Lt. Gov. Dan Forest campaigning for NC governor to get the state out of ‘lockdown’
Surry County. Davidson County. Jackson County. Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest has campaigned for governor in all corners of North Carolina in recent months. In campaign videos, he’s seen shaking hands, posing for photos and talking with potential voters.
Making the jump from North Carolina’s lieutenant governor to governor is not an easy task. While the office is often seen as a stepping stone to the Executive Mansion around the block, that doesn’t mean it is in reach. The last person to do so was Gov. Bev Perdue in 2008. But Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton failed to win in 2012.
Forest is the latest to make the attempt, and he’s doing it the way he campaigned for lieutenant governor to secure two terms: with retail politics, which means in-person, grassroots campaigning.
Some of that campaigning style means flouting the statewide coronavirus restrictions put in place by his opponent, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is seeking a second term. Forest’s campaign videos and photos show events held both outdoors and indoors, with very few people wearing masks or social distancing.
Forest, a 53-year-old architect, is trailing Cooper in several polls, including those by the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh. Civitas CEO Donald Bryson described Forest as the underdog in the race.
“He has failed to leverage his current position in the same way that Roy Cooper has,” Bryson said in an interview, citing Cooper’s regular press conferences on television to share updates on coronavirus response.
Forest has a record as an opponent of abortion and a proponent of school choice, and he’s campaigning on those issues.
But COVID-19 sucks the oxygen out of the room, Bryson said.
As the pandemic has dominated the campaign, Forest has criticized Cooper for shutting down businesses. He also told reporters at a September press conference that if he is elected governor, he would lift the state’s mask mandate, which has been in place since June 24 and is credited with helping curb the spread of the coronavirus. Forest said wearing masks should be a decision left up to individuals, though he sells Forest branded masks in his campaign store.
The Cooper campaign has called Forest’s campaign events “dangerous” and said he would be a “risk” if he becomes governor.
Forest also wants all K-12 public schools to reopen immediately for daily, full-time in-person instruction. Current rules allow elementary schools to fully reopen for in-person classes, and middle and high schools with restrictions. Decisions for specific plans are made at the local school district level.
As lieutenant governor, Forest serves on the State Board of Education, but has missed meetings this year. At the board’s October meeting, he tried unsuccessfully to get its members to vote on reopening all schools.
In the Republican primary for governor this March, Forest easily defeated state Rep. Holly Grange, an Army veteran. Forest has aligned himself with Republican President Donald Trump, who endorsed him this summer on Twitter. Forest has introduced Trump at the president’s North Carolina campaign rallies.
“Being lieutenant governor in North Carolina is not nothing,” Bryson said. “There’s definitely a way to make himself known, particularly on education, that Forest has just failed to do.”
Forest has held just a few press conferences this year, though he has held many in-person campaign events across the state, many not following the statewide mask mandate or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
The CDC, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recommends people wear masks in public and when around people outside their own households. The CDC also states that “masks are most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings.”
Despite several interview requests for more than a month, Forest did not agree to an interview for this story. His website says, “I will not allow the mainstream media to filter my message. I will communicate directly to the people through social media – That’s how you can follow my campaign.”
Running for office in 2012
Forest’s election and re-election as lieutenant governor was his first foray into politics, though he grew up in a political household.
Forest’s mother is former Republican U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick. Myrick served on Charlotte City Council and as mayor of Charlotte, then in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1994 to 2013.
NCGOP Chair Michael Whatley met Forest through Forest’s mother in the late 1990s.
“He is obviously a very naturally gifted politician,” Whatley said in a phone interview with the N&O. “The apple did not fall very far from the tree. It is clear that he has got a natural sense of service and he’s very talented in terms of having conversations, listening to people ... he’s a people person and she’s a people person, both very comfortable talking to people.”
Forest told the N&O in a January interview that he didn’t like anything about growing up in a political family.
“I really didn’t want to be anywhere near it,” he said. “I saw the toll it takes on a person. It’s grueling to a family — when you live in a political family, it’s politics 24/7.”
Forest described Myrick as a “true public servant” and often hears stories of how she helped other North Carolinians.
“My mom is a fighter, there’s no doubt she’s before her time,” he told the N&O during the primary. “She’s a tough cookie.”
Still, Forest said one day he felt called to jump in and run for office.
In a UNC-TV interview in 2012, Forest said he left architecture behind to seek an elected position because he saw a “leadership crisis.”
As lieutenant governor, Forest is president of the state Senate. But he has rarely presided over sessions compared to Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, a Republican who is arguably the most powerful lawmaker in the state other than Cooper.
Lieutenant governors can make the role their own, and Forest has focused on school choice, which lets public money follow the student, like using private school vouchers, called Opportunity Scholarships.
