(The Center Square) – Early in-person voting ended Saturday and primary Election Day finishes the 51-day voting window in North Carolina on Tuesday.
Polls close at 7:30 p.m. and winners advancing to the U.S. Senate race are expected to be known quickly – Roy Cooper for Democrats, Michael Whatley for Republicans. Two other congressional primaries are garnering attention: the redrawn 1st Congressional District race between five Republicans, and the 4th Congressional District race for Democrats where incumbent Rep. Valerie Foushee has been outspent by a challenger she defeated for her first term in 2022.
At the General Assembly, eyes in the primary are focused on Sen. Phil Berger, the chamber’s president pro tempore. He’ll seek a 14th term in District 26 against a stern challenge from Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
Great attention is rightly focused on the Senate race, though pollsters see Tuesday as little more than a warm-up lap for both leading candidates. Cooper figures to dominate a field with Daryl Farrow, Justin Dues, Robert Colon, Marcus Williams and Orrick Quick, and Whatley is similarly predicted to easily step past Richard Dansie, Don Brown, Elizabeth Temple, Michele Morrow, Thomas Johnson and the already disqualified Margot Dupre.
Thus, greatest attention Tuesday on the federal level is whether Foushee will retain her seat – this primary figures to be tougher to win than winning in November. Foushee faces Nida Allam and Mary Patterson, and at the Jan. 31 campaign finance deadline for 2025 her $193,000 cash on hand trailed Allam’s nearly $306,000.
American Priorities, a political action committee promoting a reduction in military aid to Israel, put a half-million dollars behind Allam. Leaders We Deserve, backing challengers to the status quo and led by Kevin Lata and David Hogg from the gun control advocacy, contributed another quarter-million for the first Muslim woman to hold public office in the state through her 2020 victory as a county commissioner.
First-term Democratic Gov. Josh Stein endorsed Foushee. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, has endorsed Allam. Republican Max Ganorkar and Libertarian Guy Meilleur are heavy underdogs awaiting the survivor in November.
The 1st Congressional District and the 3rd Congressional District were the only two of 14 redrawn by the Legislature in October. Lawmakers said the intent was to gain another seat in the House of Representatives and the move of counties figures to weaken Republican strength in the 3rd and increase it in the 1st.
The 1st was lone district two years ago with a difference of less than 13%. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Don Davis doesn’t have a primary. He awaits the Republican survivor between Laurie Buckhout, Asa Buck, Ashley-Nicole Russell, Eric Rouse and state Sen. Bobby Hanig.
Last time Republicans won the district in the northeastern-most corner of the state was 1882.
Republicans have 53 seats in the U.S. Senate, and the popular former two-term governor’s run is a better than average chance to flip a seat. If Cooper wins, he’d be the first in a midterm from his party to reach the chamber since John Edwards in 1998, and he’d be the first from his party at any point since Kay Hagan in 2008.
The Grand Old Party is 5-for-5 in Senate races since the eight-point loss by Elizabeth Dole to Hagan. Republicans in statewide races for this decade – 2020, 2022 and 2024 – are 32-10 against Democrats, a party with significantly declining voter registrations for more than 20 consecutive years.
Eight members of Congress and 38 members of the General Assembly are facing primary challenges. In addition to a senator and all 14 seats of the House, the midterm election cycle also has voters choosing one state Supreme Court judge, three appellate justices and all 170 seats in the General Assembly – 50 in the Senate, 120 in the House of Representatives.
