'I'm the moderate': In NC toss-up district, congressional candidates soften positions

For Hines, that means distancing himself from controversial Republicans who have endorsed his campaign and easing his views on immigration and abortion.

“I don’t have any intention [of] being a celebrity politician,” Hines said in an interview on WRAL’s “On the Record.” “I want to work for the people of North Carolina’s 13th district. … We have to make sure that we have politicians that are there to get things done, not there just to be show horses but workhorses.”

Nickel, who has often voted to the left of his own party during his time in the legislature, is focusing his messaging on abortion access and getting the country on a more stable financial footing. He is seeking to align himself with more centrist Democrats.

“I'm someone who's running as a moderate,” Nickel said. “The group I will be caucusing with is the Blue Dog Democrats, who stand for a strong national defense and fiscal responsibility. Those are the values I'm going to take with me when I go to Washington.”

North Carolina candidates pivot toward middle as general election approaches

Hines and Nickel are jockeying for the moderate lane in a district that includes Johnston County and parties of Wake, Wayne and Harnett counties, a once-conservative area that has become more moderate as newcomers have flocked to the Triangle and its outer suburbs.

The candidates spoke to WRAL in separate interviews, passing by one another awkwardly in what Hines described as their first in-person encounter.

As the Nov. 8 election nears, public sentiment on the economy and abortion is likely to loom large in what has become a highly contentious congressional race.

Nickel took aim at previous comments Hines had made suggesting abortion should never be permissible.

“My opponent says he wants to ban abortion with no exceptions, literally a death sentence for many women,” Nickel said.

Hines said he doesn’t anticipate dealing with the issue of abortion if elected to Congress.

“It’s a states’ rights issue at this point,” Hines said. “I don’t think it’s a federal issue. Obviously with the Dobbs decision, it pushes the rights back to the states. This is a Raleigh decision, not a Washington decision.” Hines was referring to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson case, which overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision, leaving abortion laws up to state lawmakers.

Hines also accused Nickel of having a more extreme position on the issue, labeling Nickel as supportive of abortion “all the way up to the point of birth — even post-birth.”

Nickel said the claim was false. “That’s a lie. It’s not a thing,” he said. “That’s not something I support. The position I’ve had has always been clear. I support putting the protections of Roe v. Wade into federal law.”

North Carolinians, like almost all U.S. residents, have seen costs for seemingly everything rise in the past year. Consumer prices rose 8.3% year-over-year in August. Republicans are looking to take back control of the U.S. House to thwart policies under President Joe Biden that they view as harmful to voters’ pocketbooks. Democrats have distanced themselves from the Biden administration.

Nickel on Thursday released a plan with some specifics and many generalities about how he’d address inflation. In his plan, he calls for using infrastructure funds to make it easier for businesses to transport goods, cracking down on national investment companies that gobble up affordable housing units and continuing to release oil from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Hines said he’d work to improve the country’s finances by helping pass a balanced budget amendment in the U.S. House to ensure the country doesn’t increase its debt. He also expressed concern with increased spending in other countries.

“Russia is a tremendous foreign adversary and we have to do everything we can to push back on them,” Hines said. “Obviously this is an egregious abuse of power from a country that’s marching in to a country that has a right to exist, and we should protect them. But, honestly, what I can tell you as well is we need to do everything we can to protect the American people first and then we can start looking globally.”

Nickel and Hines agreed the U.S. has spent a sufficient amount in Ukraine.

“We've got just the right amount of international support right now, and I think you're seeing [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is on his heels here,” Nickel said.

Immigrants play a central role in North Carolina’s economy, particularly in rural parts of the 13th Congressional District where agricultural businesses rely on foreign labor.

In January, Hines said the first piece of legislation he’d put forward if elected is a 10-year moratorium on immigration.

“The U.S. government needs to shut down the United States border,” Hines said in a video posted on Twitter. “It doesn’t make sense to continue to pass immigration policy because no one’s abiding by it.” He reiterated that stance in his interview with WRAL.

Nickel has seized on the comment, saying such a policy would stifle businesses and prevent them from having the workforce they need.

“The first thing he wants to do in Congress is put a 10-year moratorium on all immigration,” Nickel said of Hines. “That would literally wreck our economy. We need folks willing to solve problems in Washington, not play partisan games.”

Nickel said people from other countries who come to the U.S. for advanced degrees should automatically get a green card so they can join the workforce seamlessly. He said people seeking to cross the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully should be treated compassionately and have asylum claims considered.

Hines told WRAL he wasn’t calling for a full immigration ban. In his moratorium, he said he’d have exceptions for immigrants with H1B, H2A or H2B work visas. While laborers could enter the country, he’d want to crack down on those who unlawfully cross the southern border to diversify the pool of people entering the country away from residents of Central American countries.

“We need to welcome people from across the globe, and it makes it harder on the United States to do that when we have millions of people flowing from one part of the world,” Hines said. “I want to see people from Africa. I want to see people from Europe. I want to see people from all different areas of the globe come here that want to be hard-working Americans.”

As election day approaches, the candidates have subtly distanced themselves from political extremes.

Tillis endorses Hines, police group backs Nickel in competitive Triangle congressional race

Last year on the campaign trail, Hines joined U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a fellow 27-year-old Republican with whom he shares similar policy views but whom he has also distanced himself from.

Nickel is backed by a number of left-leaning groups but has also touted recent support from one group that is also supporting conservatives. Last week, he earned the backing of the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association, which is also supporting Republican U.S. Rep Ted Budd in a close race for an open U.S. Senate against Democrat Cheri Beasley.

During the primary, Nickel frequently mentioned former President Barack Obama, touting his work as a White House staff member who helped coordinate travel logistics. Nickel has seldom discussed Obama on his social media pages since winning his May primary.

David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College, said he believes Hines and Budd will have a tougher time walking an ideological tightrope than Nickel and Beasley, a former North Carolina Supreme Court chief justice.

“Had either one of them not gotten the Trump endorsement, we may have another nominee,” McLennan said of Hines and Budd. “They're sort of in a bind politically. … I understand why Hines and Budd are embracing Trump because they have no choice. I also understand why Beasley and Nickel are running more apart from their party.”

Nickel and Hines are each trying to present one another as too ideologically extreme for the district.

“In this race, I'm the moderate by far,” Nickel said. “My opponent is a far-right extremist. He's campaigning to the right of Madison Cawthorn.”

Cawthorn lost his primary after a number of personal and political missteps. Hines said he’d be more focused on policy than Cawthorn, who appeared to focus much of the operations of his congressional office on communications and attention-seeking rather than governance.

Hines has also welcomed the support of controversial Republican U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida. He said he’d like to see more legislative action from them, but also defended their limited results, saying they’ve been stifled due to Democratic control of the chamber.

“I’d like to see a lot more activity involved, but the reality is we don’t have the majority in Congress right now, so there’s not much they can do,” Hines said. “They’re blocked by Democrats almost tooth and nail on every single piece of policy they attempt to push right now.”