The Hometown Holler

North Carolina just delivered one of the biggest political shakeups in the Nation. But what happened, and what does it mean for the rest of the country? What does it mean for Trump? Blair Reeves of Carolina Forward joins The Hometown Holler to break down the 2026 midterm election results, the historic Democratic gains, the biggest Republican upsets, and what comes next for North Carolina and the n...

What does North Carolina's future look like through the eyes of someone who grew up watching its longest-serving governor lead the state? Lt. Governor Rachel Hunt joins The Hometown Holler for a conversation about her father, the late Governor Jim Hunt, the lessons he passed down, and the future of the state they both dedicated their careers to serving.**Subscribe to The Hometown Holler** for...

Storyteller and folklorist Liz Pardue started posting North Carolina stories online just to get over her stage fright. A year later, people across the state are shouting requests in her comments, packing her library shows, and selling out her ghost tours. Liz returns to the Holler for our Halloween special to talk about haunted history, why North Carolinians are finally proud of their weird storie...

Fourth-generation mountain farmer Jamie Ager never planned on running for Congress. But after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina and Washington failed to deliver, he decided enough was enough. Now he's running in a congressional race that few thought would be competitive, NC-11.Jamie joins the Holler to talk about Helene recovery, the rising cost of living, political corruption...

Everybody loves a tax break. Until somebody asks why the fire truck isn’t coming. Theo Nollert, Policy Director at Building NC's Next Chapter, joins The Holler fellas to unpack three proposed amendments to North Carolina’s Constitution, who stands to benefit, and what your hometown could lose. Voter ID, tax caps, and a whole lot of fine print. Before you check “yes,” give this one a listen.

In 1995, a young Ezra Levin wrote to Bill Watterson begging him to keep Calvin and Hobbes going. He's been an activist ever since. Two decades later, he and his wife Leah Greenberg wrote a guide to resisting the Trump agenda that grew into Indivisible, one of the largest grassroots networks in the country and a lead organizer of the No Kings protests. Now the movement that put millions of peop...

When Terrence Everitt asked the Wake County DA to investigate the Speaker of the North Carolina House, leadership moved his office into a supply closet in the basement. He bought donuts for his new neighbors. Today he runs the North Carolina Voter Protection Alliance — and he says what's happening to voting in this state should alarm everyone, no matter who you vote for. In this episode: why N...

What does the North Carolina Supreme Court actually do and why should you care who sits on it? Justice Anita Earls joins the Holler to talk about the power of the NC Supreme Court, gerrymandering, voting rights, public school funding, Duke Energy rates, judicial elections, and why the 2026 Supreme Court race matters. Turns out, those judicial races in the middle of your ballot have a whole lot mor...

What if the future of farming isn’t just about food? Kamal Bell of Sankofa Farms is back at The Holler to talk about the future of farming in North Carolina, affordable housing, helping formerly incarcerated people rebuild their lives, the challenges facing Black farmers, and why he believes our food system needs a serious rethink. Plus, Kamal is headed to Harvard as a Loeb Fellow, where he plans...

San Diego had Ron Burgundy. North Carolina has Tim Boyum. One of our state's most prominent journalists, Tim is known and beloved by Tar Heels everywhere as the bow tie guy. This year, the longtime host of Capitol Tonight traded the studio for the open road, embarking on a 6,000-mile adventure across 24 states and DC to document America's 250th birthday. Tim joins the Holler to talk about...

Frank Bruni has held just about every job a person can have at the New York Times: reporter, White House correspondent, Rome bureau chief, chief restaurant critic, and op-ed columnist. The bestselling author and Duke professor joins the Holler to explain how he became one of Oprah's favorite people, what your grocery store says about your personality, how he once booked a table at a kosher res...

We sit down with Donovan Zimmerman, co-founder of North Carolina’s Paperhand Puppet Project, to talk giant puppets, art, community, and the strange kind of magic that happens when thousands of people gather together to experience something handmade. Donovan takes us inside the world of Paperhand—from discovering the magic of art as a teenager to building one of North Carolina’s most unique cultura...

