LIVE: Democrats Riding a Wave Across N.C.

Democrat Jessica Bichler, a political newcomer who co-owns a Wilmington yoga studio, narrowly upset Senate Majority Leader Michael Lee on Tuesday, denying Lee both a sixth term representing New Hanover County and a chance to become the legislature’s most powerful leader. Bichler led Lee by more than 5 points, with all precincts reporting.

Had Lee prevailed, he would have been a frontrunner to succeed Phil Berger as Senate president pro tempore. Sen. Todd Johnson of Union County now appears to be the early favorite. Senate Republicans will likely vote on the new leader in early December. 

Other Republicans in swing Senate districts came up short as well. State Sen. Lisa Stone Barnes of Nash County and Kevin Crutchfield of Cabarrus County appear to have lost their races, based on initial results. As of late Tuesday, Buck Newton of Wilson County trailed as well. Republicans will lose their 30-20 supermajority in the upper chamber, and Senate Democrats will be able to sustain Gov. Josh Stein’s vetoes. 

Read more of The Assembly‘s coverage on Lee’s defeat here.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis fended off a challenge from Republican Army veteran Laurie Buckhout on Tuesday. With 95% of precincts reporting, Davis had 49.5% of the vote to Buckhout’s 47.3.

“Tonight the voters of eastern North Carolina made their choice, and I respect it,” Buckhout wrote in a concession statement. “I called Congressman Davis to congratulate him, and I wish him well, because when he succeeds for this district, we all do. But we will hold him accountable.”

Davis, the chamber’s most conservative Democrat, spent the closing weeks of the election leaning on unaffiliated voters and Republicans to carry him across the finish line. Buckhout, meanwhile, relied on local GOP meet-ups and high-profile events alongside President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson to get her message out. 

Voters have re-elected Justice Anita Earls, one of just two Democrats on the N.C. Supreme Court. Earls defeated former state Rep. Sarah Stevens, a Republican, to win a second 8-year term on the state’s highest court.

The New York Times called the race just after 9 p.m. Tuesday. With 57% of precincts reporting, Earls had about 60% of the vote, compared to Stevens’ 40% at 9:30 pm. 

“It is the honor of my life to be elected to serve another term of the Supreme Court,” Earls wrote on X Tuesday evening. “I am so grateful to everyone who worked so hard to make this victory possible. Thank you for your trust, North Carolina!”

The statewide contest was closely watched, but not due to its expected immediate impacts.

Republicans would retain their majority no matter who won. With Earl’s victory, the high court will keep a 5-2 conservative advantage. But her victory does put Democrats in a slightly better position to try to flip the court in 2028, when three Republican seats will be on the ballot. 

On The Assembly, we have live results pages for the competitive races we’re watching and for all statewide races in North Carolina.

We also have live results for the regions we cover across The Assembly Network. Follow along at the local level using the links below.

INDY

• Durham County Live Results
• Wake County Live Results
• Orange County Live Results

CityView

• Fayetteville and Cumberland County Live Results

The Border Belt Independent

• Bladen County Live Results
• Columbus County Live Results
• Robeson County Live Results
• Scotland County Live Results

The Greensboro Thread

• Greensboro and Guilford County Live Results

The Western Wake Line

• Wake County Live Results

North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, which covers the state’s 16 westernmost counties, has been a reliable Republican stronghold since 2010. 

But tonight, the district flipped blue with the election of Jamie Ager, a farmer and businessman from Buncombe County. Ager bested state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom of Henderson County, who replaced incumbent Chuck Edwards on the Republican ticket in August following a U.S. House Ethics Committee investigation.   

Ager’s supporters gathered in the auditorium of Asheville’s A-B Tech Community College for a watch party where bluegrass bands performed on a stage flanked by hay bales. As the night wore on, the energy got more electric. 

“I think we’re going to see a complete sea change in North Carolina,” the candidate’s brother, state Rep. Eric Ager, told the crowd. 

Roy Cooper has defeated Michael Whatley to become the first Democrat North Carolina has sent to the U.S. Senate since 2008. 

The Associated Press and NBC News called the race shortly after polls closed on Tuesday evening, with early returns showing the former governor dominating Whatley, the former head of the national Republican Party. Cooper’s victory has been seen as crucial to Democrats’ hopes of retaking the Senate. 

As polls close across North Carolina and race results come in, follow along with our live election results below. This page will show the results of all U.S. House and Senate races in North Carolina throughout the evening, as well as a selection of competitive N.C. House, Senate and judicial races.

To see a complete list list of all federal and statewide races, follow the link below.