Bryson, the Civitas CEO, was a grassroots coordinator for Americans for Prosperity when Forest entered the public eye in 2012, he said.
“In a lot of ways he’s an early Tea Party candidate ... and been able to maintain that grassroots support,” he said.
Faith and anti-abortion policy
Forest often praises Alice Forest, his wife of 28 years. Alice Forest returns the praise in a campaign video from early 2020, saying her husband has a “servant’s heart.” Alice Forest home-schooled their four children.
“His faith tells him that he’s to be last, and other people are to be first, and so he lives it out,” she said in the video.
One of Forest’s rare interviews during this fall’s campaign season was a video conversation with conservative Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, son of the late evangelist Rev. Billy Graham. Called “A Conversation of Hope,” Forest talked about his faith and asked Graham questions.
Forest said his wife was saved at a Billy Graham Crusade in Charlotte in 1996. Graham’s crusades ended with the Baptist tradition of an altar call, in which believers come forward to accept Jesus into their lives in front of the crowd.
Forest told Graham that, at the time, he thought he was a Christian, but that his life “was a mess” until he was 28. As Forest tells it, Alice came home one day excited about a Bible study, and Forest said, “Honey, I don’t have what you have.” That started him on his faith journey and “led me to my knees to accept Jesus Christ.”
Forest has been a member of Christ Baptist Church in Raleigh for more than 15 years.
“I get up every morning and I spend time in prayer, and I think that guides my day,” Forest told the N&O in an interview in January.
Vice President Mike Pence, also a conservative Christian, said in September during a visit to North Carolina, “I think it’s time North Carolina had a pro-life governor,” and asked the crowd at a church to vote for Forest.
Forest told the N&O earlier this year that he is “staunchy pro-life.”
Tami Fitzgerald, who leads the NC Values Coalition, a conservative grassroots organization that has fought for anti-abortion policies and to limit LGBT rights, has known Forest since his first campaign.
She met Forest when was campaigning for Amendment One, which banned same-sex marriage, she said. North Carolina voters passed the controversial amendment in 2012 but it was later rendered moot by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2014 that legalized gay marriage.
“I thought to myself, ‘Man, this guy is for real,’” Fitzgerald told The N&O in a phone interview this week.
“He is genuine, sincere, cares deeply about all the issues I care about,” she said. “He’s led an incredible grassroots campaign for governor.”
Fitzgerald called Cooper an “extremist” for vetoing the 2019 Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. When he vetoed the bill, Cooper said laws already protect newborn babies and called it “unnecessary.”
“We’re 100% behind Dan Forest and we think he’d make an amazing governor. He’s a tremendous leader. He’s been a leader on the life issue,” Fitzgerald said.
Forest supported the short-lived House Bill 2 that required people in some public buildings to use the bathroom matching the gender on their birth certificate. In 2017, he played down the negative impact of the law on the state’s economy, the N&O previously reported. But most North Carolinians were concerned about the loss of major sporting events with the NBA, NCAA and ACC, plus other economic impact, according to a 2017 poll, the Charlotte Observer previously reported. Some corporations altered their current or future relocation plans because of the law.
The Human Rights Campaign has called HB2 “one of the nation’s worst laws for LGBTQ people.”
‘Lockdown’ in NC
Forest has been outspoken in his criticism of Cooper’s handling of the pandemic, frequently opposing his executive orders and how they were enacted.
When one of the early executive orders placed limits on indoor religious services, Forest and the NC Values Coalition took legal action, calling for the services to be allowed. In one of the few times Cooper lost a ruling on a pandemic order, a federal judge blocked Cooper’s restrictions on indoor church services, and the services were allowed under a subsequent executive order.
Later, Forest filed a lawsuit against Cooper over some of the COVID-19 executive orders, saying that the governor needed agreement from the Republican-majority Council of State, which includes Forest. But a Wake County Superior Court judge ruled against him, and Forest dropped it.
Forest spoke to the Jewish Federation of Raleigh-Cary on Sept. 30, where he described the state as in “lockdown, shutdown mode.” Earlier that day, Cooper had announced the state would move into Phase 3 on Oct. 2, which lifted restrictions on entertainment venues and stadiums and reopened bars, outside only and at limited capacity.
“We’re at about phase 1.9 right now,” Forest said, according to a video of the virtual event. he said the state is “barely opening up” and would get the economy going if elected governor.
Forest said that vulnerable populations, including older people and those with health conditions, should be protected.
But, he said, “We need healthy young people to get back to life.”
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This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 5:52 PM with the headline "Lt. Gov. Dan Forest campaigning for NC governor to get the state out of ‘lockdown’."
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