Old North News

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, a 2020 Republican candidate for governor, recently discussed North Carolina’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I believe right now many of our counties could start to open back up and you could start to do that in a safe and healthy way,” Forest told The Daily Signal on May 5. “I’ve said it from the beginning, this is the United States of America, we can protect lives and livelihoods at the same time. And you’ve seen governors across the country doing this.”

Forest said just like there are two perspectives on reopening the economy — resuming business operations while protecting vulnerable protections vs. locking down everything until the coronavirus is no longer present — there are two approaches to leadership during trying times.

“One that is kind of the police state that’s going to try to tell everybody what to do every second, but the government is here to protect us, but not to run and control our lives,” he told the publication. “I think the biggest lesson that we’re going to learn through this is how do we protect our Constitution and our constitutional freedoms as we move out of this and make sure that we don’t move into a police state mentality every time something starts to go down in our country.”

Since becoming lieutenant governor in 2013, Forest has noticed a growing divide between people based on differing political views and ideologies. 

“I think that we have a lot of work to do in America to unify people and unite people,”  he told the publication.

While he hopes to bring people together, Forest has previously contributed to several policy issues in the state including increasing access to technology in classrooms and helping to combat human trafficking.

Forest is running for governor against Democratic incumbent Roy Cooper. Both will face off this November.