“I’m determined to expand Medicaid,” Cooper said in one campaign commercial.

“As governor, I’ll keep fighting to expand Medicaid for working people,” he said in another. “I won’t stop, because no family should live in fear.”

During the lone gubernatorial debate in October 2020, Cooper called expansion “a moral imperative.”

It will take legislative agreement for expansion to pass, though, and the track record of the last four years makes it clear: That’s extremely unlikely under current leadership.

But under Promise Tracker rules, it’s not enough simply to prioritize something. To get full credit here, the governor will have to persuade the General Assembly’s Republican majority to go along, or convince voters in 2022 to give him a Democratic majority that will.

The metric: Does North Carolina expand Medicaid, as contemplated in the Affordable Care Act, either outright or through a compromise measure?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: The decade-plus push on this top priority paid off in 2023, giving the governor a win on a signature issue. The General Assembly voted in March to approve expansion but tied it to passage of a new state budget, which didn’t pass until September. Expansion went into effect Dec. 1, and it will pump billions into the state’s healthcare system for years to come. As of Dec. 20, some 280,000 people had been added to the state’s Medicaid rolls. Another 300,000 may be added in the coming months. Cooper spokesman Jordan Monaghan said the administration will work around the clock to get the word out and sign people up. “After years of fighting for high-quality health care for every person in our state, this year’s launch of Medicaid expansion means more than 600,000 North Carolinians can now access the care they need to stay healthier, treat sickness earlier and have the peace of mind knowing health care is within their reach,” Monaghan said. This promise is achieved.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: This is the first January in Cooper’s six years in office when it looks like this might happen. It remains a top priority for the governor, but a newly constituted General Assembly, with an increased Republican majority compared to last year, will decide the matter. The House and Senate each passed expansion bills last year, but they didn’t come to terms on a final bill. This remains in progress.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: Good news and bad news for those who’d like to see Medicaid expand. It did expand for pregnant mothers, who will get a year of Medicaid services after birth instead of two months. Republican lawmakers also agreed to a study committee on full expansion that reports back next year. But actual expansion remains more ambition than expectation. This remains in progress.

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“The first thing we’ve got to do is pay our teachers,” Cooper said in the 2020 gubernatorial debate. “We’ve got to get our teacher pay to at least the national average.”

As with so many other priorities, this will take legislative cooperation. But as we’ve said elsewhere, it is not enough to try. To get full credit here, Cooper must succeed—or at least put the state on a solid path to accomplish this goal after he leaves office.

The metric: Does North Carolina teacher pay increase at least to the national average, based on the latest National Education Association’s rankings? Or is it on track to do so based on approved increases and general agreement among legislative leadership on future increases?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: After another year of the Republican-controlled General Assembly approving teacher raises well below what the governor requested, this one seems impossible to achieve. At $54,863, North Carolina is 36th in the nation in average teacher pay, according to the ⁠latest National Education Association rankings. Those rankings are based on data from fiscal 2022. But the raises that lawmakers approved in 2023 total 7%, on average, for fiscal 2024 and 2025 combined. It would take at least a 22% increase to reach the national average, based on the latest NEA numbers — without accounting for increases planned in other states. Cooper has another year to achieve this goal. So we’ll leave it in progress, but the reality seems obvious.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed raises each of the past two years. But by Cooper’s own admission, salaries have not been boosted as much as he hoped, and the state is not on track to hit the national average. That average was $65,000 for the 2020-21 school year, according to the National Education Association’s most recent report. North Carolina’s average salary in that ranking was $53,000. That was before the latest round of raises. But those raises weren’t nearly large enough for North Carolina to catch up. Cooper said in a December interview that he’d like to see a 10% across-the-board raise for teachers over the next two years. He also said he doubts the General Assembly’s Republican majority will go for that. The coming year may prove crucial on teacher pay, with conversations ongoing about an overhaul of the state’s teacher pay and licensure regime and the decades-old Leandro court case pressing the legislature to increase education funding — something Cooper has repeatedly called on lawmakers to do. We’ll leave this one in progress for now.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: The new state budget, boosted by large state surpluses and federal COVID money, included small teacher raises, bonuses up to $2,800 and a new $100 million fund to boost teacher salaries in most counties. That’s not nothing, but it’s also not on track to meet Cooper’s goal of “at least the national average,” which would be $64,133, according to the latest National Education Association numbers. These figures lag, so that’s a 2019-20 number. North Carolina’s 2019-20 figure (without changes from this latest budget) is $54,150, good for 33rd in the country. We’ll wait to chart a trend line and leave this in progress for now.

