NC Deep Dive
Diving in to local issues within Holly Springs and Fuquay Varina, building community, sharing perspectives, and keeping you better informed!
NC Deep Dive
2026 Primary-NC House 37: Democratic Forum Highlights
Primary season is here, and District 37 voters are weighing real tradeoffs: how do we make life more affordable, strengthen public schools, and restore trust in state government? We brought all three Democratic candidates—Ralph Clements, Wynn Decker, and Marcus Gadson—into one room for a substantive, fast-moving forum that gets specific on budgets, vouchers, healthcare, and the path to a flipped seat in Southern Wake County. These candidates are vying for the chance to run against incumbent Erin Pare come November to be elected into the NC House of Representatives.
We start with clarity on voting: who gets which ballot, how to confirm your districts with the NCSBE Voter Search, and why printing a sample ballot can calm “test anxiety” at the polls. Then, the forum begins, and we turn to policy. On education, candidates confront the voucher surge, teacher pay, capital needs like HVAC and tech, and how to keep special education services strong. You’ll hear competing strategies to restore voucher income caps, require private schools taking public funds to publish test scores, and freeze or tighten voucher growth until public schools are fully funded.
Affordability threads through everything: proposals to reinstate the earned income tax credit, cut taxes on essentials like OTC meds and prepared foods, and boost housing supply with duplexes, triplexes, and ADUs. Property tax fairness and better infrastructure funding round out a pragmatic approach to costs families feel every day. The healthcare segment spotlights Medicaid reimbursement rates, mental health capacity, hospital price transparency, and protecting reproductive freedom—with calls to secure choice through state constitutional safeguards.
Undergirding it all is the health of democracy: breaking budget gridlock, protecting the governor’s veto, and reforming redistricting so general elections—not just primaries—shape policy. If you want clear contrasts, concrete ideas, and an honest look at how to actually pass laws in Raleigh, this forum delivers.
Subscribe to NC Deep Dive Podcast, share this episode with a neighbor, and leave a review so more voters can find it. Your voice shapes the outcome—what’s the one change you want your next representative to prioritize?
As always, if you are interested in being on or sponsoring the podcast or if you have any particular issues, thoughts, or questions you'd like explored on the podcast, please email NCDeepDive@gmail.com. Your contributions would be greatly appreciated.
Now, let's dive in!
Hello friends, welcome back to the NC Deep Dive Podcast. I'm your host, Amanda Benbow Lunn. I hope you've had a lovely start to your new year. In the world of politics, we are moving full speed ahead. Early voting starts in just a few weeks on February 12th for the 2026 primary election. A primary election is where each party typically decides who moves on to the general election in November. If you are registered as a Republican, you'll receive a Republican ballot with all the races that have more Republican candidates than spaces on the November ballot. If you are registered as a Democrat, at the primary election you'll be given a Democratic ballot filled likewise. If you are registered as unaffiliated, you'll have your choice of either the Democratic or the Republican ballot. But please note you'll have to choose just one and cannot vote for both. Any other recognized parties in North Carolina do not have a primary this year. All of those candidates would move unopposed to the November election. If you're registered under these parties, you will not be eligible to vote in the upcoming primary election and will have to wait until November. Just over a week ago, we contacted all of the candidates who will be on the ballot for Holly Springs and Fuquay Varina to present questions for our 2026 voter's guide for Southern Wake County. The responses are already coming in, and many on both the Republican and Democratic ballots have committed to participating. We will have this voter's guide available to you in the show notes of most of the primary episodes, along with our Facebook page NC Deep Dive Podcast. When emailing the candidates, we also let them know that if they are partaking in any candidate forums, that we would be willing to accept an audio file and or potentially come out to record it to be included in a podcast episode. The first of which has happened, so today I bring you a little something different. A candidate forum for the three Democratic candidates running for the North Carolina House of Representatives for District 37. This is the seat Representative Erin Pare currently holds, which encompasses everything from the Harris Teeter side of Avent Ferry and that corner of 55 to the southern and eastern borders of Wake County. The northern border is made up of the intersection of Holly Springs and Sunset Lake Roads until Hilltop Needmore Road, until that hits 401 and then goes up into parts of Garner and Raleigh. There is one precinct in Holly Springs, it's 0604 that was cut out, and that one lies between the downtown side of 55 to Bass Lake Road where it meets the lake. So those individuals will be in a different district for this race. The best way to understand which districts you are in and whether a race or a set of candidates will be on your particular ballot is by Googling the phrase voter search. You should see many links pop up, but one of which will be from the NCSBE, the North Carolina State Board of Elections. When you click on that and you enter in your information, if there are more than one of you with your name, you'll scroll down until you find your particular entry. You'll click on that. And then once you're in your account, you'll scroll down to your jurisdictions and your sample ballot. Your sample ballot will look like the one you are presented while voting. And if voting gives you something akin to test anxiety, you can always print it out, mark it how you'd like, and bring it with you, noting that of course you will still have to fill out and feed in the formal ballot when voting. Visiting this site is also a great way to confirm you are still registered to vote and haven't fallen off the voter rolls for any particular reason. For this candidate forum, the questions were populated by those in attendance. The moderators are Walter Kreutz and Billy Crocker, the co-area coordinators for the Southern Springs Democrats. The three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination to move forth into the general election in November are Ralph Clements, Wynn Decker, and Marcus Gadson. Since this podcast was recorded during a live forum, the candidates do not get introduced each time they speak. However, they always answer the questions in the same order. First it's Ralph Clements, then Wynn Decker, and lastly, Marcus Gadson. Without further ado, my friends, let's dive in.
