Under the Dome podcast: Outgoing NC Sen. deViere on his own party’s ‘political machine’
On a new episode of The News & Observer politics podcast, Under the Dome, reporter Dawn Vaughan interviews moderate Democratic Sen. Kirk deViere as he ends his time in the legislature.
The Democratic Party primaried deViere in the 2022 elections, putting a candidate forward to compete with an incumbent Democrat. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper made the unusual move of endorsing, and fundraising for, a different candidate than a current member of the Democratic Senate caucus.
DeViere lost his primary to Val Applewhite, who went on to win the general election.
DeViere was one of four moderate Senate Democrats who occasionally voted with Republicans on some controversial issues like reopening schools and the state budget in 2021.
“I think with the school reopening [bill], I clearly heard from my district that our children need to be back in schools and I really took a hard stance on it. You know, early on, I took a hard stance on it. I knew that COVID was beginning to subside, we had ... a vaccine that was out there. I took a hard stance against a lot of my party, to include the governor,” deViere said.
He said that stance brought people back to the negotiating table, and soon a bipartisan compromise was announced.
DeViere said he wasn’t surprised that he would be primaried.
“The political machine, as I’ll call it, the political arm of Gov. Cooper, threatened me early on. And they said, you know, they’d primary me. And that was a clear threat. And they made good on it,” deViere said.
DeViere said he was expected “to be loyal no matter what” and push the button they wanted him to push.
When Cooper endorsed Applewhite, he said that if she won, “Cumberland County will have a tireless advocate who isn’t afraid to stand up to Right Wing Republicans as we work to build a state where everyone has an equal chance to prosper.”
Listen to the podcast to hear more about what deViere said about the primary, his party and his friend Billy Richardson, another outgoing state legislator who also represented Cumberland County.
DeViere’s four years in the state Senate end when the clock runs out on 2022. DeViere, who served on the Fayetteville City Council before running for the General Assembly, said he did what he set out to do.
“When I look back at the school reopening bills, the justice reform bills, the transportation funding, environmental issues and funding like GenX — and then ultimately, the budget ... Cumberland County’s voice, the people that I represented, were at the table. We were in the middle of the hard discussions. And I think that’s important,” deViere told Vaughan.
Headliners of the Week
Also listen to what deViere sees in his future. Plus stay tuned to the end of the podcast for deViere and Vaughan’s picks for Headliner of the Week as we end 2022 and look to New Year’s Day.
Listen to our latest episode below and catch up on previous episodes. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Audible, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon Music and Stitcher.
This story was originally published December 26, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Under the Dome podcast: Outgoing NC Sen. deViere on his own party’s ‘political machine’."
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