Forest has been trying to highlight his efforts to help struggling small businesses, to whom he said he’s donated $200,000 in campaign funds. He also traveled to South Carolina to help tornado victims with Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian humanitarian group run by Franklin Graham. Democrats have criticized the trips, circulating videos in which Forest is seen in close contact with people while not wearing a mask. “That’s ludicrous,” Forest replied when I asked him about the criticism. “That’s just stupid leftist talk, when people think that [you should put] social distancing ahead of compassion for people that are hurting.
“I don’t care about getting a virus,” he continued. “I can get this just like anybody else can get this. I can get complications just like anybody else. But when there’s people out there hurting, I’m going to go out there and help them.”
The debate over reopening is anything but hypothetical, even in an election that’s more than five months away. A second wave of infections could crest this fall or even next year, when a Governor Forest—if he wins—would be in charge. And while he has criticized Cooper’s decisions at times, Forest is less clear on exactly what he would have done instead, or what he would do if there’s another outbreak next year.
He favors recommendations for businesses over government mandates. Let churches, restaurants, wedding venues, and barbershops reopen, he says, but give them “guidelines” for maintaining social distance. “I don’t think the government should lead with a stick,” Forest told me. “It should lead with a carrot and allow these industries to have some personal responsibility and freedom. Then, if you had to for some reason, because somebody was doing something egregious, then maybe you come back with a stick.”
But when I asked whether Forest, if he were governor next year, would be willing to shut down the state if his health advisers recommended another “shelter-in-place” order, he was less firm. “That’s like having a crystal ball,” he replied. “I would say right now, all things considered and all things held equal and maintained going forward, with another round, I would say you’d come forward with recommendations like ‘Work from home if you can.’”
Cooper has mostly ignored Forest during the crisis, and his office declined to make him available for an interview for this article. In an illustration of how difficult it’s been for the Republican to break through, local reporters have been so focused on the pandemic that the lieutenant governor’s criticism has rarely come up at the governor’s briefings, Cooper aides say. “There’s nothing much he can say that the press will cover,” Wrenn told me.
The two men have never been governing partners, and Forest told me that Cooper has shunned his offer to help—not that he was surprised. “Obviously, I’m his opponent. He’s not going to reach out to me,” he said.
Privately, Cooper’s aides are dismissive of Forest. They cite his underwhelming fundraising—the governor had nearly $10 million in his campaign at the end of the first quarter compared with less than $750,000 for Forest. “Dan Forest is definitely not the most fearsome candidate,” the person close to the governor told me.
Publicly, Cooper’s campaign is trying to tag Forest as an extremist on the pandemic, highlighting his comments downplaying the danger of the virus to young people and suggesting that it had been exaggerated by the media. “He’s spewing conspiracy theories and encouraging these radical protesters to march on Raleigh with their AR-15s and everything else,” Morgan Jackson, the governor’s top campaign strategist, told me. “That’s not a guy who’s ready to lead. That’s a guy [making] a desperate attempt to appear relevant.”
As to Forest’s call to let younger, healthy people get back to work while protecting the elderly, Jackson noted that at least 4.5 million of North Carolina’s 10 million residents had preexisting conditions. “If you’re going to be an elected official and you strive to be governor, your job is to look after the 10 million people of this state, regardless of whether they watch Fox News,” Jackson said. “If Dan Forest would spend a little bit less time getting advice from doctors who have an MD in Facebook, he might have a better grasp on how to handle this situation.
Republicans in North Carolina have voiced concern about the mismatch in fundraising between Cooper and Forest. But the party has bigger worries than just Forest: The state’s senior GOP senator, Richard Burr, just relinquished his post as chairman of the Intelligence Committee amid an investigation into his stock trades early in the coronavirus outbreak. North Carolina’s other senator, Thom Tillis, is in danger of losing his reelection bid in November, and the former chairman of the state’s Republican Party is under indictment on bribery charges.
Still, Forest’s allies say the lieutenant governor should not be underestimated. “He’s very popular with the grassroots Republican voters,” Phil Berger, the Republican president pro tem of the North Carolina Senate, told me. He noted that Forest’s two victories in his statewide races for lieutenant governor were “surprisingly easy.” “They apparently know what they’re doing,” he said.
Plenty of uncertainty lies ahead for Cooper too. Confirmed cases of coronavirus have continued to rise, even as he has slowly begun to reopen North Carolina, particularly in nursing homes and prisons. The state is doing more testing, and Cooper has said that it is still meeting its benchmarks for a phased reopening. Even without a resurgence in cases this fall, the shattered economy will pose risks for any incumbent governor on the ballot.
The GOP will also have its own say in the path that North Carolina takes. On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee sent donors a formal invitation to the party’s nominating convention in Charlotte in late August—the latest sign that the president wants to convene thousands of people in the city as a symbol of the nation’s reopening and recovery. The political impact of any convention usually fades in a matter of weeks, but in the middle of a pandemic, the legacy of such an event—for Trump and his party, for Cooper’s reelection prospects, and for the health of the entire state—could extend through November and beyond.