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The state also was next to last in terms of funding effort, which is defined as K-12 education revenues as a share of state GDP.

“We’ve got to invest in education,” Cooper said during the 2020 gubernatorial debate. “We’ve got to increase our per-pupil expenditure.”

That’s simple enough, and we’ll keep it that simple, without requiring the governor to hit a specific number. Full success requires sustained increases, though, not just an increase in the final year of his term. The increases also must account for inflation.

The metric: Does the state increase its K-12 per-pupil spending in most years of Cooper’s second term?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: The state's per-pupil funding for the fiscal year ending in 2023 was $7,596, according to data provided by the state Department of Public Instruction. That’s about a $170 increase from the year before. Add in federal and local funding and fiscal 2023’s per-pupil spending was $12,637 – an increase of about $292 per student over the previous year. That means the state's per-pupil spending has increased every year so far in Cooper's second term, satisfying our metric. We set a fairly low bar here, given Cooper's own complaints that the state doesn't spend enough on K-12 education, but this promise is achieved.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: This one, by definition, will be decided in the upcoming third year of Cooper’s second term, though the data that this metric is based upon lags. The most recent calculation available from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction covers the 2021-22 school year, when the state’s per-pupil spending was $7,425.95. The year before that, it was $7,155.63. That’s just state funding. When you add in federal and local funding for schools, total 2020-21 per-pupil spending in North Carolina rises to $12,345.03. Based on the trend line — and keeping in mind that Cooper has repeatedly pushed for significantly more school funding than the legislature has approved — we’re moving this promise to kept so far. But it's worth noting that the Education Law Center's latest report, relying on figures from 2020, continues to rank North Carolina near the bottom among the 50 states.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: This can’t be judged off a single year, so we’ll leave it in progress. The Education Law Center’s 2021 report, which uses numbers from 2019, still had North Carolina near the bottom of the pack.

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“We must plan for the future by taking advantage of historically low interest rates to make deep investments in infrastructure with building 21st-century schools, more housing and improving water and sewer infrastructure,” the governor said in an August 2020 budget proposal.

A version of the bond proposal has support in the House, but not enough in the Senate, where Republicans have resisted proposals to borrow more money. A bond like Cooper has proposed—$4.3 billion in total, with $2 billion going to K-12 school construction and renovation—would also require voter approval after the legislature places it on the ballot.

Given that the Senate has backed more of a pay-as-you-go approach, our metric here won’t require a voter-approved bond. But it will require a state investment in school construction well beyond what the legislature has approved in recent years.