Walter Kreutz:We did agree that we would start with alphabetical order. We're gonna do five minutes. I'm gonna be the timekeeper. Essentially, when we get into 30 seconds left of the first five minutes, I'll just hold up a hand. Or if I hold up two hands, that means uh oh, but that'll be your last 30 seconds that you have. But then, as everyone knows, you've we're filling out questions. We're hoping to get through five to eight. We're just gonna take the ones that we just felt were the most prevalent, or if it was repeating, we'd do two to one. Those will be two minutes. Essentially, what we're just gonna do is have them come up, they'll use the microphone. I think that would be a little bit easier for them. The first candidate, Ralph Clements. You can come on up, you can use the microphone. This is also being broadcast on Amanda, and I don't know where Amanda is. Amanda's over there on her podcast as well, so you can listen to it again if you like.
Ralph Clements:Good evening, everybody. Thank you for coming out. I think it's important that we have good participation in government, so I'm glad to see so many people here. For those of you who haven't met, I'm Ralph Clements. Let's see, what about my background? I grew up in Raleigh. I went through Wake County public schools. My parents were both Wake County teachers. So mom taught elementary school and near our neighborhood in North Hills, so all the teachers I had knew her and I couldn't get away with anything. My father was a musician, a jazz musician. He taught high school and middle school band. And so when I became a band player as well, everybody knew him, and I couldn't get away with anything in the band either. So after school, I went to NC State University and I got a degree in computer science. And since then, I've been working in my career in some form of technology over the years. I've worked over the last 38 years in all kinds of different industries, manufacturing, government, higher ed. And for the last 30 years, most of my projects have been for healthcare delivery, hospitals, health systems, or things in that particular market sector. So lots of work in the hospital space. For the last 30 years, doing consulting in that space has usually meant a lot of travel. COVID taught people how to work remote more. So now people don't want to pay for travel, and I've had to learn how to work from home, which is a whole new thing for me. Outside of work, well, uh Christine's here, spouse unit. We have two children who are all grown up now and out doing their own thing. So they're not part of the campaign. They're not around to help me out with that, unfortunately. Outside of work, I've had a long resume of volunteer jobs from different places, usually because somebody asked me to do it. Uh school volunteer, you know, you're a parent, you guys know all that's about. And they're like, we need someone to do this. So, okay, I can do that. I'm an elder in the Presbyterian church. I've held over, that was about 20 years ago, I've held local congregational leadership roles for six years, including uh clerk of session, which is kind of like an executive secretary role. And then uh I was elected to be at the presbytery level, which is an additional body higher if you don't know Presbyterian political, covering a 14 county region, 140 congregations, about a $2 million budget. And after being on the business committee there for a couple of years, I was elected uh to be chairman. So basically chairman of the board of that organization and dealing with all the budgets and financial and a lot of property issues when you're dealing with church things and that big other things I've done in the volunteer space. I've taught courses for the Red Cross again because someone asked me to, and um, I really need to come up with a better way of doing things rather than just always being requested in order by others. For legislation, my legislative priorities, I think the first thing we need to do is work on getting government back started to work again. We have just a few people, as you know, who are holding the rest of the legislature basically still. They've blocked everything, they won't approve anything, they won't let anything go through. So if we can flip a couple of seats, hopefully this one would be a good one. Um, we can break the supermajority, let the governor have his veto back to be able to help keep things under control. And maybe, if we're lucky, we can return to some form of normal operations. We can have committee meetings, we can have testimony from experts. We can debate and discern and maybe even vote on some things that might help people in North Carolina. After we get something moving again, my plan would be to support education. It's my favorite topic. Again, my parents were teachers and I was in public schools and went to public university. Christine's had 15 years of public school teaching and now working in private school for four more years, so she's ready to do something else. Maybe not. So, okay. I thought we were moving to France, but never mind. Okay. I guess not. So I think education is very important to me. We need to really invest. As everybody's heard, the headlines, North Carolina is now at the bottom of pretty much anyone's measurement as far as education, and it really is about money. And we don't have a state budget. You know that, we've heard that too. But a budget, if you think about it, a budget is a vehicle through which you set your priorities and make them known. And that's probably one reason why we don't have one is that we have just chaos rather than leadership at this point. So if we can do some things right education, we need to invest in schools. We need to pay educators what they deserve to do the job they do. I know that real well. I could not do it. I taught at Wake Tech for a little while, but that's totally different. And then after education, my next topic will be healthcare. Something I know well from my work in that space. And I believe that everyone, all of our citizens, deserve a carefully provided, secure way to get quality care, and that we shouldn't have populations who get strangled off or left out or can't be funded. So we need to protect that. So thanks again for coming, and I'm glad to see everybody here. Appreciate your listening.
