News 13 asked all candidates for U.S. Senate the same three questions regarding Helene recovery, cost of living and federal immigration enforcement. Those questions and the candidate's unedited answers are listed below.

(WLOS) — Michael Dublin is the Green Party candidate for North Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat. Dublin is a retired public school teacher who has led a prison ministry for decades. He has also served in the military.

WIOS ABC 13 News
By Kathy Doty
October 12, 2026

Two years after Helene, western North Carolina is still recovering from its impacts. What are your thoughts on FEMA's response to the disaster? What would you do in Congress to support the area’s recovery?

Two years is too long to still be waiting. I've been out there. I've seen the debris piles and the families living in trailers and the small businesses that never reopened. FEMA has committed more than $7.5 billion to North Carolina for Helene recovery, and the state says nearly all roads are back open and 159 homes have been rebuilt with another 165 underway. That's progress. But too many people are still stuck. Applications are getting tied up, buyouts are moving slow, and folks in Burke and Caldwell counties are being told to wait while the money sits somewhere. I would push to cut the red tape and get dollars directly to families. I would hold hearings in the mountains, not in Washington, and I would publish what every agency promised against what it actually delivered. If we can find money for another fighter jet, we can find money to rebuild a bridge and a home.

From groceries to gas, many Americans are feeling the pinch of rising prices. If elected, what would you do to address issues like affordability and inflation?

Families in North Carolina have paid more than $3,100 extra under Trump just to keep up with the same goods and services. Gas hit $3.94 a gallon in April and people in Wake County told reporters they were putting $10 in the tank at a time because that was all they could afford. Fifty-seven percent of North Carolinians say they have trouble covering regular monthly expenses. That's not a statistic to me, that's my neighbors. I would cap prescription drug prices, ban price gouging on groceries and rent, break up the monopolies that control our food and housing supply, and raise the federal minimum wage. I would also cut the military budget and put that money back into universal healthcare and public housing so working people aren't carrying the whole load. You cannot call an economy strong when one in five people in this state is struggling to afford food.

What are your thoughts on current immigration policy and enforcement actions by the federal government? What would you like to see happen in the future?

What's happening right now is not enforcement, it's cruelty with a badge. I'm talking about people who came here legally, who followed the rules, who were granted Temporary Protected Status after earthquakes and civil war, and who are now being told to leave. The Supreme Court just cleared the way to strip protections from 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, sending them back to countries our own State Department says are unsafe to visit. In North Carolina, DHS agents have been stopping people without reasonable suspicion and targeting Latino neighborhoods and businesses. That's not public safety, that's racial profiling with a badge and a gun. I would require real due process. No raids on churches or schools. No separating children from parents. If an officer breaks the law, that officer faces consequences. And I would end the private detention contracts because nobody should profit from locking people up.