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Orange County Democrats are hosting a Saturday afternoon rally featuring all Democratic candidates in statewide, contested races -- that would be candidate for governor Walter Dalton and most of the rest of the Council of State candidates.
The Piedmont Rally is from 1 p.m.-3 p.m. in Chapel Hill High School. Democrats from seven surrounding counties were invited.
Who is the highest ranking elected official in North Carolina that nobody knows? The award goes to Beth Wood, the state auditor.
A National Research poll commissioned by the Civitas Institute looks at voter's thoughts on the nine elected Council of State officials and found only two -- Attorney General Roy Cooper and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall -- who were known by more than half the voters.
Wood topped the "never heard of" list (75 percent of voters), followed closely by State Treasurer Janet Cowell (74 percent), Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin (73 percent) and Superintendent of Education June Atkinson (61 percent).
Among Council of State officials, voters had the most favorable opinions of Cooper (30 percent), Marshall (29 percent), Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler (21 percent) and Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry (21 percent).
Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton won the curious designation as the top elected official who voters knew but didn't know how they felt about (54 percent).
The extra eyeballs at the N.C. State Board of Elections are catching errors on some very recognizable campaign finance reports.
Over the past several months, elections officials have asked for missing information from the campaigns of Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger, former Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, State Auditor Beth Wood -- the Auditor is being audited -- and others to provide missing information about contributions or contributors. In Marshall's case, the elections board's letter asked her campaign to file an overdue report. All are Democrats, except for Berger.
Elections officials routinely send out such letters after they have scrutinized campaign finance reports, but two years ago the board received funding to hire seven additional auditors and compliance specialists. That gave them the ability to more thoroughly and more quickly find problems. Money for the extra staff followed highly publicized corruption cases that involved campaign money.
The recent letters highlighted bookkeeping problems, such as misdated contribution checks, contributions that weren't recorded, either by the donor or the candidate. Typically such inquiries are resolved by the campaign filing a corrected report and providing the details. Dalton's campaign, for example, received a letter in February and subsequently corrected his report.
"This is not any kind of gotcha," said Gary Bartlett, the board's executive director. "This is to get the statements right and ensure the accuracy of reports. By going through this, we’re hoping people will have a better understanding of doing their reports and mistakes will be minimized."
It's the Zapruder film of hugs.
A brief snippet of video from UNC-TV has been watched by political observers around North Carolina today who want to know if Gov. Beverly Perdue snubbed Superintendent June Atkinson on Monday.
Perdue and Atkinson have been engaged in a battle royale of late over which of them should have control over state education.
So when Perdue made her way to the podium in the House chamber to give her biennial State of the State address to the legislature, her behavior toward Atkinson was watched.
As seen in the video, Perdue shook hands and hugged several state politicians, including Rep. Garland Pierce, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and state Auditor Beth Wood.
But between Marshall and Wood, she bypassed Atkinson, who was standing less than two feet away.
Was it intentional, or just an oversight in a busy evening? Watch the video for yourself and decide.
This morning's meeting of the Council of State was a subdued affair because of the death of former Insurance Commission Jim Long.
Gov. Beverly Perdue asked for a moment's silence for Long, who last month ended 24 years of experience regulating the insurance business, Rob Christensen reports.
She joked that if Long were there, he would have said pass the donuts and coffee and said get the meeting moving.
Perdue asked the Council of State members to attend Long's funeral on Thursday as a group.
Long’s death overshadowed a little history. For the first time, a majority of the members of the Council of State were women: Perdue, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry, State Treasurer Janet Cowell and State Auditor Beth Wood, and Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson.
The Council of State members can drop the "elect" now.
In order of the creation of their offices, the nine statewide elected officials took their oaths of office: Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin, Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, Attorney General Roy Cooper, Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson, Treasurer Janet Cowell, Auditor Beth Wood, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton.
The races for open seats for lieutenant governor and state treasurer could be close contests, according to the latest results from Public Policy Polling.
But while most incumbents for Council of State offices enjoy "solid leads" in the latest survey, State Auditor Les Merritt, a Republican, trails Democratic challenger Beth Wood.
PPP surveyed 616 likely voters on May 8-9. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
The full results in the various Council of State races after the jump:
