- North Carolina primary voters, you've now spoken.

Let's look ahead to November, preview the U.S.

Senate race and how the North Carolina General Assembly might be affected.

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(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome to State Lines, I'm Kelly McCullen.

We have a true all-star group of analysts today.

Former North Carolina Attorney General and Secretary of State Rufus Edmisten is in seat two to his right.

Kimberly Reynolds of Maven Strategy with Paul Shumaker of Capital Communications in seat three and debuting Sam Hayes.

Of all the great times to be on State Lines, Sam Hayes is the Executive Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Sam, welcome to State Lines.

- Well, thank you for having me.

Big fan of the show.

- Heck of a week for you to say.

Enough for us to reach out and you'd agree to be on up here with this distinguished crowd.

Let's start.

The race we're about to go through, times a wasting.

This week's North Carolina primaries settled for the most part.

Democratic and Republican candidates for the November general election.

Sam's got the numbers for you, but just under a million and a half ballots were cast in the early voting and primary day cycle.

We'll ask you about turnout on that, Sam.

Looking ahead, it looks like the US Senate race is set, the congressional races are set, same for State House and all but one huge race in the State Senate.

I'll ask you as the process guy, overall statewide, set aside Rockingham County, we'll pick at you at that in a moment.

How were elections on primary day and early voting in North Carolina in 2026?

- By all accounts, very smooth, Kelly.

We have got some terrific professionals working elections throughout the state in all 100 counties.

The county board members, their directors, their staff, they did a remarkable job.

Very, very few incidents in either early voting or on election day.

As you mentioned, we had about a million and a half votes cast.

But I think the big story is the interest in early voting.

It was up 25% over the primary in 2022.

So a lot of folks are utilizing early voting.

It's about 47%, up to about 47% of the total vote now, but a lot of interest in that.

But a very quiet day, which was good.

A couple of hiccups there in Halifax County with electronic poll books.

We extended voting hours by about an hour, which pushed back the results statewide.

Did that out of an abundance of caution to make sure everyone was able to cast a ballot.

- When it comes down to counting votes in all these counties, is it the local level counting those votes and reporting to you?

Or are you and your team, are you down there counting votes with them?

- No, these are administered by the counties.

The vote takes place in the counties and they're fed to our statewide election information management system, or SEIMS.

So they're reported up to the state board.

- All right, let's move right into it.

Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page led state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger by just two votes after primary day.

Over 26,000 ballots have been cast between Rockingham and Guilford counties.

It's reported the Berger campaign and independent groups have allegedly spent eight million towards $10 million on the primary.

This virtual tie and low number of outstanding provisional ballots will allow for a recount.

Republican primary voters boosted Sam Page in Rockingham County with Phil Berger showing strength in Guilford.

Paul, $10 million and your two votes short.

Is that the effect of Sam Page or is that the fading of Phil Berger?

- I don't think it's, first of all, you can say it's an impact to both of those, but the reality is there's a couple of lessons to be taken away from all of this.

First of all, and this is not new to North Carolina, it's not new to the political process.

When you're a state leader or you're elected in the state legislature at the House or the Senate side, when they usually get in trouble is when they get involved in local issues back home.

And the result of what took place for Phil Berger was he got involved in a local casino issue.

The process, he was looking to do a good thing for the county, he wanted to bring jobs, bring economic growth, but the process the voters didn't like.

So Sam Page was there to take advantage of it.

The second takeaway here is there's been a lot of talk about redistricting and districts becoming less competitive in the general election.

The reality is, as that has taken place, what you're gonna see is the primaries become the race in this state.

And the real sad part about the takeaway on the 26th cycle is the six million people who chose not to participate in the primary process who were eligible to participate.

And the third thing is, and this goes back to the State Board of Elections, is that for the last six years, Republicans have been talking about election integrity, election integrity, election integrity.

We now own the election system because the state legislature, which quite frankly, was an overreach by the Democrats under Roy Cooper.

With State Board of Elections, the legislature came in, we took it back.

Now we have Boliek who has that charge.

And so Republicans are gonna have to live up to their rhetoric about election integrity and how this process plays out is gonna be on them.

- Kimberly, I love how he was just pointing at you and Ruth was-- - Just pointing at me.

- When the Democrats ran the election board, it was partisan.

(laughing) - I don't know about that.

- So say you.

- No, I didn't say that, he did.

- I do think there was a real anti-incumbent movement and anti-establishment and people just aren't happy with what's happening in Washington and people aren't happy with what's happening in Raleigh.