When state Rep. Erin Paré runs for election, it’s never boring. In 2020, 2022, and 2024, Democratic volunteers accused her and her husband Wayne–who is also her legislative assistant–of harassing or intimidating them at the polls. 

This year, Paré faces a serious challenge from Democrat Winn Decker in state House District 37. A couple weeks ago, rainbow “Winn Decker for trans rights” signs appeared on medians overnight, unbeknownst to his campaign. Paré seized on the opportunity to call him “radical and wrong” on Facebook.

Then, someone defaced one of Paré’s campaign signs with spray paint. She posted about that, too, calling it “petty nonsense” from Decker supporters. But a couple people online pointed out that she didn’t take the sign down. 

During early voting, police were called to the polls twice to check out reports that Wayne Paré had been campaigning inside the 50-foot buffer zone. The first incident happened at Hilltop Needmore Town Park in Fuquay-Varina on October 17, and the second at the Hunt Center in Holly Springs on October 18. Both were resolved without conflict, according to reports and statements from the police.

The Wake County Board of Elections also received 10 complaints about the Paré campaign from early voters who submitted a voter feedback survey. Most mentioned Paré’s table, signs, or volunteers being too close to the polling site entrance. 

Pre-election shenanigans aside, this race is predicted to be one of the closest in Wake County. Paré has plenty of money, support from her caucus, and a list of tangible accomplishments to tout to voters. But the political winds favor Democrats this year, and Decker is pitching himself as a gentler, more civil alternative to Paré’s culture war-inflected rhetoric.

Above all, the candidates are focused on making life more affordable for residents of southern Wake. How they aim to do that differs wildly.

This is what happens when Election Day falls right after Halloween.

Assembly copy editor Leah McCann Smith snapped this photo in Apex of a cutout depicting state Supreme Court candidate Sarah Stevens looking like the grim reaper:

Leah couldn’t determine who made it, but it appears to refer to a 2019 bill in the state legislature that sought to give people who were sexually abused as children more time to sue their abusers. Stevens pushed for a 10-year window after the victim turned 18, rather than a 20-year window, as supporters of the bill wanted, per WRAL.

Stevens voted against a bipartisan version of the bill, according to The News & Observer, but later supported a compromise bill with her preferred time horizon for lawsuits. A group opposing Stevens’ Supreme Court bid highlighted the legislation in an ad earlier this year. Her campaign told The N&O in response: “There is one candidate in this race that has been on the side of victims of crime, and it is Sarah Stevens.”

A similar cutout apparently has popped up near the state Supreme Court building in Raleigh. Eagle-eyed Redditors noticed that one spells Stevens’ name two different ways.

Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy has held the 3rd District for seven years, and has been widely expected to win reelection. While the Cook Political Report recently shifted the Eastern N.C. district from “solid R’ to “likely R,” it still gave Murphy a six-point advantage heading into Tuesday.

Republican state lawmakers did Murphy no favors in redrawing parts of his district last year in an effort to unseat neighboring Democrat Don Davis. To make the 1st District more conservative, they had to make Murphy’s more purple, removing six coastal counties that heavily swung for President Donald Trump in 2024 and adding slightly-less-conservative Wayne, Greene, and Lenoir.

All that gave Democratic former state Rep. Raymond Smith some hope for pulling off an upset. At least one person seemed a bit concerned about the race this afternoon: Trump.

Murphy, a 63-year-old physician, has appeared alongside the president in recent weeks. 

Smith, meanwhile, campaigned heavily on an economic-driven message to appeal to voters’ frustrations with rising gas prices amid an escalating war with Iran. The 65-year-old Army veteran served in the state House from 2019 to 2022, but lost in a primary for state Senate in 2022 and the general election in 2024.

Jessica Bichler knew she wanted to get involved in local politics. But she wasn’t exactly planning to run for one of Wilmington’s most prized seats when she filled out a prospective candidate questionnaire.

After she turned in the form, the state Democratic Party reached out to vet her and ask if she’d be interested in the hotly contested state Senate District 7 race.

“Go big or go home,” she said at the Northeast New Hanover County Library on Tuesday afternoon.

As the co-owner of Wilmington Yoga Center, Bichler anticipated being dismissed as an “airy fairy” by her opponent, Republican Sen. Michael Lee. But she and her supporters were still surprised by the acerbity of the attack ads the state GOP ran against her. In one of the ads, her AI-altered body is contorted in an impossible yoga pose. In others, she’s depicted as crazy.

“If that’s the only point he has to give me a hard time on, then fine,” she said. “I think that we’re doing important work in the community with our yoga.”

