The Morning After NC's Primary Election, and the Story is: 2 Votes

Something nobody could have predict was an extraordinary election unofficially decided by 2 votes, a coronation & pattern-based US Senate primaries, and now the race to November

By Michael Bitzer

It’s an extremely early morning after the North Carolina primary election and making sense of what happened last night requires some initial thoughts, followed by (surprise, surprise) the official results and data to analyze.

But here are some way-too-early reactions to what we saw in last night’s returns.

When they say ‘every vote counts,’ they literally mean it—especially when it’s 2 votes.

With all due deference to the U.S. Senate nomination contests, the real race of the evening was the N.C. State Senate District 26 Republican nomination battle between the most powerful GOP official for the past 15 years, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, and his home county sheriff and bête noire Sam Page.

When all the precincts reported and the results still unofficial, Page bested Berger by two votes.

Now, as my colleague Chris Cooper rightly noted, this election isn’t done—it’s not certified, there are likely votes out there that have to be considered, processed, and tabulated, the canvassing needs to be completed, recounts, and then any legal challenges posed before we officially know the Republican nominee for Senate District 26.

Specifically, as Chris notes in his way-too-late reflections posted at Anatomy of a Purple State:

• Military and overseas (UOCAVA) ballots are still coming in—and may continue to come in through March 12.

• Mail ballots that need curing still need to be counted.

• Provisional ballots needs to be counted (if they’re found to be accepted)

• Canvass, “the official process of determining the votes have been counted and tabulated correctly, resulting in the authentication of the official election results.” occurs ten days after the election. It will be open to the public.

• Because, even after all of that, the results will almost certainly be within one percentage point, there will then be recounts.

• Then there’s the possibility (read: near-certainty) of legal challenges after all of that is over.

• And, here’s a fun/terrifying additional one. The Yoda of North Carolina election law, Gerry Cohen, tweeted that “under a 1915 law, if there is a tie in a multi-county state senate race there is no recount—instead there’s an automatic second primary. If there’s a tie in the second primary, the primary is vacated and the party executive committee chooses the winner and is not limited to the tied candidates.”

In other words: stay tuned folks. The band at this rager ain’t done playin.

U.S. Senate Primaries play out as expected for nominees, but not for voters

The tradition in North Carolina primary politics is that the party with the perceived ‘more competitive’ top-of-the-ballot contest draws the most attention/ballots. And that’s to be expected. And conventional wisdom was that this year the competitive contest was on the Republican side of the ballot.

Until 2026 said, yea, not so much.

Again, with unofficial results and counts, here’s how each party’s U.S. Senate contest played out in terms of ballots cast:

• Republican U.S. Senate: 625,667

• Democratic U.S. Senate: 824,798

Nearly 200,000 more ballots were cast in the Democratic primary than in the Republican, with the total percentage split going 57-43 between the two major parties.

And across the state, the pattern is fairly predictable when it comes to where Democratic primary ballots outpaced Republican primary ballots, and vice versa:

The dominant Democratic urban counties, followed by the majority-minority counties of the upper northeast of the state, resemble a very typical pattern in N.C. county electoral patterns, along with the swath from the upper northwestern mountain counties slicing down in the central Piedmont region (basically Ashe cutting down to Randolph).

One stretch of counties is somewhat interesting at first glance: along the eastern South Carolina border, the range of Anson through Robeson is notable, as these rural counties had been trending more Republican in general elections, but Democrats had more primary ballots pulled. This may be something to watch come November.

One other set of notes: on the Republican side, Whatley secured 65 percent of the GOP primary vote. That’s right in line with my thinking about Republican primary electoral dynamics, where the Trump-endorsed GOP candidate garners two-thirds of the primary vote to everyone else. That fits a pattern going to 2022’s GOP nomination contest, with Ted Budd (as the Trump endorsee) and Mark Walker seeking the ‘Trump lane’, while in 2024, Mark Robinson carried that mantel and secured two-thirds of the vote.

On the other side, for a contest that ended up being a coronation for Cooper (92 percent of the vote), the Democratic primary’s energy in attracting voters (with a turnout rate of only 20 percent, same as four years ago) is something to consider as the lead-off in the general campaign (and yes, that begins today).

It’s not just party loyalty among the voters, it’s party adherence for elected officials

In today’s political environment, it’s not just the voters that are party loyalists in their habits, but nowadays the expectations are that elected officials will ‘toe the party line’ and not crossover to work with the other side of the aisle.

Three test cases of that dynamic were on full display last night, and the resounding answer from the primary voters was “toe the line or you’ll get the boot.” All three Democratic legislators who voted for overrides of their governor’s vetos were summarily excused from renomination. And a fourth Democrat, trying to make a come back after having been dismissed in 2024 for bucking his party, failed as well.

And it’s not just on the Democratic side enforcing compliance. The Republican House Freedom Caucus leader, Keith Kidwell, was defeated in his renomination bid for State House District 79 in what appears to be an intra-party fight against a fellow Republican representative and party leaders.

As political scientist, I’ve noted the fact that the parties and voters have been sorting themselves for some time, and with that sorting comes party loyalty tests and allegiance. Tonight’s results show that when some officials buck their party, the party kicks back.

Now, the real fun begins: on to November.

Once the recounts, canvassing, and certification of the official winners is completed, some will say “it’s off to November.”

But for me, that chant begins today.

It looks like what we were expecting for November was set up in the primary:

• Cooper versus Whatley for the U.S. Senate, with expectations of being one of the most expensive contests in NC (maybe US?) history

• NC’s First and Eleventh Congressional Districts have their prime-time candidates on both sides

• Again, pending resolution of Berger-Page, is there a new dawn in #ncpol that comes with the defeat of the most powerful Republican elected official in the state? And the mad scramble to garner the state senate reigns of power?

• Democratic enthusiasm is notable—is it sustained over the next nine months when they need their voters to show up and counter the built-in Republican registered voter turnout advantage in the general election?

Lots of questions, with future discussion (and sleep) to be considered.