And we saw that with eight out of nine incumbents losing their seat on Tuesday night.

Also, I mean, with that said, I don't think anybody else could have given Phil Berger the run for his money that Sam Page did.

He got elected, he's been elected, what, 28 years as sheriff.

From what I hear, he's all around that district.

He's very well known, he's very popular.

And he was able to talk about the things that he had done at the local level when Phil Berger had been focused on Raleigh for a very long time.

So I think, but two votes and $10 million has I think left all of us perplexed.

- But understanding the Berger race, I mean, Phil Berger, his focus in Raleigh has done a lot.

Phil Berger arguably has had greater impact on North Carolina economic economy and stability for the last 16 years.

What got Berger in trouble was the local casino issue and the process in how it was being handled.

- Paul, there's a casino right across the border there.

- Yes.

- And those people from Rockingham County who say they oppose a casino are clearly driving across that border and enjoying the buffet or the gaming or something.

It has to be statistically, that has to be true.

- Absolutely has to be true.

And look, everything I have been told, everything I have heard, anecdotally around this whole process, Senator Berger was trying to bring economic development to his county because of all the people leaving and going over, going into the state of Virginia.

He was looking at economic, a moneymaker for the county.

What got him in trouble was the process and how it was being handled.

- What was wrong with the process?

Anybody want to, was it sneaky?

Was it politics?

- Well, partly sneaky and partly alien to how we do things regarding something as volatile as a casino.

And I hearken back to former House Speaker Sam Rabin who said, "All politics are local."

Remember that, Paul?

- Yep.

- Well, here you have a sheriff.

I worked with sheriffs for years and years and years when I was attorney general.

And a sheriff is there every day, mingling with the people.

We take Liston Ramsey.

He stayed too long, had a revolt against Liston Ramsey.

And I think the race is one that tells you that voters do make a difference, doggone it.

And Paul lamented about those thousands of people that didn't vote.

I sort of say shame on them.

- A Republican wins that seat, whether it's Page or Berger, Democrats not going to sneak in there.

- Totally, totally.

- How powerful are county sheriffs on a personality level and you've answered the question halfway, but I was going to ask you about that.

As a statewide candidate yourself, do sheriffs play a role?

- I had over 80 sheriffs for me in the primary.

And I think that's the reason I won it.

Now I didn't do very well in the general election in 1984, 'cause Paul had a great candidate named Jim Martin, who was a very fine person, by the way.

I enjoyed being around him and he's my model of civility.

- All right, Sam, I got to talk to you about this.

The Page campaign's already out there saying Dave Boliek endorsed Phil Berger.

He needs to recuse.

There's a board of elections out there that is partisan to Republicans or partisan to Berger.

It's Republican versus Republican.

What do you say to those comments?

They're out there in the social media and I need to ask about that.

Should Dave Boliek recuse?

How do you play that role?

- Well, the role of the auditor is to appoint the state board and all 100 county chairs.

Beyond that, the state auditor really does not have a role in elections.

Now for the state board, we're administratively housed under the auditor for purposes of budget and procurement, things of that nature.

But all of these decisions will be playing out before the county boards, before the state boards, with Auditor Boliek not really playing a role there.

- What will be the state board of elections role in the recount in Rockingham and Guilford counties?

It's gonna be close, either way it goes.

What will be your role?

- Well, should the race settle out to, I believe it's less than 1%, would give the losing candidate the opportunity to demand a recount.

And because that district encompasses two counties, it would be under the purview of the state board.

It would come up to us, so there would be a request for a recount in writing made to the state board.

It would need to be made by March 17th, again in writing.

State board would lay out a timeframe for that recount, that machine recount to happen.

And that would need to be done before March 25th, which is the statewide canvas.

- I've never seen that unfold.

Is that a transparent process where the Berger campaign and Page campaigns can sit with your team and watch those ballots go in and review them?

- They absolutely would have observers there, but this happens at the county level.

And so they would have folks from their own teams there observing that recount.

- Will state officials be observing that recount?

- Yes, and state officials would be involved as well.

- And you're fully confident this is gonna work out well?

- Well, we certainly hope for the best.

I have got a great team.

I've got a great election administration team, but they provide the support to the counties.

It's really the counties that administer elections in the state.

We are just there to provide oversight, compliance, and training to the counties.

And we have a field team that also provides support.

So it's really a county-driven process.

- Sam, I would assume that it would be Senator Berger calling for the recount, even though it's only two votes.

