Stay up to date with WRAL’s Jim Hunt news and reporting coverage
Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025-- Capitol Broadcasting Company's editorial cartoonist
Wilson County authorities on Wednesday confirmed they have closed a 23-year homicide investigation into the death of Larry Boyette.
Monday, Aug. 8, 2022 -- The N.C. Chamber knows the public education needs of the state but has chosen to ignore them and placed their financial gain above doing the best for our school children.
Sunday, April 10, 2022 -- In 1989, some North Carolina Democratic leaders had tried to recruit Andy Griffith to run against incumbent Republican Jesse Helms for the U.S. Senate. Internal polls showed Andy could win the race, some said. Andy rejected the push and was wise to do so. He might well have won and his very private self would have hated the very public job.
Former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt is stepping down as chair of the non-profit Hunt Institute. Hunt, 84, will continue to serve as chair emeritus of the board, according to a news release from the Hunt Institute.
Mark Bergin, WRAL senior multiplatform producer
Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021 -- Eric Adams, the Democrats nominee for New York City mayor, shows you can be tough on crime - and tough on police racism and misconduct. Democrats will need to be both in 2022 and 2024.
Tuesday, June 29, 2021 -- Conservative evangelical Christians in America haven't always been all-out supporters of Israel. They once were downright hostile. That changed in 1984 when North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms ran for reelection against Gov. Jim Hunt. Helms's flip-flop on Israel had nothing to do with religion. It was about campaign contributions.
Tuesday, April 6, 2021 -- History shows that governors and lieutenant governors in North Carolina often don't like each other. We're one of 17 states where the two are elected separately. They can be from different parties; they can have different philosophies, conflicting personalities and competing ambitions.
Tuesday, March 9, 2021 -- The 2024 battle lines are being drawn. Biden is pushing a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill. A Morning Consult poll said 77% of Americans support it, including 59% of Republicans. But Republicans in Congress unanimously oppose it. Will voters think Republicans are obstructionists - or that Democrats are overreaching?
Tuesday, March 2, 2021 -- Gov. Roy Cooper is squarely in the tradition of governors since Terry Sanford, including both Democrats and Republicans. They focused on better education as the path to a better future. Cooper has added better health care, racial and gender equity, climate-change action and rural Internet to the agenda. His secret is that North Carolinians evidently share his priorities.
Former Gov. Jim Hunt and his wife were among those who had appointments Wednesday for coronavirus vaccine shots in Wilson County.
Oscar Harris , a former North Carolina state senator, small-town mayor and close ally of Democratic governors, has died at age 80, his family said.
Former Gov. Jim Hunt spotted Kay Hagan's political potential early on, and both he and one of her former staffers remember her as feisty and energetic when it came to getting the job done.
Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019 -- "Competitive elections make our politics more civil and create an environment in which promising and pragmatic policies can emerge. Partisan gerrymandering eliminates competitive elections, poisons our politics, and corrupts our system of government."
Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019 -- Rather than looking for ways to close troubling gaps in diversity between public school students and teachers along with increases in teacher turnover, the N.C. General Assembly has taken a cleaver to the efforts to fix them and done little or nothing to replace those programs. Particularly troubling, is that much of this was done out of pure ideological spite.
Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018 -- The N.C. Constitution enshrines the balance of power between executive, legislative and judicial branches government. It wisely gives the governor appointment power for judicial replacements and the Board of Ethics and Elections Enforcement. Let's keep it that way. Support the Constitution and its balance of powers. Keep the legislature in its place to enact laws, not enforce them. Vote against both amendments.
Former Gov. Jim Hunt gave almost as much money to the North Carolina Democratic Party this year as he's put into state political campaigns over the last 20 years combined.
Travis Fain, WRAL statehouse reporter
All five of North Carolina's living former governors came together Monday to urge voters to defeat two proposed constitutional amendments that would shift power from the executive branch to state lawmakers.
Matthew Burns, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor, & Laura Leslie, WRAL Capitol Bureau chief
All five of North Carolina's living former governors plan a press conference Monday against amendments shifting power from the executive branch to the legislature.
Former Gov. Jim Hunt says North Carolina must continue to invest in its people and resources if it is to continue growing and prospering in the future.
David Crabtree and Matthew Burns
A bill that passed House Judiciary 1 Wednesday would limit governors and lieutenant governors to no more than two terms in their lifetimes. The constitutional amendment would go before voters in 2018.
Laura Leslie
When Republican lawmakers tested the limits of their new powers over the past four years, political opponents - and at least one ally - pushed back through the courts.
Mark Binker
