over $412,000 back in May when his last report was filed.

And of course, the race for North Carolina’s open seat in the U.S. Senate is drawing millions of dollars for what analysts predict will be a tight race. Democrat Cheri Beasley, who has served as chief justice of the state Supreme Court, has raised $16 million so far — bringing in over $7.4 million in the second quarter. That’s the most money ever raised by a Senate candidate in NC during the second quarter, our colleague Will Wright in Charlotte reports.

Beasley’s opponent, Republican congressman Ted Budd, raised $2.1 million in the second quarter. An advisor to Budd, Jonathan Felts, helpfully explained what this means in an email to press.

“To save you Liberal-Arts-Degreed reporters the strain of math, this converts to Cheri Beasley’s campaign raising approximately 3.5 times as much as Ted Budd’s campaign as anyone with half a brain and a bare minimum of historical knowledge of the past decade of campaign politics in North Carolina would have anticipated,” Felts wrote.

My degree is in journalism and political science so, fair enough, but according to LinkedIn, Felts got his Bachelor’s in writing and editing at N.C. State ... another liberal arts degree.

On another note, keep an eye out for #NCGA news on Tuesday when the legislature is scheduled to return for the day. They’ve released no calendar information for the session so far, so it’s anyone’s guess what they get up to next week, if anything.

AN EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT

The News & Observer and NC Insider are excited to announce a new event series kicking off 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 27.

Join us at The Raleigh Times for the first “Politics at the Pub” meet-and-greet. It will feature first-rate drinks, fun conversation and an informal setting. At our inaugural event, you can meet The N&O’s entire politics team and our new Insider editor. Grab a drink on us and join a discussion of the legislature’s short session.

The N&O and NC Insider’s “Politics at the Pub” is sponsored by Randolph Cloud & Associates and Fidelity Investments. Registration is required to attend, but it’s free! Click here to claim your seat.

MORE FROM THE TEAM

Two Josh Stein stories in one day here at The N&O! First up, Avi Bajpai reports that the N.C. attorney general has refused to seek reinstatement of the state’s 20-week abortion ban as Republican legislative leaders had asked him to do. Top Republicans are likely to seek enforcement of the ban on their own.

Secondly, Will Doran has the scoop on a criminal investigation into Stein’s 2020 attorney general campaign. Stein is arguing that the law he is being accused of breaking — which is nearly a century old — is unconstitutional. According to Will, the interview happened while smooth jazz played in the background of a coffee shop, which I think sets a nice journalistic ambiance.

And U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, who represents the Charlotte area, was arrested by Capitol Police this week, Danielle Battaglia reports. Adams was one of 17 members of Congress to be arrested during a protest outside the Supreme Court over its reversal of Roe v. Wade.

ALL UNDER THE DOME ALL THE TIME

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. Be sure to also check out our stories, our tweets and our Under the Dome podcast. All our politics stories post to our Under the Dome Twitter account, so be sure to follow it. We also have a pinned list on that Twitter account of the politics team so you can follow our work individually as well. And our new podcast episodes post every Monday to keep you informed about what’s coming up next.

— By Kyle Ingram, reporter for The News & Observer. Email me at kingram@newsobserver.com and follow me on Twitter @kyle_ingram11.