Wynn Decker:Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Wynn Decker, and I'm running to be your next representative from North Carolina House District 37 here in Southern Wake County. I'm so excited to be here with all you. It is great to see this room so full of folks. I remember the summer nights out there when we were sitting there. And so to be in here and see it full, it's great. I grew up in small town northwest Tennessee, the son of two public school teachers. And over a decade ago, I had the opportunity to come here to pursue my PhD in public administration at NC State. I thought I was just coming here for grad school, thought I'd maybe go back to Tennessee. I didn't realize how quickly Wake County would become home. Over that past decade, I've had the opportunity to study governance during my PhD program and really think about what good government looks like, how to make sure it works for the people, how to make sure folks feel like they have somewhere to go when they're in need, but also somewhere to look for other opportunities and growth ahead of them. During that time, I also have had the opportunity to work at the Hunt Institute, founded by former Governor Jim Hunt, where I've worked with elected officials across the aisle, Republican, Democrat, unaffiliated, as well as governors, to make sure we passed good education policy that gave students opportunities and pathways, not just for education, but to good paying jobs, workforce opportunity that they could be in a job and thrive. And so over that past decade, as Wake Counties became home and as I've done that, I've been able to be in community. And I've talked to so many folks, including folks here tonight, great conversations about why I decided to do this. And I talked to folks about how they felt. And I continue to hear from young folks like myself, but also folks that maybe are on a fixed income or have just recently retired. And folks feel like opportunity is slipping away, that they've worked hard, they've tried to put money away, that they've tried to pull themselves up, but that American dream that we talk about is slipping further and further away. And I'm not ready to give up hope on that dream. I'm not ready to quit fighting for that opportunity. And so that's why I stepped up to do this. And I'm so excited for the opportunity to tell you more about my policy chops as we talk about it. But I really want to talk about three pieces that are core to this campaign right now. Number one, we continue to hear from folks about affordability, about how they feel squeezed at the grocery store, how property taxes are pricing them out, how they're sitting in traffic for longer and spending more on car insurance and gas and all those pieces. And so we've got to do a better job of making sure Wake County is affordable. Number one, that means passing a state budget. That means making sure the money is there to support our infrastructure, to support our elected officials. Number two, it is so we're talking about affordability, but we're also talking about making sure we have strong schools. That means making sure they're fully funded. That means making sure the legislature does its job to fund our schools. Our Wake County commissioners have had to step up and fill in some of those gaps. I was just talking to someone earlier about how the state took away the master supplement that teachers get. That when they go back to school because they want to be a better teacher, there's no incentive on the backside for them. And so Wake County has had to step up and fill that gap. Also, it's not just about our teachers, it's about making sure students have the supplies they need, that they have good capital investments so that they have HVAC in their systems, that they have access to computer and technologies that will drive a good opportunity for them afterwards for jobs. So we're talking about affordability, we're talking about strong schools, and we're talking about thriving communities. Folks, Wake County, Southern Wake County in particular, is a great place to live. I've loved taking my dogs out for walks to be in the space. But for it to continue to be that great community, we have to plan for it. And that means making sure that the Department of Transportation puts the money in for infrastructure investment that's needed for the growth that's happening. It means making sure that folks have an ability to buy homes, to be able to live here, folks that grew up here, if they want to move back here, that they can come here, and folks that have lived here their whole life to not be priced out. And so we're talking about affordability, strong schools, and thriving communities. Like I said, I'm happy to talk more. I'm excited for the questions that are coming and to dive deep into the policy. But I look forward to telling you more about what excites us. So thank you for being here tonight. Again, my name is Wynn Decker, and I look forward to asking for your vote for next House District 37. Thank you.
Billy Crocker:Marcus Gadson, go right ahead.
Marcus Gadson:Good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for having me here. My name is Marcus Gadson, and I'm running to take this district back for our party in this year's elections. My most important job is as father to two little boys. Uh, and my day job that I'm supposed to list on my CV in my resume is constitutional law scholar. But truth be told, when all is said and done, I know that that's the most important role that I have. And I just want to take a moment and I want to shout out anybody here who is a parent of a young child because I know how difficult it is to balance being involved in politics while caring for young children. And I also want to shout out anyone else who has caregiving responsibilities, whether that's a grandparent, whether that is an aunt or uncle, because it really is difficult and it means a lot to me to see you here while balancing that kind of responsibility. My two little boys are why I decided to get into this race. I'm a proud public school parent whose eldest son just enrolled in pre-K. And this is a really important time in his education. And yet, when he most needs a steady, experienced teacher, his class has had a rotating cast of substitutes. The school took months to give him a permanent teacher. My son isn't alone. North Carolina schools used to be an example across the South, but now they languish below the national average. And so many terrific teachers are leaving the field because of how little we pay them. I'm here tonight while balancing all of my parental responsibilities, in part to raise my voice for my two little boys, and for my son's classmates who don't have parents who are in a position to run for the General Assembly. We need to commit to making North Carolina number one in public education, not just so we can see our name at the top of some rankings list, but because we should want to be the best in America at making the dreams of our children come true and at helping them appreciate what it means to be a citizen in a thriving republic committed to the rule of law. That last part has me particularly concerned for my little boys. Next Monday we're going to celebrate Dr. King's birthday. And that date has really special significance to me. You see, I was raised by parents who were born second-class citizens into a Jim Crow America where they couldn't take for granted that they would be able to vote. And they taught me never to take it for granted either. In 1963, Dr. King could correctly say that black Americans like my parents had received a bad check from the Bank of American Justice, one that came back marked with insufficient funds. But so many Americans rose up and they demanded that we live up to our founding ideals. And they turned a story of racial oppression into a redemption story where someone who looks like me could become a law professor and pursue the nomination of a party that was once dedicated to slavery and white supremacy. And yet, it gives me no pleasure to say it, but we are now experiencing the very democratic erosion Dr. King warned us against at the hands of our very own leaders. Recently, a federal court ruled that North Carolina legislators adopted voter ID laws to target black voters with what it called surgical precision. And the same leaders who swore an oath to uphold a state constitution that says that political power is instituted for the good of the whole people just openly admitted that they engaged in partisan gerrymandering that robs millions of their fellow citizens of a voice. I could go on. This is a precarious time for our democracy. I believe future generations will judge us for whether our response met the moment. But I have to confess to a more immediate fear, making sure that my two sons get the same good check from the Bank of American Justice that I was fortunate to receive. And so that is why I ask for your support tonight. May God bless you. May God bless North Carolina, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.
