RALEIGH — The North Carolina March 3 primary delivered upsets in several state legislative races, with the most consequential in Senate District 26 — the race between Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) and Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
Berger, considered the most powerful politician in the state, found himself two votes behind Page at the end of the night despite Berger being endorsed by President Donald Trump. The race was a statistical tie at 50% each on election night.
At his results watch party, Page took the stage, thanked supporters and claimed victory.
At his watch party location, Berger told reporters, “We’re going to continue to press this until all legal votes have been counted and we know what the result is.”
Provisional ballots were counted by county boards last Friday, and Page’s lead grew to 23. The margin is still less than 1%, with Page at 50.04% and Berger at 49.96%.
“While today’s results were not what we had hoped, the vote difference continues to be less than 1%, the threshold for requesting a recount,” Berger said in a press release.
“As we wait for the election results to be reviewed one week from today, our legal team will continue to evaluate the situation. If we believe a recount is merited, I will pursue that avenue as allowed by law. A lot of folks have supported me throughout my time in public service, and I owe it to them to ensure clarity of the election results.”
The deadline to file an election protest is March 17 at noon. Once filed, a machine recount is conducted followed by, if requested, a hand recount of the ballots.
The only outstanding ballots are overseas and military ballots, which are due by Thursday at 5 p.m.
The overseas and military ballot receipt deadline is the last business day before counties conduct their canvass on March 13. The Guilford County Board of Elections’ canvass is scheduled for 11 a.m., and Rockingham County’s will occur at 3 p.m.
Overseas and military ballots have new rules on them following an April 2025 North Carolina Supreme Court ruling that requires those voters to comply with the photo ID requirement for state and local contests, making voters who have never resided in North Carolina — known as “never residents” — ineligible to vote in those contests.
The State Board of Elections’ state canvass is scheduled for March 25 to officially certify the results of the election if there are no pending recounts or protests.
Other upsets
Eight other incumbents lost their primary races last Tuesday — three House Democrats, four House Republicans and one Senate Republican.
- Rep. Carla Cunningham (D-Mecklenburg) lost to Rodney Sadler
- Rep. Nasif Majeed (D-Mecklenburg) was defeated by Veleria M. Levy
- Rep. Shelly Willingham (D-Edgecombe) was defeated by Patricia Smith
- Rep. Kelly Hastings (R-Gaston) was defeated by Caroline Eason
- Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort) lost to challenger Darren Armstrong
- Rep. Mark Pless (R-Haywood) lost to Jimmy Rogers
- Rep. Reece Pyrtle (R-Rockingham) lost to Seth Woodall
- Sen. Chris Measmer (R-Cabarrus) was upset by Kevin Crutchfield; Measmer was appointed to the seat last fall to fill the remainder of Sen. Paul Newton’s term
Cunningham, Majeed and Willingham drew challengers mainly due to having voted with House Republicans on veto overrides by former Gov. Roy Cooper and current Gov. Josh Stein.
Other notable race results included Republican Shirley Johnson defeating Sarah Al-Baghdadi by 90% of the vote in the District 17 contest. Johnson will face Minority Leader Sen. Sydney Batch (D-Wake) in November.
Raleigh-area attorney Chris Stock won the Republican primary against Wake County School Board Member Cheryl Caulfield. He faces Sen. Terence Everitt (D-Wake) for the District 18 seat in the general election.
Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham) defeated her challenger, former Durham City Council Member DeDreana Freeman. In November, Chitlik will face Republican LaKeshia M. Alston.
Former Democratic lawmaker Michael Wray’s bid to retake his District 27 seat from Rep. Rodney Pierce (D-Halifax) did not pan out. Pierce won with almost 64% of the vote.
In statewide judicial races for the Court of Appeals, Republican Michael Bryne defeated Matt Smith in the race for Seat 1 by just over 3% of the vote. That seat is currently held by Democratic Judge John Arrowood.
For Court of Appeals Seat 3, currently held by Republican Judge Craig Collins, Christine Walczyk beat James Whalen with more than 63% of the vote.
Primary results did not begin processing until after 8:30 p.m. due to an hour being added to accommodate for polling location issues in Halifax County.
According to the State Board of Elections, voter turnout was up 25.4% over the 2022 primary. Additionally, total turnout this year surpassed the 2022 primary by 5%. Statewide, 1,505,264 ballots were cast out of a possible 7,664,465 ballots.
The NCSBE published the list of provisional ballot counts by county, first reporting those counts on March 2 as 8,185 statewide and updating the figure on March 5 to 8,811.