- Well, again, we've got today, provisionals are due to be counted by 5 p.m.

today.

So the provisionals that are outstanding could factor into that.

- Well, and you have to, I mean, I think there were some concerns though on Wednesday when somebody went to the Rockingham County Board of Elections and there was a we're closed sign.

And that should not have happened.

And that is alarming that you go, it should be open.

People are bringing their IDs and different things into the office.

I think your office had to step in and reopen that.

And then I just wanna say, like, I appreciate your comments that Auditor Bolick isn't in charge per se of the state board, but perception of fair and integrity around elections, I think it was the wrong move for him to go into Rockingham County and campaign for Senator Berger when you don't know how these elections are gonna turn out and the state board is under the auditor's office.

- Paul, this is a real test.

- Well, it's a real test, first of all, in defense of Bolick here, keep in mind, you've had governors that are going in, governors have been the ones that have appointed this.

They've had, they're the ones that go in and campaign for everybody all the time and they go into all the counties.

So that argument doesn't hold any water.

Here's the thing we all have to understand that this sort of muddies it, it has nothing to do with the state board of elections.

It has everything to do with the lawyers that are gonna be hired.

As somebody who's been through a lot of recounts, and I've had a state house candidate won by 13 votes.

I had a chief justice won by just over 300 votes and we've been through these.

The lawyers are gonna be the one because they're hired to bring a win for whoever they're representing and they're gonna muddy the water and Sam is gonna be the guy who has to sort it out.

They're gonna make his life very difficult for the next 30 days to 60 days and it's gonna be driven by the legal teams.

It's not gonna be driven by the people appointed by Bolick.

- Can Sam and his board do the right thing for both parties or will someone, no matter how fair this is, be upset?

- I think that Rufus would be the best person to answer that question given his experience in dealing with lawyers and when you go into the courtroom, you're gonna have one that's gonna win and one's gonna lose and the losing side is never satisfied.

Would you agree with that?

- Totally and it's gonna be a good day financially for the law firms that handle all this and of course I was in the midst of this when I was attorney general in some ways and it will go on.

Every appeal that can be possible will be thought of and that's what lawyers are for, to muddy the waters.

- And you have to remember, it's set up where each campaign gets their own legal fund specifically for a recount.

So that's where they are able to raise money differently than they can for their campaigns and large sums of money into these appeals.

- There's no good guy, bad guy in politics but even when you're on the outside looking in, you're two or three votes short and you hire that lawyer.

Are you hiring a lawyer for your campaign to do what's fair for democracy or are you there to win this race for your candidate?

Now don't say cheap but do you just go for every advantage you can to win?

- The fact of the matter is, if you're running for public office, everything you're doing is good for democracy from the perspective of that candidate.

And so their legal team is doing what is good for the process and what's doing good for them.

- We're talking all about you.

(laughing) Sam, how did, they're gonna do, both sides are gonna come at you in a few, probably about a month from now, about three weeks.

I mean, how do you maintain the brand of the Board of Elections?

Are you gonna be attacked either way?

I would think.

This is the game.

- Well, let me just say that I do work for the board.

We have five members who are very dedicated professionals who take their job very seriously and they wanna do the right thing.

And this is gonna be an open and transparent process and I can promise the voters of this state that much.

- Rufus, any final thoughts?

You've been through a campaign or two on this Berger race, particularly on the process side.

As the lawyers get involved here soon, we expect.

- Well, all I can say is that when I worked for Senator Ervin and he ran his last campaign in 1968, he said, "It's time for me to let it go."

He said, "I wanna stop before my eyes get dim "and my hearing goes bad."

And maybe there's a lesson there.

I wish them both well, but it's gonna be a while before we know what's gonna happen.

- What effect could it have on the legislative session?

- Well, it's gonna have, it will have a profound effect on legislative session depending on what happens with Senator Berger 'cause he's gonna have a career decision to make at that point in time.

The real impact is gonna be the money spent.

This primary is taken away from the Republican battlegrounds, which we're gonna have to have in November.

- Sam, that hard right out there on social media is gonna be all over you.

What do you say to them going ahead?

Can you make them any promises that might alleviate what they've already raised as concerns or just don't worry about it?

- What I say to everyone, I'm gonna follow the law.

We're all gonna follow the law.

And that's how we know we're doing the right thing.

- All right.

Eight legislative incumbents lost primary bids this week, not counting that Berger-Page race.