Billy Crocker:So we're just gonna start right back up.
Paul Barringer:Hi, everybody. Thank you so much. I'm Paul Barringer. I am running to be your representative in U.S. Congressional District 13 and really appreciate the chance to be here. Don't want to crash the party, but if it takes butchering my name to get 60 seconds in front of you all, I'm totally a good deal. So thank you. Thank you so much. I think I kind of made my way around and talked to almost everybody here in the room. I, again, Paula Barringer, running to be your representative, District 13. I'm from Lee County. I grew up in Lee County. I live in the farm where I grew up. I'm a lawyer by training and a tree farmer. I worked in healthcare for more than 30 years. Most of the last 10 years, I've worked on helping states improve their Medicaid programs. I also did a lot of work about 10 years ago around the Affordable Care Act implementation. So healthcare is through and through what I've done in my career. I am running on a very pragmatic platform because I think we can win in this district on that platform. Because as you know, the 13th district is very gerrymandered. If we're going to win, we've got to find a way to attract independents and crossover voters. Very pragmatic platform focused on affordability, issues of concern to ordinary people standing up to the president, also standing up for regular people, not billionaires. And I think I'm remiss in not leading with the fact that the reason I'm running is because I could not take the news one more day. It's so outrageous the things that are happening. And that's why that's why I'm running. I think we can win. I need your help. Oh, by the way, I used to be a Republican, a liberal Republican. I think I was the last one left in the country. I lived in Maryland for many years, but I'm Lee County through and through. You can take Lee County out of the boy out of Lee County, but you're not taking Lee County out of the boy. Ain't nobody more country than me, is the thing I say. And it's probably not quite true, but it ain't far off. So I would appreciate your support. Take a look at my website. I thank you in advance for the opportunity to earn your trust and to work together. And if you would consider voting for me in the primary, I'd be so grateful. Thanks again.
Billy Crocker:Okay, the first question that we have is from Megan. Says, in your view, what does the state budget or current lack thereof overfund or underfund? And then if you have time, what data or outcomes would you use to decide whether a program deserves more or less funding? Ralph.
Ralph Clements:I definitely would start by saying underfunded, and we've already talked about healthcare, which even with the state budget we have now, there are certain with, I mean, not having state budget now, there are certain items that come off of the budget. And without one, those things are not being paid today. So several of the ones I know of are healthcare related. There are people who normally would get services that are subsidized by the state government to get transportation to care because they're in an oversized wheelchair or some other kind of special circumstance mobility. Without that kind of subsidy, they got to make their own arrangements at whatever their cost is. And that can be sometimes pretty heavy if those vendors are even available to them. In similar ways, uh, there's no way that we're going to get the same kind of coverage. I was looking at um maternity deserts where there's no 40 counties in North Carolina that don't have labor and delivery services. So those things being tied to the budget, those things aren't getting funded right now at all. And we have that thing. I think that um other issues that are underfunded is education. And obviously we know that as well because we have schools that are not maintained from an infrastructure point of view, the civil engineering of it. We have transportation for those schools that's not well funded. And of course, teacher salaries, staff salaries, and even the retirement program has been for teachers has been messed with by Republicans trying to privatize retirement stuff, which puts it more at risk than ever. So, what we need to figure out how to do is to rebalance that. The second part of the question was how do we decide these things?
Billy Crocker:What data or outcomes would you use to decide whether a program deserves more or less funding?
Ralph Clements:There's going to have to be some report or accountability on any anything that's spent anyway. So I want to see where is that money flowing from as far as what revenue source? And then how is it being regulated? How do we know that someone's not misspending something and get a regulated report on that? An example for that is the opportunity scholarships, the school voucher programs. Is that money going to actually serve students or is it going to make administrators who are running those schools wealthier? So we need to have accountability and find those reports back on that to know what we're doing. That's my time.
Walter Kreutz:That's your time.
Ralph Clements:Thank you.