The metric: Does the state provide sweeping new funding for school construction?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: The latest state budget includes more than $400 million in school construction funding for the fiscal year ending in 2024, and it contemplates similar funding in fiscal 2025, though the second-year funding can always change. Fiscal 2024 will be the third year in a row that the state's contribution to school construction more than doubled what the state was spending during Cooper's first term, when the average annual figure was about $182 million. This doesn’t cover the nearly $13 billion in capital needs that schools cataloged in 2021. Nor does it match the $2 billion construction bond that Cooper once called for. But it does get in that neighborhood, even before accounting for federal Covid-19 relief money that many schools used for capital needs. Our metric didn't require a $2 billion bond. We said we'd look for "a state investment in school construction well beyond what the legislature has approved in recent years." We're inclined to say the money approved in the last few years counts as the "sweeping new funding" we were looking for and that this promise is achieved.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: The current state budget includes $581 million in school construction funding, far above — for the second year in a row — the five-year average from before Cooper’s second term. Another $320 million in federal COVID-19 relief money for North Carolina schools has been spent or encumbered on capital projects, so there’s an argument this promise has been achieved. However, Cooper called in 2020 for a $2 billion school construction bond, an idea that never found enough support in the legislature to pass. And the state’s latest review said that schools reported $12.8 billion in capital needs. The governor said in a December interview that he wasn’t sure whether he’d call again for a school construction bond when he rolls out his next budget proposal in March. He noted that interest rates have risen substantially, making a bond package less attractive. We’re going to keep watching this one, but for now it stays in progress.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: The state budget has more than $500 million in it for K-12 school construction this fiscal year after averaging $182 million a year over the previous five years. Nearly half of that funding, though, was lottery money leftover from previous years, in part because lottery play has gone up more than expected during the pandemic. That makes it one-time money. Next year’s school construction funding—the legislature passed a two-year budget, and the second year can still change—was set at about $300 million. These are clear increases, and school systems got billions in federal COVID funding last year, some of which will be spent on heating and air conditioning and other building upgrades. The legislature also approved policy changes that, among other things, should increase construction funding in rural areas for years to come. These are significant changes, but judged against Cooper’s $2 billion bond proposal, and a $13 billion list of construction needs, it’s not enough to consider this promise achieved. We’ll stick with in progress.

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Cooper has consistently complained about corporate tax cuts the legislature phased in over the last several years, some of which he tried to stop with a 2018 budget proposal. But he’s no more likely to win a rollback than Republican lawmakers are to get him to agree to new cuts.

For this promise, we’ll focus on the future and something the governor has said repeatedly, including during the 2020 gubernatorial debate: “We’ve got to stop these corporate tax cuts.”

But we will leave room for some business tax cuts to pass—such as the franchise tax Republican lawmakers targeted in recent years—if they are offset by tax increases elsewhere on businesses or on the wealthy or if they are part of a grand bargain that wins the governor another major priority.

Though it is not part of this metric, we will also be watching whether the governor proposes any tax increases, particularly in his upcoming budget. He said during the gubernatorial debate that a tax increase would not be needed in 2021.

The metric: Does the state forgo further corporate tax cuts or roll back any already in place?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: The General Assembly’s Republican supermajority accelerated personal income tax cuts in the budget they passed this year and left the corporate tax cuts planned in the coming years in place. There’s nothing new here for the governor. This effort failed.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: Republicans continue to control the state legislature, so they largely control tax policy. Planned tax cuts continue to be phased in, and additional cuts may pass in 2023. We gave the governor a failing grade on this last year, and there’s no reason to change that assessment.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: The governor signed a budget with billions in tax cuts, both in personal income and business taxes. We could call that a full-on broken promise, but political reality—Republican lawmakers insisted on these cuts and included them in a long-delayed budget plan—left the governor with few options. North Carolina governors don’t have line-item veto power; they must accept the budget in full or not at all. Also, some cuts in this budget don’t take effect until after Cooper leaves office, leaving time for reversal, although that’s unlikely unless Democrats win majorities at the legislature. We’ll call this a failed promise for now and reassess in the future.

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The system generally pays half of someone’s salary, up to a cap of $350 a week. Benefits run out after 12 to 20 weeks, depending on the state’s unemployment rate. All of this has been bolstered in the pandemic by federal extensions and benefit boosts, but Cooper wants long-term changes.

“We must increase our state unemployment benefits, which are among the stingiest in the country, by extending the maximum number of weeks from 12 to 24 and upping the maximum benefit to $500 per week,” he said in an August 2020 budget proposal.

There is room for compromise here. The Senate backed an increase in the maximum during one of the legislature’s 2020 pandemic sessions and, although the proposal fell short in the House, lawmakers are expected to revisit the issue in 2021.

