(The Center Square) – Sheriff Sam Page declined the job offer of a president, deciding instead to stay in the race to unseat the leader of the North Carolina Senate.
The District 26 seat long occupied by Sen. Phil Berger is wanted by Page and headlines the primary battles within North Carolina’s upper chamber. Second-term Republican President Donald Trump spoke well of both men from the Rockingham County community of Eden, ultimately deciding he would back Berger and wanted Page in his administration.
The sheriff declined.
The Senate is majority Republican 30-20, having been no closer than 28-22 (2020 election result) since the historic 2010 midterms. The majority party is expected to retain status.
Republicans have 11 primaries and Democrats four.
Absentee voting by mail began with ballots mailed on Jan. 12. The 51-day window includes early in-person voting starting this past Thursday and wraps up with the Election Day primary on March 3.
More than 6,000 filed for local, state or national level races.
Registered voters in the state this cycle will choose a U.S. senator, all 14 U.S. House representatives, one state Supreme Court judge and three appellate justices. All 170 seats in the General Assembly – 50 in the Senate, 120 in the House of Representatives – are also on the ballot. There are no statewide referenda.
Only presidential cycle years have longer ballots for the more than 7.7 million voters in the nation’s ninth largest state.
Berger is in his 13th term and has been president pro tempore since Republicans gained a majority in the 2010 midterms. He was endorsed by Trump on Dec. 10, well before the close of the filing period.
The campaign points are not much different in general. Berger is aligned with the Trump slogan “America First,” meaning tax breaks, deregulation and disassociation with “politically correct agendas that trample on our values,” he says.
Page has been sheriff in Rockingham County since 1998. He’s aligned with Trump, and campaigning on public safety and justice system reform; raising teacher pay in his education support; public records access in a broader transparency platform; and tax cuts aligned with the president’s administration.
The race will include voters from all of Rockingham County and a portion of Guilford.
In other primaries for the Grand Old Party, District 1 has Dave Forsythe of Corapeake, Jerry Tillett of Manteo, Jay Lane of Elizabeth City and Cole Johnson of Shiloh; District 5, Angelene Mitchell of Greenville and Henry Hostetler of Winterville; District 9, William Barbour of Wallace and incumbent Sen. Brent Jackson of Autryville; District 10, incumbent Sen. Benton Sawrey of Clayton and Caitlin Marsh of Smithfield; District 12, incumbent Sen. Jim Burgin of Angier and Tim McNeill of Cameron.
Also, in District 17, Sarah Al-Baghdadi of Apex and Shirley Johnson of Cary; District 18, Cheryl Caulfield of Wake Forest and Chris Stock of Wake Forest; District 21, Ray Daly of Carthage and incumbent Sen. Tom McInnis of Pinehurst; District 30, incumbent Sen. Steve Jarvis of Lexington and Eddie Gallimore of Thomasville; and District 34, Kevin Crutchfield of Midland and incumbent Sen. Chris Measmer of Concord.
In Democrats’ primaries, District 12 has Tanya White Anderson of Linden and Jheri Hardaway of Dunn; District 22, DeDreana Freeman of Durham and incumbent Sen. Sophia Chitlik of Durham; District 32, incumbent Sen. Paul Lowe Jr. of Winston-Salem and Gardenia Henley of Winston-Salem; and District 37, Precinda Bjorgen of Mooresville and Raygan Angel of Mooresville.