Wynn Decker:Again, Wynn Decker, thanks for being here tonight. Overfunded, number one, the opportunity scholarship, the voucher system. The fact that we got rid of income caps on that and we've seen the tuition of private schools go up, we are overfunding the school voucher system, which continues to make our public schools underfunded, right? That is money flowing out of those schools. I'm going to tell you another one that I'm going to consider overfunded. And it's the cuts we made to the corporate income tax. And now I know that's not necessarily funding them, but that's where we get a lot of the revenue to do the things around here. And we were cutting that so deep that we're creating a hole in our budget. We're going to be in a deficit in a couple of years. Fiscal cliff, that's the word being used. So if we want to talk about overfunding, that's the one I'm going to give you as well. So we talked about overfunding, we talked about corporate taxes, we talked about the opportunity scholarships, underfunded, obviously public education, obviously Department of Transportation in particular, trying to clear some of the backlog we have around infrastructure. But the piece I want to really name is around mental health, that the number one provider of beds for mental health in Wake County is the Sheriff's Department. It's the Sheriff's Department. And that's how it is all across our state. So we've got to do more about mental health. Now, last piece to close it out, how do we decide what's overfunded and underfunded? This is some of the expertise I had in my public administration degree. But the number one place where we cut a budget when rolling out a new program is in the assessment of that program. So we're oftentimes passing laws and regulations with no clue if it's working or not. And so we need to make sure we're having an assessment, making sure we know that those tax dollars are doing what they're supposed to. Thank you.
Marcus Gadson:Thank you for the question. So, where are we being underfunded? I actually agree with Wynn and Ralph on everything that they said. I would actually like to emphasize Medicaid. I know that there's been a lot of going back and forth over that, but even before the big beautiful bill, I want you to understand that Medicaid was in trouble in North Carolina because our reimbursement rates for medical providers were too low. And the consequence of that was that people were being turned away when they were on Medicaid, and medical professionals were saying we can't afford to take Medicaid patients. So we really need to invest in Medicaid. And then we need to be prepared for the cliff coming because of the Big Beautiful bill, where we're limited in using provider taxes for Medicaid expansion. We need to revisit that and make sure we have revenue available to maintain Medicaid expansion. For education, everything Ralph and Wynne said is accurate. I just want to say one thing on that is our Republican friends like to talk a lot about American exceptionalism. I want to briefly talk about North Carolina exceptionalism. Our public school system is in our Declaration of Rights, right alongside your right to religious liberty in a jury trial, and that testifies to how high of a regard the drafters of our state constitution had for it. And that convention actually had 15 black delegates, some of whom were former slaves, and they knew how important public education was. So I don't want to hear anybody tell us about American exceptionalism or lecture us on it and then not fully fund our public school system because that is something that our children have a right to an education in our state constitution.
Billy Crocker:Okay. The next question is what are your top two to three priorities should you be elected? And more importantly, I think how likely do you think it is that you could accomplish these?
Ralph Clements:Yeah, as I said in my earlier introductory comments, my top priorities beyond just getting government started again so we can start restoring faith in government would be education and healthcare. I remember when I was going through the Wake County public schools as I was younger then, and um I was part of, but back then we were called the education state, and they called Jim Hunt the Education Governor, and we, you know, I was across the country. And some of you may remember that. And I was in the first group, if you know about Wake County, it has their magnet school approach where people go to different schools for different reasons. But I was in the first group to experiment with that. And so there were 54th graders, 50 fifth graders, 56th graders. I was in the sixth grade group, and they put us in a special wing at the Hunter School downtown, Tarboro Road. And in addition to being a different kind of school the way we were sent there, then the teaching methods were experimental. But my point of that is that we had visitors all the time, and people from other parts of the state would come, teachers and administrators, people from all over the country came, and they even sent in in the spring of the first year that they gave us a Hollywood film crew and they made a movie about our experimental school and what was going on with that. So I was a movie star when I was in sixth grade. And uh, you may remember, if you remember, there's a guy named Gene Shallot, used to do movie reviews on NBC. He was the narrator, so he hung around with us and everything. Anyway, his clothes were always oversized, maybe he lost weight. So the top priorities, my healthcare one also would be in the next one after education, because if you can't count on getting good care and especially preventative care, then people get more sick than they need to be. So we need to have more funding, more emphasis on screening, prevention. We've got people who are fighting against vaccines. Uh, I still can't understand that. We need to have more outreach and explanation as to why such things are good for you, and we need to have some introduction of education around that. And I think there's opportunities to tie in work around schools and work around healthcare to integrate those things together and get some benefits that go both ways.
Wynn Decker:Number one priority is defending the governor's veto. We work too hard to flip seats and we're gonna work too hard to flip House District 37 for the governor to not have a legislature that's gonna support his veto. So that is number one. We will protect that veto. Number two, I really want to talk about affordable housing, right? No, there's a couple of pieces around this. It's about making sure that people have opportunities to buy. It means making sure that we have lots of different options for folks. So duplexes, triplexes, condos, apartments, single family homes, accessory dwelling units, so that you know your grandma ends on the backside. We have to be able to innovate and develop in a way that gives people space to find affordability. But also with that, we've got to talk about property taxes, right? We have too many people that are being priced out of their homes because of property taxes. We see folks are being hit with giant tax bills. And frankly, folks, people in low-income communities are having problems with their assessments being over-assessed, right? They're being assessed more while the wealthiest are being assessed less. So we've got to fix that around property taxes. And last but certainly not least, it's passing a budget, right? Our teachers are working for the same pay they had last year. So that means cost of living adjustments this year, they're making less than they did last year. So we're gonna defend the veto, we're gonna work on affordability. I named housing in particular in this, but all these pieces go into affordability. And we're gonna make sure we pass a budget. And so I know that pragmatism is a part of this because we're not probably taking the majority back. We can, we can, and I'm I believe we can, and we're gonna do everything we can to, but we also know we're gonna have to work across the aisle. Not plan to do that. Thank you.