With that in mind, this metric allows for flexibility beyond the specifics of the governor’s 2020 proposal. While most of the discussion revolves around increasing the duration of benefits and raising the weekly cap, there are also changes that could increase the average benefits paid without raising that cap.

We will require two out of three here for success and, if increases are ultimately approved, we’ll be cognizant of their size and how North Carolina compares to other states.

The metric: Does the state significantly increase both the duration of benefits and what it pays unemployed workers, either by increasing the maximum weekly benefit or by adjusting benefit calculations to increase average payouts?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: Another year has passed without movement on this issue. Cooper asked for a benefits increase in his 2023 budget proposal, and Democrats filed bills along the same lines, but none of it went anywhere. The governor hasn’t made a high-profile push on the issue, but that wasn’t likely to sway the General Assembly’s Republican supermajority. Like a lot of things on this list, there’s not much Cooper can do here. We’ll leave this in progress again, recognizing that time is running out.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: This issue fell off the radar as the economy improved for workers. It remains, according to many, an important issue in need of attention in North Carolina, which has some of the nation’s stingiest benefits. Cooper has two more years to work on this, and in the past there has been some bipartisan agreement on the issue. As of December, the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund had $3.55 billion in it, enough to fund increases. A spokesman for the governor said Cooper will continue to push for action. We’ll keep this one in progress for now.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: No movement yet, although the governor has called for increases. Republican lawmakers grumbled mightily last year over federal unemployment boosts. As the extra benefits fade further into the background, there may be enough political will to increase North Carolina’s lowest-in-the-nation benefits. We’ll leave this in progress for now.

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When schooling went virtual during the pandemic, though, it was all too obvious how much further there is to go.

“Every household needs access to high-speed internet,” Cooper said during the 2020 gubernatorial debate. “We’ve got to do better.”

Cooper proposed a $250 million bond to pay for broadband expansion, a massive move beyond the tens of millions of dollars the legislature put toward this priority in recent years.

We won’t require a major bond for success, nor will we require “every household” to have access within four years. But Cooper made it clear he wants to raise the bar here, and we’ll take that into account in judging the state’s efforts.

The metric: Does the state significantly increase access to broadband internet?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: We gave the governor a passing grade on this last year, and we see no reason to roll that back. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of government-funded broadband projects are underway, with more to come. The only question is how much access increases. There is no doubt the final numbers will be significant. This promise remains achieved.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: There were 212,299 North Carolina households at the start of Cooper’s second term that didn’t have access to an internet connection that fit the federal definition for broadband, according to the Cooper administration’s Department of Information Technology, which relied on Federal Communications Commission numbers. Since then, more than 9,500 households and businesses have been added, the administration said last month. As noted in last year’s update, the state and federal government earmarked $1 billion to expand broadband in North Carolina, mostly in COVID stimulus funding. The department said in December that more than $270 million of that money had been awarded, with $147 million in private sector funding to match it. Altogether that’s enough to connect another 113,000 households and businesses, the department said. Another $700 million in projects should be awarded in 2023, the department said. Almost $1 billion more in federal money will flow through the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed Congress in late 2021. The Cooper administration also said that awards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will connect nearly 16,300 homes and businesses. Another project funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will connect more than 15,200 households, the administration said. Much of the actual work remains to be done, but between the massive funding and the way both the governor and state legislature have prioritized this effort, we’ve seen enough. We rate this promise achieved.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: This one’s looking like it will be a success, but not enough time has passed to mark it achieved. The latest budget included $1 billion to expand broadband in the state, much of it one-time COVID stimulus money from the federal government. It will take time for that money to boost access and, for that reason, we’ll leave this one in progress.

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Many of the details are laid out in his Clean Energy Plan, which builds on an executive order Cooper signed in 2018. The legislature would have to sign off on a number of things to enact that plan, which runs about 150 pages, and success requires cooperation from various industries, including electricity producers.