Over in Mecklenburg County, Democrats replaced two state house representatives in Carla Cunningham and Nasif Majeed.

The Republican party had targeted those races for replacement for in part supporting previous veto overrides by Governor Roy Cooper and Josh Stein.

Edgecombe County House Representative Shelley Willingham was defeated.

He too was considered a flip vote for Republicans on some veto overrides.

Very quickly in that race, Kimberly, you had a light touch in one of those races.

What are Democrats doing at the party level to exchange long time incumbents with new upstarts?

What are they turning out?

What are they bringing into power?

- Well, I think what they're doing is supporting the governor first and foremost, who is the head of our party.

And when they're out there and you're voting against to not sustain his vetoes, it is a problem.

And I think that was not shocking that money was spent on those things and the sort of larger progressive atmosphere really honed in on those.

And for us, there was only three of them and there were many more targeted races on the other side.

- Paul, what do you make of the purifying of these parties right now?

As you brought up, the primary is the race now.

- Well, I mean, here's the thing, is that that is because of the people who are refusing to participate.

The ones who complain about the lack of not having bipartisan people elected office, they're the ones who are sitting out the elections.

And the reality is, is that if we're going to truly get to where, if you look at the middle voter in North Carolina, who's talking about, we want bi-partisanship, we want members elected that are gonna work across the aisle, we want all these things.

Now they're gonna have to learn how to start participating in primaries in March.

And they have a option to make the choice of which one they want to.

They have more freedom and flexibility.

- I mean, I will say, let's not forget the role gerrymandered districts play in this and how it makes the primaries more important when there is no ability to change an election in the general election.

- Well, but let me just jump in here.

That's my point, is that they have the opportunity to participate twice, not just once.

You're saying, hey, wait till November.

I'm saying, hey, get engaged.

And I will tell you, that's the strategy we use with Chuck Edwards to take out Madison Cawthorn.

We had almost half our ballots being cast by unaffiliated voters.

And a lot of folks in my party thought that was a good thing that we did.

- Well, and I think this will be a wake up call to incumbents that they have to take these primaries more seriously, especially when the atmosphere was just so toxic anyway.

And so I think some of them were just sleeping on their job and they can't do that anymore.

- Rufus, the Democratic primary in Mecklenburg County, big changes.

- Big changes.

I wanna be contrary to what I'm supposed to be.

I think it's not healthy for democracy to pick out people and punish them for crossing the aisle.

I worry about that because we're already so fragmented.

I agree with Paul that we're getting down to who wins the primary wins.

And I'm not knocking the governor for wanting help on that.

But I don't think it's healthy for debate.

I don't think it's healthy for democracy to punish people for once in a while saying, "I can't go with that."

- Unaffiliated voters are the largest voting bloc in North Carolina.

Neither party owns this state.

Both parties are at 30%.

These unaffiliated have to decide if they wanna engage in a process and become civic-minded throughout the whole year and not just wait till after Labor Day to decide to pick up, they won't pay attention.

- We don't wanna pick on the Democrat.

Republican voters, you made changes too across this state in the State House and Senate.

In the House, Representative Keith Kidwell, who led the State House Freedom Caucus, lost the primary to Darren Armstrong.

Representative Kidwell says his opposition to the annual farm bill led some colleagues to support his opponent.

Rockingham County Representative Reece Pyrtle lost to a former Lieutenant Gubernatorial candidate, Seth Woodall.

Haywood County's Representative Mark Pless is out.

Gaston County Representative Kelly Hastings and Cabarrus County Republican Senator Chris Measmer also defeated.

So Rufus, it's not just Democrats doing it.

I'll let you speak on behalf of these Republicans who, you know, some of the guys that got turned out were turned, or you know, these are former representatives coming back in.

It's almost like a rinse and repeat for some of these candidates.

- Well, that's what you call democracy.

And at the same time, I'm not a great expert in Republican primaries.

At the same time, it goes back to my original theory.

It's all local.

There's something there at home that ticked somebody off.

I will eventually say totally that Rockingham County, all local.

And in each one of these cases, if you go back and look at it, I'm sure you'll find something that made a local contest unbelievable to some people.

They said, "We're not gonna put up with it."

- Paul, I noticed that Bobby Hannig finished what, third or fourth place in that race.

How famous or well-known are state legislators?

You run the campaign.

- Well, here's the reality is that the folks that are elected at the state level are not nearly as well-known as they think they are.

The average elected, it depends on urban area versus rural.

