Candidate ME

WFAE political reporter Tom Bullock has a new podcast primarily tied to the Charlotte mayor’s race. It also delves into other municipal races.

In this episode, Tom breaks a campaign promise and asks our political gurus for their pick as the biggest broken political promise in Mecklenburg County.

Then Candidate ME takes a look at absentee mail-in ballots - the potential problems and even a recent scandal with them.

This week, we're saving the best for last. As in the last interview in this episode. It's a rare look inside the world of 'dark money' groups looking to influence you and your vote. These groups can and do keep their donor lists secret and they aren’t known for talking with reporters.

But first, have you ever cold called someone to ask for $5,000? If you have you're likely a political candidate.

Host Tom Bullock learns the ropes of fundraising and makes a few cold calls. And our completely biased political panel is back to talk big money in politics.

Lawmakers in North Carolina have long loved to (politically) party with the gerrymander. And both major parties are guilty of twisting districts to help keep themselves in power. With the latest rounds of court ordered redistricting officially now underway, we dig into what the new maps may look like. And Candidate ME talks with Democratic State Senator Jeff Jackson about how he hopes to use the maps to break Republican supermajorities at the General Assembly.

Get ready folks, the 2017 election season is now officially underway. Which means dozens and dozens (and dozens) of candidates and their campaigns are hard at work trying to sway you to their side.

What if one of these campaigns opens their doors and showed us what happens behind the scenes? The messy stuff usually hidden from view. The art, science and yes, shenanigans of campaigning? Now that would be fun. But that's not going to happen.

So in our first episode, Candidate ME launches its own hypothetical campaign. 

Welcome to the 2017 election season. This is an odd numbered year, which means politics really does go local, with contests for school board, town and city councils and, of course mayors.

WFAE will, of course, bring you our usual full coverage of these races. But this year we're also doing something new.

We're calling it Candidate ME.