Old North News

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest has donated roughly $200,000 in campaign funds to assist individuals, businesses and nonprofits in North Carolina that are financially struggling due to COVID-19. 

“When the coronavirus hit the state, I stopped my campaign,” Forest told Carteret County News-Times in late April. “I asked my campaign staff to make contacts across the state to find out who’s in need. I’ve been traveling all across the state and have helped out about 70 different people and organizations.”

The Republican lieutenant governor is running against the incumbent, Gov. Roy Cooper, who is a Democrat, for governor of North Carolina.

Forest’s campaign has canceled its fundraising activities and shifted its mission to provide economic relief for North Carolinians amid COVID-19.

“It seems senseless and wrong to raise millions of dollars to put advertisements on TV when so many people in our state are out of work or mourning the loss of a loved one,” Forest told North State Journal. “We have been blessed with so much support over the years, and it felt right to put our campaign money where it could do some real good.”

While Forest is making donations using campaign money, Gov. Roy Cooper is trying to raise funds for his re-election campaign, according to the North State Journal report. In a video released recently earlier, Forest’s campaign manager Hal Weatherman criticized Cooper’s campaign for allegedly sending an email solicitation to citizens asking them to contribute because the campaign fell short of its fundraising goal.

Weatherman called the move “tasteless” especially given the fact that the email was sent on the same day North Carolina Department of Commerce revealed that more than 600,000 unemployment applications have been filed in the state, according to the North State Journal report.

Forest is calling on Cooper to release a plan to reopen the economy as the governors of Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee have done for their states. North Carolina is currently under a stay-at-home order. According to WBTV, Cooper said that the state wasn’t ready to lift COVID-19 restrictions but the reopening will be done in three phases starting with the reopening of parks and having people wear face masks when they can’t social distance from others.