Marcus Gadson:Again, uh, thanks for the question. Uh, my three priorities are lowering the cost of living. I've shared detailed and specific plans to do that, whether that's reinstating the earned income tax credit, whether that is lowering the tax on over-the-counter medication and prepared foods that people rely on, whether that is looking at other tax relief that we can give to people who are currently struggling, affordable housing, as Wynn says, I agree with that completely, and protecting Medicaid. All of those are components to making life more affordable. For public schools, again, making North Carolina schools number one. Now, the practical first step is to raise teacher pay so that it's competitive across the region. We're losing teachers to Virginia and South Carolina and now Mississippi. Uh, because yeah, I know, I know. Um because we're not paying teachers enough. And to do that, we need to really talk about my third priority, which is ending partisan gerrymandering. Now, at first glance, that seems disconnected from affordability and education, but here's the problem. Our General Assembly right now, their incentive when they govern is to make sure that they're pleasing the man at the end of Truth Social. They know that if they get called out in a Truth Social post, it's curtains for them because the primary is the only real election that matters in their districts because they fix them so well. We need to have general elections matter where they need to convince moderate swing voters who really care about cost of living. And to do that, these districts actually need to be competitive. And so I'm proposing adding an amendment to our state constitution with an independent redistricting commission.
Billy Crocker:All right, this next question. So we had three of similar questions, so this was a really a popular one. So I'm going to kind of mix them just a little bit uh to where I try to address everything that everyone was asking. Uh, but specifically, how do you plan to campaign against the incumbent uh Erin Pare if you become the eventual nominee? And why are you more likely to beat Pare of the candidates here? Thank you.
Ralph Clements:I think I can answer both those with the same statement. And that uh what I believe was the reason what people ask me, the number one question I get is why are you running? And sometimes it's a curiosity, why are you running? And sometimes it's like, why are you running? So, you know, it really depends on who's asking the question. But what makes me, I believe, qualified to be the nominee as opposed to someone else is my experience. I've been working as a business leader in various roles for 38 years. I went and I went down my volunteer resume for y'all earlier. The common theme through all those different things is to lead. To go into a situation, particularly in the last 30 years in consulting, you never know where you're gonna land. So you go into a place, there's people there, maybe they're good at doing their job, they just need a little help to organize, or maybe they're really bad. And that's the reason why you're there to do something, to equate that back to normal again. So uh that business experience, that ability to go into a situation unknown and be able to work with people of different types, because when you do those, when you show up you have a team there, I don't know who they're gonna be, and they don't necessarily know who I'm gonna be either. And so I have learned through my work and volunteer experience to basically be able to work with nearly anybody. There are some people who are obstructionists and they're foolish and they just okay, some people just want to watch the world burn, but most people I can find some way of commonality where their self-interest or their particular favorite thing has alignment with whatever our objective is. So that's the reason why for me. So to campaign for these things uh and how to go be competitive against Representative Pare, I've looked at her campaign materials and she has every time we send a Democrat against her three times in a row, she's won. So we need to do something a little different. So that's kind of one another reason why I'm here. But if you look at what she's got, she says she has business experience because she's held owned a franchise for eight or nine years. And that's great. Small business is great. Again, I've been doing this for three decades, almost four, in lots of different ways. Am I out of time? Okay, and then we can list more again.
Wynn Decker:Uh a great question. I think that's probably why a lot of people are in here, right? They want to know how we're gonna win this race. So, number one, I stepped a run, kind of like I talked about at the beginning, but because I heard from folks that they felt like they didn't feel represented. They didn't feel like their government was there working for them. And I believe we're ready for a new generation of leadership. Someone that's gonna bring fresh ideas, someone that's going to challenge the status quo. But I want to be clear to not mistake my youth for lack of experience because I have spent the last 10 years working in policy, working across the aisle to get things passed. And so that's why I believe that I can be your next representative. Now, part of that means we do have to defeat a Republican in the general. And that's how we're running this race. We're building an organization right now that's not only gonna win the primary, it's gonna be ready to flip this seat come November. Folks, we've been out knocking doors. We've got great volunteers. We're out every Saturday. We've had 2,000 contacts with voters. We're excited about the work that we're doing and what we're building. But I'll be clear because the question was how how are one of us gonna do this? None of us are gonna do this by ourselves. This is a community that we're building. We saw it, this municipal election. We saw what can happen when we come out together. We flipped Fuquay Varina, we flipped Holly Springs, and we're gonna flip House District 37. So thank y'all.
Marcus Gadson:Representative Pare is gonna be tough. And I think we have to acknowledge that. And so I'm running a professional disciplined uh operation that we're going to make sure that we really take the fight to her, not because we just want to see her defeated in some petty sense, but because we're trying to make people's lives better, and because I have my little boys and I'm thinking about making sure they get the education that they need. And so I will be thinking of my son who's been struggling for a permanent teacher every time I'm out there on the trail, whenever I get tired or whatever things get tough. Now, for the strategy for Representative Pare, I actually think that's simple. Uh I'm just gonna tell you right now if you want somebody who's gonna be really personal or vindictive, that's not me, okay? And in fact, I don't have time to do that. I've got two little kids at home and the world's greatest wife, and I can't justify to them spending all my time on social media trashing Erin Pare or Donald Trump. So that's not gonna happen. Here's the message: we've had a legislature that's had 15 years to fix the problems that we've had. Are you better off since the Republican supermajority took over? Is your housing more affordable? Are your kids getting better schools? Are you more worried or less worried about Medicaid? Can you purchase a house? And if you are happy with how your life is now under this General Assembly, then Representative Pare's been the loyal lieutenant of Destin Hall and Phil Berger. But if you think we can do better, then you need to vote Democrat.