But a major goal gets laid out right up front: a 40% reduction in statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. That’s measured by the state’s biennial Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which we’ll rely on in assessing this goal.

We’ll also consult with experts in judging the governor’s efforts on climate change and keep in mind how hard he pushes on the issue.

The metric: Does the state hit or get on track to hit by 2025 the 40% greenhouse gas emissions reduction?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: The General Assembly passed sweeping energy legislation in 2021 with House Bill 951, which lays out a blueprint for carbon emission reductions in the state's power sector. Cooper has also pushed to boost electric vehicle production in North Carolina. Even so, the 40% goal seems to be in danger. The state’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory is only updated every two years, so we don’t have new projections, but last year’s inventory predicted a 30% reduction. Cooper’s office notes that projection is based on data from 2018, and that it doesn’t take into account the impact of House Bill 951 and other policy changes. “Claiming North Carolina is unlikely to meet our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals based on outdated data that does not take into account the state’s most significant climate legislation is inaccurate and devoid of critical context,” Cooper spokesman Jordan Monaghan said. Environmental groups cheered House Bill 951’s passage but have since been discouraged by its implementation. The Southern Environmental Law Center says Duke Energy will rely far too much on natural gas to replace coal-fired plants. “Duke Energy's proposed plans have been disappointing, and getting worse,” SELC spokeswoman Kathleen Sullivan said in an email. “Under Duke's latest proposed plan, it would build almost three times as much … natural gas generation as it proposed last time.” North Carolina’s population growth and run of economic success also makes this an uphill battle. In a late November regulatory filing Duke Energy said its latest projections on top-end electricity demand would likely be about eight times what it predicted two years ago. Zooming out, the World Meteorological Organization recently said this year was likely to be the hottest in recorded history, and the past nine years have been the warmest nine in 174 years of recorded observations. Heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions produced by burning fossil fuels around the world continue to break records. North Carolina’s 40% reduction goal is a small part of the answer, and Cooper has worked hard to recruit companies that will make components for electric vehicles, so North Carolina is poised to play a big role in reducing drivers’ dependence on fossil fuels well beyond the state’s borders. Still, we’re not optimistic the state will hit Cooper’s 40% target. He has one year to go, though, so we'll leave this promise in progress for now.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: The state’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory report projects a 30% decrease in greenhouse gases by 2025, well short of this goal. But that report notes that its projections don’t include all reductions expected from policies enacted after 2020. That would include House Bill 951, which calls for a 70% reduction by 2030 and is the blueprint for a long-term carbon plan that was due this weekend. Experts need time to digest this immensely important plan and its impact, and we’re keeping this one in progress for now.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: This one has seen progress. The legislature passed a new energy bill. The Cooper administration is moving toward joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative but has not consummated it. North Carolina is part of a three-state collaborative on wind power and a 15-state consortium pledging to reduce emissions from heavy trucks and buses. All these moves should reduce emissions, according to environmental groups, but follow through steps remain. We’re also interested to see what the Cooper administration’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory report, expected in early 2022, has to say. It’s too early to judge this particular goal, and we’ll keep it in progress for now.

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He established a task force that made a number of recommendations in a report released in January 2021, including four metrics by which improvements could be judged. They are reprinted here verbatim:

Increase the number of educators of color admitted in the state’s educator preparation pathways (e.g., traditional four-year preparation, residency pathways, etc.) by at least 15 percent each year.

Increase the cohort completion rate of pre-service educators of color to at least 80 percent across all preparation programs and pathways.

Ensure that at least 80 percent of completers of color across educator preparation pathways pass the licensure exams required to receive a Continuing Professional License (CPL) on their first attempt.

Retain at least 95 percent of the state’s educators of color each year.

The governor has also pushed to expand the state’s Teaching Fellows program, which pays university tuition for students who agree to teach in state, to include the state’s historically Black colleges and universities. That’s a measurable goal, and we’ll require it for success. There are five teaching fellows campuses now, and at least three more will be announced in 2021.