People are moving here. Money is moving here. Culture is coming from here. And more and more, the biggest political fights in the country are playing out right here in our backyard. Jennifer Palmieri and Errin Haines hit the road across the South for Crooked Media's new series Long Play and naturally, they had to make a stop in North Carolina. They join us to talk about what they found here: w...

Political strategist Morgan Jackson on Mark Robinson's collapse, Trump's inroads with NC Democrats, and how it feels to watch a campaign come back from the dead. If you want to understand North Carolina politics, you gotta talk to Morgan Jackson. For nearly three decades, he's been behind some of the state's biggest political wins, including Roy Cooper's historic 2016 upset (th...

Round 2 with Roy Cooper! We sat down with the Former Governor and US Senate Candidate to crack a cold Sun Drop and find out what he's hearing across North Carolina on his "Make Stuff Cost Less" Tour. Along the way, we discuss why everything is so expensive now, what Medicaid cuts mean for NC families, whether members of Congress should be trading stocks, and who his favorite Hurrican...

Sheila Mikhail did everything right. She stayed healthy, saw her doctor regularly, and got her annual mammograms at Duke Cancer Center. Despite all of it, her breast cancer went undetected for seven years. The culprit: dense breast tissue, a common condition that can cause mammograms to miss up to half of all tumors. Now cancer-free, Sheila is on a mission to ensure all North Carolinians have acce...

Why does one seat in the North Carolina State Senate matter more than almost anything happening in Washington? Daniel Squadron joins the Hometown Holler to make the case that state legislatures—not Congress, not the White House—are where American politics is actually decided. A former New York State Senator who took on a 30-year incumbent and won, Daniel went on to co-found The States Project, the...

Psychedelics have gone from a symbol of the hippie counterculture to a serious conversation in state legislatures and medical research labs. This week on The Hometown Holler, the Fellas chat with, Gina Giorgio founder of Carolinas for Care , about the growing movement behind psychedelic-assisted therapy, North Carolina's bipartisan HEAL Act, the mental health crisis facing veterans, and what t...

What does it mean to be the best state for business... and the worst state for workers? Quinn and Daniel sit down with Nikki Marín Baena, co-founder of Siembra NC, to talk about wage theft, workers' rights, immigration, and the growing movement to build a North Carolina that works for ordinary people. From helping workers recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen wages to organizing c...

Raised in the Jehovah's Witness, Naomi Dix was knocking on doors and leading prayer meetings by the time she was 13. Today she's one of only five drag queens in history to own a gay nightclub. The road between those two things is one of the wildest stories we've heard at the Holler. This Pride Month, we talk to the Durham native and Tar Heel drag icon about what drag actually is (and i...

What happens when someone spends more than a decade behind bars, survives nearly 1,000 days in solitary confinement, and comes home determined to change the system that failed him? This week on The Hometown Holler , Quinn and Daniel sit down with Kerwin Pittman , formerly incarcerated advocate, nonprofit leader, and the man turning a former North Carolina prison into a first-of-its-kind reentry ca...

Nobody told Auntie Bev she was supposed to be famous. She was just in her living room, doing a favor for her grandson... and somehow that turned into 3 million people waiting on her next word. Beverly Mahone, better known as Auntie Bev, is a Durham educator who built one of the most wholesome corners of TikTok one vocabulary word at a time. This week she visits the Holler to talk words, wisdom, an...

Retired 82nd Airborne Captain and member of Veterans for Responsible Leadership, Scott Peoples, joins the Holler for a Memorial Day conversation about service, democracy, political division, and what it means to defend the Constitution after taking off the uniform. They chat about what Memorial Day actually means beyond beach trips and cookouts, to jumping out of planes at Fort Bragg, the growing...

Senator Mark Kelly joins the Hometown Holler to talk about space, war, and what it's like to have the president call for your execution. Arguably the most interesting member of the US Senate, Kelly has been to space four times and flown combat missions over Iraq and Kuwait. Recently, President Trump called for his execution after Kelly made a video reminding service members they don't have...

Corporate influence, stock trades, citizens united - oh my! This week the on the Hometown Holler the fellas sit down with political finance watchdog and Stocking the Capitol founder Nico Agosta for a conversation about stock trading, corporate PACs, and why so many Americans feel like Congress is working for everyone except them. From insider trading allegations to campaign cash, Nico breaks down...