Billy Crocker:Okay, uh, this next question was also kind of a multi-assed uh question. So several people asked us, uh, so I'm gonna try to mix them as best as I can. Um so the question is the the person stated that they would like to see the insurance companies listen to what the doctors recommend. Um I see the insurance companies dictating what should be done, so this is obviously in the category of healthcare. I feel that the doctor should have the education to make the best decisions. And in line with that, and again with healthcare, um, would you classify yourself as a pro-choice?
Ralph Clements:It's not just insurance companies, it's also uh we're in many cases we're already close to a single-payer system because so many people are on Medicare or Medicaid or some other kind of supplement. So there is private insurance, but uh forgot the numbers around 40% or something, have some sort of governmental backing. So we're you know pretty pretty busy in that space as well. Um there's not a whole lot necessarily that can be done for legislation to force doctor decisions at the state level. A lot of these things happen because these are you know multi-state companies. But um I do believe that we need to try to find legislation that says that they have to be able to prove from a medical standpoint why they are deferring something when they decline care because a doctor wants to do it. There needs to be a way to where the doctor has the authority to say, no, no, no, we're gonna do this test because of the actual reason why the and in the question as it was asked, that's the medical person trained for that. Um the second part uh was the question about choice. Uh, yes, I believe that um abortion is a medical procedure. It is up to the woman who is the patient as to what she wants to do and with her medicine and who she gets advice from to do that, whether that's family or doctors or uh clergy or whatever, then that is her decision to make and no one else is to make for her. And that that should not put restrictions on how things are funded. People should be able to get good quality health care and have access to that regardless of where they are or who they are.
Wynn Decker:Well, this is a great question. And I want to start by saying when I talk to my parents about things like this, Americans aren't afraid of getting sick. They're afraid of what it's gonna cost when they get sick. And so we've got to do something and we've got to do it soon. And so, yes, it is holding those insurance companies accountable. It's making sure, you know, when we talk about the healthcare system, we talk a lot about capitalism, and that means understanding how much you're gonna pay for something. Folks, I don't know about you, but when I need to call an ambulance, I hadn't shopped around to see where that ambulance is gonna take me, to see if it's cheaper at Rex versus Wake Med, right? We need more transparency and cost so that we can hold them accountable. We need the ability for folks to understand that so that they can speak up when they see something. And we need to hold hospitals and others, including the insurance companies and that intermediary in between it that negotiates some of that. We've got to hold them accountable because no one should be paying $300 for a band-aid when they go to the hospital. Now, unapologetically, pro choice. That is a choice between a woman and a doctor, but I'm for healthcare choice as well, right? There's so many choices that shouldn't be dictated by our legislature. That is a decision to be made between the folks in that room, you and your doctor. It's not just abortion services, though. It's having good sex education in classrooms. It's making sure people have access to contraception, it's to make sure they have access to conversations around family planning. So I'll finish by saying this. I just had the opportunity to talk to a voter. He's a doctor. He had worked at UNC for over 10 years. Because we passed this 12-week abortion bill and put restrictions on it, he no longer practices medicine in North Carolina. He drives to Virginia in Maryland to practice because he is scared of getting put in jail for performing procedures that women need. So we've got to fix that and we've got to fix it soon. Thank you.
Marcus Gadson:I also am pro-choice, and it's a tragedy that so many women relied so long on the U.S. Supreme Court to protect their rights, and now it's clear that they can no longer do so. And so I want to add an amendment to our North Carolina Constitution codifying Roe and making clear that future legislatures can't interfere with what is a deeply personal decision. When it comes to health care, this is such a tremendous problem. And I've actually experienced as a new dad when you are both really excited about welcoming a new baby and also terrified about why anybody thinks you're qualified to be raising a new child, also getting a surprise that's not so pleasant for a delivery room fee that is really exorbitantly expensive. So I understand exactly the anxiety many families are feeling. And I want to be transparent. In the General Assembly, there are some things we can do, but we really need federal action. We really need federal action in order to try to reform health. And make sure that it's uh available to people because many healthcare issues cross state lines. And this leads me again to something I've talked about frequently tonight, which is there's a connection between this and partisan gerrymandering. I want you to understand in 2029, God willing, we'll have a Democratic president who's willing to sign a health care reform bill. That person is going to need a Congress that will actually send that person a healthcare bill. And they won't be able to do it actually if North Carolina still gerrymanders, because we are now slated to have 11 Republicans and three Democrats in Congress. But we actually had it, so it was seven and seven under Justice Earl's last opinion before it got overturned. So if we can get it to an even split, we get the majority and we'll have a health care reform bill our next Democrat can sign.
Billy Crocker:All right, depending on how this question goes, this might be the last one. So this was also, again, and I'm trying to get the ones that were asked several times. So uh is in the category of education, uh, there is concern that our tax money pays for private education. What would you do to prevent that or lower the amount of our tax dollars going to private education?
