Under the Dome podcast: 2023 local elections, ALEC and Florida vs. NC

Start your week in #ncpol #ncga with our latest Under the Dome politics podcast. Dawn Vaughan here, your News & Observer Capitol bureau chief and podcast host.

For the week of July 31, 2023, we broke down our episode into two segments. First up are two of our local government reporters, because while statewide elections are more than a year away, local ones are coming up this fall.

Kristen Johnson covers Western Wake County towns including Cary, and Mary Helen Moore covers Durham. We’ve already got one NCGA crossover with Bull City politics, because state Sen. Mike Woodard is running for Durham mayor. But he’s not the only candidate. Moore talks about who the candidates are for Durham mayor and the rest of city council, plus what the top issues are that will drive voters to the polls.

Johnson talks about how representation on Western Wake County may shift, including a Holly Springs Town Council candidate who’s a local advocate and nonbinary. And both Johnson and Moore discuss how the Triangle regions are handling development.

Headliner of the Week

After the break, I’m joined by our summer politics interns Makiya Seminera with The N&O and Jazper Lu with NC Insider, which is one of our two daily politics newsletters.

One of the reasons the House hasn’t been voting lately, aside from the budget impasse, is vacations and conferences. One conference is the American Legislative Exchange Council, which several House Republicans attended this past week. Listen to hear more from Lu’s reporting on ALEC and its influence.

Seminera, who is from Florida, talks about how North Carolina and Florida’s legislatures compare.

And for our Headliners of the Week, we have several for you. Johnson and Moore share their picks during the local government segment, and Seminera, Lu and I share ours at the very end of the episode. Spoilers: the clear Headline winner, with two picks, is the women-led summer blockbuster movie. Others are about what a mayor’s doing on Monday, movement on Medicaid expansion and downtown Raleigh’s resurgence.

Listen to our latest episode below and catch up on previous episodes. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Audible, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon Music and Stitcher.

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