To clear this goal, the state will have to meet at least one of his task force’s recommendations.

The metric: Does the Teaching Fellows program expand to multiple HBCUs in North Carolina, and does the state meet at least one of the other metrics laid out by the governor’s task force?

Update Dec. 31, 2023: The numbers we use to make this judgment remain mixed. Cooper’s task force on the issue reports that the state dipped below its 15% annual increase goal when it comes to people of color admitted to educator preparation programs. Eclipsing that goal in 2022 — by a wide margin — was one of the reasons we marked this promise achieved in our last update. But we expect dips in a metric like this, particularly following success. And the task force’s latest report indicates that the state crossed a separate threshold included in our metrics: Boosting educator preparation program completion rates for people of color to at least 80%. That, combined with the successful expansion of the state’s Teaching Fellows program in 2021 to multiple historically Black colleges and universities, satisfies our metric. Cooper has prioritized this goal and gotten results. We see no reason to downgrade it from achieved.

Update Jan. 1, 2023: An October presentation from the state Department of Public Instruction indicates that the total number of people of color teaching in North Carolina decreased over the last year. However, admissions to the state’s educator preparation pathways increased by nearly 40% — well above the 15% goal. That means the state is building a larger pipeline of diverse teaching candidates. The cohort completion rate is a lagging indicator, so the latest information available there is from 2019. The licensure exam passage rate rose to 70%, below the goal, but an increase of 6 percentage points from the previous year. The retention rate dropped to 89.9%, also below the goal. The admissions data is promising. And, as noted last year, the Teaching Fellows program has expanded to HBCU campuses. Furthermore, Anthony Graham, the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Winston-Salem State University, who is also chairman of the governor’s task force on the issue, gives Cooper “an ‘A’” for continuing to prioritize the issue, saying the governor “has been very engaged in receiving updates.” Cooper also extended the task force’s appointment through the end of 2023. This is a long-term issue, likely requiring consistent prioritization. We will continue to monitor things, wary of regression. But based on our metric, this promise has been achieved.

Update Jan. 2, 2022: The teaching fellows program expanded this summer to three new schools: Fayetteville State University, North Carolina A&T and UNC-Pembroke. The first two are HBCUs, and Pembroke is the university system’s only state-designated historically American Indian university. The other metrics will take more time to judge, and the Cooper administration said that it’s working to implement task force recommendations. Other efforts are also underway. For example: Western Carolina University started a “Call Me MISTER” program this year, partnering with Clemson University, which piloted a similar program in South Carolina more than 20 years ago and helped increase the number of Black male teachers in that state. Overall, this is another metric where we see improvement, but it’s too early to make a call, so we’ll leave it in progress for now.

More promises

As we did with his first term, and for former Gov. Pat McCrory before him, WRAL News is tracking Gov. Roy Cooper’s progress on campaign promises.

We update this promise-tracker each year, and this latest update is as of Jan. 1, 2023—two years into Cooper’s second term. Halfway through the term most promises remain in progress, but we mark two as achieved and one as failed.

There are nine promises, from Medicaid expansion to increasing diversity in North Carolina’s teaching ranks. We set the pandemic aside, so you won't see the governor’s efforts on COVID-19 graded here.

Making good on these promises requires impact, not just effort, but our grades do allow for the political realities of divided government. Cooper is a Democrat, but for his entire time in office the North Carolina General Assembly has been controlled by Republicans, and that will continue to be the case for the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions, his last in office.

• Cooper campaign promise tracker (first term)

Grades are assigned by WRAL’s @NCCapitol team. As we have said before this is an honest but imperfect attempt to measure Cooper’s progress, not necessarily on what he ought to do, but on the bigger proposals he has promised to push.

How it works

Scroll down and click on a promise for a summary, its source, and its status. To return to this page, click the key at the top of the screen. We rate promises on the following scale:

What we're tracking

Here are the nine promises we're tracking. Click on each headline for more about what Cooper promised and how he is doing.