Ralph Clements:I actually had a conversation about this exact item last evening with a constituent group, and they were pointing out they had been told that there's a dollar amount, that the $7,500, I think, is what the maximum is that goes out for the voucher program, but that the estimate they've been given was it's $10,000 to have a student in school. So they were saying in their math that for every one of the voucher students that goes out of the school, the school makes $2,500. And I'm like, no, that's not how it works. There's this you get look at it that way, it's not on a per head basis. Um, but also at the same time, I have been moderating my stance on the voucher stuff a little bit because some places it makes sense where people want to go for some special reason, that maybe a special case where a voucher might actually have legitimacy and we could talk about that. So rather than blanketly saying we have to get rid of all of them, I think we need to figure out how to regulate them and hold people accountable. So right now they took off the income caps that needs to go back on because that's your tax money is going for millionaires' kids to go to private school, unregulated private school, that's completely wrong. So we need to make sure that if those schools are going to accept state funds from the voucher program, they need to be accountable to meet certain standards. They need to be able to show that those students are being taught by licensed teachers and not just whoever they found. And they need to make sure that how much of that money is going to student services as opposed to administration. So that you don't have someone who starts a school just to get a million dollars in tax money so they can, you know, go do whatever you do with a million dollars. So we need to have the accountability part of that in place first, and then we figure out how much these people really use this service or whether we really need it. I think we could eliminate a lot of it and have it to where it really only matters in certain special cases with the voucher programs through proper controls.
Wynn Decker:Well, it's a great question because by far one of our biggest expenditures as a state is education and your tax dollars pay for that. $655 million went to vouchers last year. That's taken away from your public schools, it's taken away from future generations opportunity. Realistically, vouchers aren't going anywhere. So there's two pieces that I want to name quickly about it. Number one, well, I guess three, I want the income caps back. But number two, the schools that take this money ought to have to publish their test scores, just like any public or charter school, because they ought to be held accountable. And the third piece is we have seen the highest increase in private school tuition this year than we have in decades because they know the money is available for these vouchers. So they're moving their tuition up to the top amount that they can get. So we need to cap that. If you want to take that money, it's great, but you're publishing your stuff and you're held accountable and we're freezing your income. Now, with that, there are places where we need to think about how we can better be effective in using our money. So that's thinking about economies of scale. We have one of the biggest county school systems in America here in Wake County. And so it's thinking about how we can do things like work together to buy product to make sure that we can drive some of the prices down that it's gonna cost us. Part of where we fund education is property tax. And so that's why you feel that squeeze, because our county has had to fill the gap because our state has not met its constitutional obligation to fund education in Wake County. And so we've got to fight for that funding as well, and we've got to fight for future generations and make sure that folks have access to public education. Because the last piece about the privates is they don't have to take folks with special education needs, and they don't have to take students with individual education plans, and every student deserves an opportunity in education.
Marcus Gadson:I'd actually like to begin by challenging people in this room on something, which is to say that there are parents who want private school vouchers because at baseline they feel like they're not getting what they need from the public school system. And so I actually met with somebody and he told me that about his daughter, and I reacted not as a politician, but as another father, thinking about understanding that choice. And so here's where I come down on this. I agree on the need to reinstate income caps for vouchers and hold them accountable. And what I want to say to voters is really let's try to focus on making our public schools the very best in America. Let's invest in those schools so that we can have the pride of pointing to our schools and saying that's an example for the rest of the country. And then once we have made those investments and we've made sure that our teachers are getting what they need and our public schools are offering great classes and all of our students are getting their needs met, I actually have no ill will or animus towards private schools. Let's talk about private schools and supporting them after our public schools have been taken care of. And that's my position on it. So I think that we need to freeze the aid that we're giving to private school voucher programs until we've made the investments that our public schools need. But I also want to make sure that parents feel heard because you have parents in this community that are weighing a choice between an inadequate public education because of choices our legislature has made and private schools. And many of these people actually want to be in public school as a tragedy. So let's speak to them about how we're going to improve their schools.
Billy Crocker:All right, well, that is all the questions. Uh, we thank y'all so much for coming. Thank you to the candidates.
Amanda Benbow Lunn:That's the end of the North Carolina House District 37 Candidate Forum. Again, these candidates were Ralph Clements, Wynn Decker, and Marcus Gadson. If you know of other forums happening where the majority of candidates for a particular race are answering questions in what can be perceived in a fair and non-biased manner, I'd love for you to send me an audio file or offer an invitation so that I can potentially capture it for you all. With so many candidates, my plan is to lift up these forums as possible and create episodes by race, highlighting the candidates running, reading through their answers to our voters' guide, reading aloud their website, their ballotpedia, along with campaign finance information, followed by anything major of note in a simple Google search. I plan to include relevant links as well in the show notes found on our website, ncdeepdive.com. As always, if you have any topics or thoughts you'd like to share, you may do so through social media or by emailing ncdeepdive at gmail.com. If you found value in this episode, I'd really love for you to subscribe, rate, and review it so that others may more easily find it. Throughout the next month, be on the lookout for further primary election episodes by visiting ncdeepdive.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, or wherever you currently listen to your podcast. Until next time, my friends, Namaste. The Love and Light in Me sees and honors the love and light in you.
