Gov. Roy Cooper’s job firing up crowds for the Democratic presidential ticket this year would appear to be at odds with the subdued demeanor of a longtime North Carolina office holder not given to verbal flourishes.

He got audiences going in a call-and-response, with the crowd shouting “No” when Cooper asked if they wanted a second Donald Trump term. 

Cooper’s measured responses to questions Monday morning on whether he would consider becoming Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate now that President Joe Biden has dropped out of the race was the Cooper that North Carolinians are much more used to hearing.

“I appreciate people talking about me, but I think the focus right now needs to be on her this week,” Cooper said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “She needs to concentrate on making sure that she secures this nomination and gets this campaign ready to go.”

After Biden bowed out on Sunday, Cooper thanked Biden, calling him “among our nation’s finest presidents,” on X, formerly Twitter, and endorsed Harris. 

Cooper, 67, is serving his second term as governor and cannot run for a third. Even before Biden announced Sunday he was leaving the race, there was speculation about a role for Cooper in the second term of a Biden administration. 

Cooper’s steady climb through North Carolina’s political ranks and his position as a Democratic governor in a swing state has pundits measuring his potential as Harris’ running mate.  US Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear are also mentioned as potential vice presidential candidates who could join Harris on the ticket. 

Keeping healthcare and public schools in the forefront

Introducing Biden and Harris at North Carolina rallies gave Cooper a chance to tout Medicaid expansion in North Carolina, a premier accomplishment of his administration. He announced at a news conference this month that more than 500,000 residents had enrolled in the expanded program. At campaign rallies, he paints the image of Trump ripping a health insurance card out of someone’s hand. 

Cooper started fighting for Medicaid expansion even before he officially took office after defeating one-term Republican Pat McCrory in 2016. Leading Republicans in the legislature dismissed all calls for Medicaid expansion for years. Cooper kept health care and Medicaid expansion at the forefront, even though the state was not able to offer more people health insurance under Medicaid expansion without the GOP-controlled legislature’s approval. 

Republicans reconsidered after the American Rescue Plan Biden signed in 2021 included financial incentives for states that had not yet expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. 

Republicans put Medicaid expansion in the budget they passed last year. Cooper allowed the budget to become law without his signature because it included Medicaid expansion — even though it was stuffed with items he did not want such as an expansion of private school vouchers.

Cooper has repeatedly denounced private school vouchers and built his education agenda on increasing spending on public education and teacher raises. But his tenure as governor in large part has been shaped by issues involving health, health insurance, and disputes with Republicans in the legislature over policy priorities. 

Tested by the COVID pandemic

The 2020 campaign for governor revolved largely around his responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cooper clashed with Republican legislators over health-related business closures and the duration of public school closures. 

Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest challenged Cooper with a campaign that leaned heavily on lifting COVID restrictions and opening public schools. Forest sued over some of Cooper’s COVID executive orders, but was shut down in court. Forest went on to lose the governor’s race to Cooper by more than four percentage points. 

Bar owners had more success challenging Cooper’s COVID rules. They sued over Cooper’s decision to keep bars closed while allowing restaurants to open with capacity limits a few months into the pandemic. The state Court of Appeals ruled last April that Cooper had violated bar owners’ rights. 

Nationally, North Carolina’s handling of the pandemic was praised by the Biden administration. Biden appointed Dr. Mandy Cohen, who was  Cooper’s first Health and Human Services secretary, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A weak office needed a negotiator

The governor’s office in North Carolina was designed to be weak. North Carolina governors don’t have a line-item veto and cannot veto redistricting bills. 

Republicans have controlled the legislature for Cooper’s entire tenure as governor. In the years Republicans did not have supermajorities in the House and Senate — and were not able to override his vetoes — Cooper was able to push for negotiations on issues and stifle bills he opposed. 

Convincing Democrats to uphold his vetoes meant Cooper “was able to participate in the discussion,” said state Senate Democratic leader Dan Blue of Raleigh. 

Cooper had “a profound impact on where the state was going,” Blue said. “He moderated the Republicans’ hardline positions on multiple occasions.”

Cooper’s supporters note that he has never lost a race from the time he won a House seat in 1986 after beating a 12-term Democratic incumbent. Cooper repeatedly won statewide office while Democratic presidential candidates most often fell short. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win North Carolina was Barack Obama in 2008. 

Cooper grew up on a tobacco farm in Nash County. His mother was a teacher and his father a lawyer. 

He attended UNC Chapel Hill on a Morehead Scholarship and received his law degree from UNC.

He is a devoted fan of the UNC Tar Heels and Carolina Hurricanes NHL team. 

A Charlotte Observer article from 1988 described Cooper as a “star of the legislative basketball team” who kept a low profile in his first term. 

“I would like to serve between three and five terms in the legislature,” the article quotes Cooper saying. “During that time I would have been able to make an impact and accomplish things I want to accomplish.

“And 15 years from now I think I could look to some other office or make a living practicing law.”

After a stint in the state House, Cooper was appointed to a Senate seat in 1991, where he rose to become the chamber’s Majority Leader. 

He won the first of four successful races for state Attorney General in 2000. 

He rejected calls to run for governor in 2008, and resisted a push for him to challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole that year. 

North Carolina Democrats are wondering whether Cooper’s career ladder leads to the vice presidency.

After they voted to endorse Harris for president on Sunday, state party chair Anderson Clayton reported that North Carolina delegates to the Democratic National Convention “are enthusiastically supportive of Gov. Cooper becoming the nominee for our vice president as well.”

BASKETBALL

Ace Flagg, the 17-year-old Newport native, is transferring for his final year of high school basketball.