If you're in Wake County versus if you're up in Rockingham County.

But on average, they have about 25% identity, means 75% of the people do not know who they are.

- I feel like that's high.

- Let's jump over and we'll talk about US House District 1.

The House primaries did favor incumbents for largely the most part.

But in that new congressional district, Lori Buckout will face US Representative Don Davis, a repeat of a former US House race.

But this race will feature a majority GOP voter dynamic.

Sam, I'll start with you on this on a process side.

Do the voters in the new Don Davis, Lori Buckout district, were they clearly informed?

You felt that the voters there turned out knowing what they were voting for, more importantly, which House district they were in, 'cause that was a pretty big change.

- It was a big change, Kelly.

I was in the legislature with Speaker Moore and Speaker Hall for almost five years in that time.

I was part of three redraws on these maps.

And they've changed quite a bit over that time.

Obviously, the recent draw I was not a part of.

Congressman Davis was drawn out of that district, his home being there in Pitt County.

But yeah, hopefully voters are informed about where they live.

These maps are published and they're well known.

But yeah, there have been a lot of changes for sure.

And we at the board do our best to communicate with voters and make sure that they are informed, know where they're voting and how to vote.

- Paul, the voters, GOP voters in that district, is Ms.

Buckout the one to challenge and take out Don Davis, who's quite moderate as Democrats go, they say?

- By far, she's the strongest candidate in that pack that she ran before.

But let's don't have any illusions about midterm elections with Donald Trump sitting in the White House.

Republicans are gonna have a tough sled of it if they don't fix the voter turnout problem.

Midterm elections are about anger management and failed expectations.

Trump was elected to fix the economy.

You got farmers that are mad over tariffs.

You got other issues that are driving there.

So Republicans have got to fix their turnout problem or the first district does not become competitive.

- Let's move back to the triangle.

I wanna get to you, Kimberly, on this one, which that triangle area was Valerie Foushee versus Durham County's Commissioner, Nida Allam.

Very close race there.

To you, Kimberly, that was an interesting race.

That's been a primary in the past.

The representative incumbent wins.

The Durham County Commissioner gets within striking distance, pulls back, says no recount, I won't fight it.

So Valerie Foushee becomes, will be the Democratic representative.

What do you make of that challenger?

Every two years creeps a little closer to the goal.

- Well, I think we have to take a couple of things into account.

This was a rematch between two people that had run the first time.

Nida was the chair of the County Commission.

She is well known.

So they each held a county.

Valerie Foushee has Chapel Hill and Orange County, and she won that one.

Nida had Durham, and then there's this little slice of Wake.

And Chatham County is the county that made the big difference, and that's where Foushee came in and won handedly.

So they really owned each county.

They had specific issues that they were fighting about.

They're both progressive, but they went after each other on specific issues, APEC funding.

- Israel.

- Israel, different things like that.

You saw a lot of youth turnout and a lot of youth engagement in Durham County.

So, I mean, but it is typically hard to take out an incumbent congressperson.

- Rufus, close again there.

Democrats almost got another incumbent, or some voters almost turned one out.

- Well, it goes back to Paul's theory about winning the primary.

And I'm amazed sometimes that the diversity we have in the Democratic Party, you can go to one section, you've got people like Don Davis, I think is, to me, Paul, Don Davis is the perfect candidate.

He's a well-spoken guy.

He's a minister, and he can command something that I think will surprise people in this election.

I'm going to be looking for an upset there.

- Very quickly, less than a minute, but Cooper Whatley, very predictable.

We should let that race, I guess, marinate a bit for a few weeks or months before we go in depth on that.

Is that a fair assessment, Kimberly?

- Well, I don't think anybody was, I mean, the shocking takeaway from that was how many voters voted in the Democratic primary, considering no money had spent at the top of the ticket.

So I think that shows a lot for enthusiasm going into November.

- Cooper has enthusiasm?

- Democrats have enthusiasm right now.

Whatley, to be successful, has to start building a coalition with unaffiliated voters.

- All right, Sam, last word to the people out there watching you count those votes.

You feeling good about the general, and you feeling good about what's left of the primary?

- I do feel good about the general.

I think the municipals last year, the primary, are all good run-ups, good practice for us, and by all accounts, things have gone very, very smoothly.

- All right, thank you, panel, for everything.

I'm down to my last 10 seconds, so I want you to email us at statelines@pbsnc.org.

I know you have an opinion.

We'll send it to this crowd.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Kelly McCullough, and see you next time.

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