Meet Andrew Dunn, a new conservative voice on our North Carolina opinion pages

Diversity may be a fraught term right now, but it’s something we continue to strive for on our opinion pages. That includes ideological diversity, and it’s why we’ve added new regular center-right voices in the past few years, including former Republican NC Gov. Jim Martin and Matt Wylie, a GOP consultant who provided smart commentary on the 2024 election.

We’ve also introduced new national conservative perspectives to our pages, including David Mastio, a McClatchy columnist and editor of our center-right newsletter, The Point. The newsletter, which lands in your inbox each Saturday, is a gathering place for center-right content from writers in North Carolina and throughout McClatchy. I encourage you to subscribe.

Today, we’re excited to welcome Andrew Dunn, a thoughtful North Carolina conservative political analyst and publisher of the newsletter Longleaf Politics. Andrew served as the communication director for Dan Forest in his run for governor of North Carolina. Before that he was at Charlotte Agenda, The Charlotte Observer and the StarNews in Wilmington. He grew up in Apex and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill. He lives in Charlotte with his wife and four children.

Andrew will write at least weekly on issues important to our communities and state. His first column - a Republican perspective on Thom Tillis - is a good one, and it’s not just for conservatives. We’ve always believed that the path to better understanding issues includes seeking out opinions that challenge what we think we know. We hope you can find that on our pages, and we’re glad Andrew is joining that effort.