Flagg is enrolled at Greensboro Day School, a private school in Greensboro, North Carolina, according to a report on the social media site X.

The 6-foot-7 Flagg is entering his senior year while Cooper Flagg, his twin brother who reclassified before last season, is set to begin his freshman year at Duke. The move puts the brothers only 50 miles apart.

Kelly Flagg, the twins’ mother, confirmed the report on X, posting that she’s “excited for this next chapter in Ace’s basketball journey.”

Ace Flagg played the last two seasons alongside Cooper at Montverde Academy in Florida. In 27 games last season, he averaged 2.6 points and 1.3 rebounds, shooting 54% from the field.

Flagg has received scholarship offers from several Division I schools, including West Virginia, George Washington, Saint Joseph’s and Florida Gulf Coast, as well as UMaine.

NBA: Turner Sports intends to continue its longtime relationship with the NBA. Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company, informed the league it will match the $1.8 billion per year offer by Amazon Prime Video. Turner has had an NBA package since 1984 and games have been on TNT since the network launched in 1988.

SOFTBALL

LITTLE LEAGUE: Rhode Island scored five runs in the first inning and beat Gorham 11-0 in the Little League Softball New England Regional on Monday in Bristol, Connecticut.

Maine falls into the loser’s bracket in the double-elimination tournament and will face Vermont at 10 a.m. Tuesday. The game will be televised on ESPN+.

HOCKEY

ECHL: Defenseman Christian Berger, a St. Louis native who was the Penn State captain last season, has signed to make his pro debut with the Maine Mariners.

Last season, Berger posted two goals and four assists in 30 games. As a junior, he led the Nittany Lions’ defensemen with 20 points. including five goals and 15 assists.

NHL: The Columbus Blue Jackets hired Dean Evason as coach, filling the league’s final vacancy two months before training camp.

SOCCER

MESSI OUT: Lionel Messi of Inter Miami won’t play in the MLS All-Star Game while nursing an ankle injury.

Messi, 37, left the July 14 Copa America final win over Colombia with a right ankle injury. His teammate, Luis Suárez, also won’t play in the game Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, with what the team described as “knee discomfort.”

MEXICO: Javier Aguirre was appointed coach of the national team for the third time and will replace Jaime Lozano, the Mexican Soccer Federation announced. Former defender Rafael Marquez will be Aguirre’s main assistant.

OLYMPICS

GAMES TOUTED: On the eve of the Paris Olympics, IOC President Thomas Bach touted the games as a uniting force in a world of divisive and “deeply disturbing” trends.

“We are witnessing a new world order in the making,” Bach told an audience that included French President Emmanuel Macron, organizers of the Paris Games that open Friday and officials from Olympic sports federations.

• Tadej Pogacar, the three-time Tour de France winner, withdrew from the road race at the Olympics, one day after becoming the first rider to win the Tour and the Giro d’Italia in the same season in nearly three decades.

COLLEGES

FOOTBALL: Wisconsin will begin selling alcohol at home games this season.

The university’s decision left Nebraska and Northwestern as the only two schools who aren’t allowing general seating alcohol sales in the 18-team Big Ten. Alcohol sales are also set to begin this season at Michigan.

– Staff and news services

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When the Democratic Party convenes for its national convention on Aug. 19, it will get to select its presidential candidate, primary results notwithstanding.

And if Vice President Kamala Harris is nominated to replace President Joe Biden atop the ticket, the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) must act accordingly and add her to this year’s ballot.

State law is fairly clear on the procedural role the Board of Elections plays in determining which candidates get onto the ballot: Under North Carolina General Statute 163-213.8, each recognized political party in North Carolina “shall allocate delegate positions in a manner which reflects the division of votes of the party primary consistent with the national party rules of that political party.”

And when there’s a conflict between the certified primary results for a political party and that party’s national rules, under the same statute, the state party’s executive committee “has the authority to resolve the conflict by adopting for that party the national rules.”

In other words, if the national Democratic Party decides at its convention next month that Kamala Harris and her selected running mate should run for president and vice president, then that is who the state Election Board will add to the North Carolina ballot.

“We will await the candidates who the Green Party and the Democratic Party nominate in August, and they will go on the ballot,” said Pat Gannon, spokesman for the NCSBE.

“There is no role for the five-member State Board of Elections in that process,” Gannon added, distinguishing between NCSBE administrative staff and the five-member bipartisan board of political appointees.

The five-member board has endured charges of partisanship — even from within its own ranks — when dealing with politically-charged topics.

For example, the five-member board’s Democratic majority of three outvoted its two Republican members and delayed certification of three new political parties this year to investigate the petition campaigns those groups undertook for official recognition. One of the board’s GOP members accused the board’s majority of succumbing to pressure from state and national Democrats determined to block candidacies from third parties that could draw votes away from their nominees.

Ultimately, the board voted to recognize the Constitution Party and We the People, whose choice for president is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The Democratic majority voted to deny certification of Justice for All, whose preferred presidential candidate is Cornel West.

Newly recognized political parties face slightly different rules for getting their candidates on the North Carolina ballot. Presidential candidates for newly recognized parties “shall be entitled” to have their names on official ballots upon paying a filing fee.

The Republican Party has officially nominated former President Donald Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, and that’s who will represent the GOP on the North Carolina ballot. The Libertarians have submitted their presidential and vice-presidential candidates, Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat, for addition to the state’s ballot. And the Constitution Party’s Randall Terry and Stephen Broden will be on the North Carolina ballot.

But the state Elections Board will not know for another few weeks who to add from the Democratic Party and the Green Party.