She said the state and county Democratic party helped her prepare for what they knew would be a fierce fight. She also credits her profession with keeping her grounded in high stress moments. Bichler spent the first half of Election Day teaching two yoga classes, knowing she had a long night ahead. “I figured it would be a good way to start the day,” she said.

Lee was reelected last cycle with a 9-point advantage. But if predictions for this year’s midterms are correct, Bichler could be in competitive territory. “I’ve been told if you’re within that six-to-eight point spread, it’s a race that’s totally on the table,” she said. “I feel like we’re not just at the bottom of that spread. We’re right there, neck and neck.”

A steady stream of voters rolled into a Nashville precinct with financial frustrations in the back of their minds.

Ross Terrell, a registered Republican who realized shortly after arriving that he was at the wrong polling place, said he’s fed up with rising fuel costs. “It’s just gone through the roof,” he said. His frustration has reached a point where he said he was considering voting for candidates outside of his political party, though he didn’t name any.

Bryan Joyner, a chef and unaffiliated Nashville resident, said he’ll support Democrats up and down the ballot in hopes that some of them can hold President Donald Trump in check. That includes supporting Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis in hopes of handing the party control of the U.S. House.

“It just doesn’t matter what the president wants, the Republican Party just goes with it,” Joyner said. “We start a war [with Iran]. We institute tariffs. It doesn’t matter what it is. Whatever he wants, he gets it. And I’d like that to stop.”

Nash County is home to three close state legislative races. GOP state Rep. Allen Chesser appears particularly vulnerable in his rematch with Democrat Lorenza Wilkins, whom Chesser defeated in 2024 by less than 1 percentage point.

Wilkins said the political tides have shifted over the last two years.

“Even as I talk to voters today, enthusiasm is high, but also the appetite for change is high,” Wilkins said. “We want those changes to translate over to the ballot box.”

Election Day turnout has been “very light” at Hendersonville High School, per Henderson County Democrats Precinct 1 Chair Evette Strickland. About 160 people had voted by 1 p.m.; they were anticipating 440 total throughout the day. 

But Strickland wasn’t concerned, because the party encouraged early voting. The precinct had a 55% turnout across all parties, including mail-in ballots, in early voting. 

“We were all so concerned about what dark things could happen on Election Day that we really tried to encourage anyone that could to vote early, just to be on the safe side,” Strickland said. Asked to elaborate on the “dark things,” she replied, “Shenanigans.” 

Strickland felt optimistic about the Congressional District 11 race between Buncombe County farmer Jamie Ager and state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom of Henderson County. 

“We think this may be the year that we’re able to flip Henderson County blue,” she said. “We may fall a little short, but we like our chances.” 

Ager held multiple rallies in Hendersonville recently, she said. “He’s folksy,” she said. “He just seems like an honest, likeable guy. Down-home. We think he’s going to go over well and we think that’s going to help us on our down-ballot races.” 

North Carolinians casting their ballots Tuesday are deciding on three constitutional amendments—two that would limit taxes and one that would bolster voter photo ID laws— that could preserve key Republican policies for years to come.

Patrick Dial, an unaffiliated voter whose wife, Faline Locklear Dial, is running for the District 4 seat on the Robeson County Board of Commissioners, is voting against constitutional amendments that limit local property tax increases and place a cap on the state income tax rate.

He believes the property tax amendment could result in higher local taxes that could adversely affect voters already feeling the effects of rising gas prices and inflation. Gas prices have increased by more than 40% during the war in Iran because of oil supply constraints.

Dial also said a state income tax rate cap could hinder the economic revenue the state needs to help local counties like Robeson grow. Voters in the area are especially sensitive to rising costs of living because the county is one of the poorest in North Carolina.

“This all trickles down to us,” Dial said. “We are the least fortunate county in the state, and we need to be thinking about the people here, how they’re getting by.”

When family law attorney Evonne Hopkins ran for House District 35 in northern Wake County in 2024, she lost by 1,820 votes to first-term GOP Rep. Mike Schietzelt. The district was R+3 that year; this year, it’s R+0, a true toss-up. 

Hopkins has to like her chances for flipping the seat. 

Of all 13 North Carolina House Districts located in Wake County, House District 35 had the second highest number of voters cast ballots during the early voting period, at 29,643 according to data from the Wake County Board of Elections. In 2024, the total number of votes cast in House District 35 was 56,995. (House District 37, home to another battleground House race, had the most votes cast during early voting this year, 32,711.) 

The Wake County precinct with the largest numerical turnout during early voting was 14-02, located in House District 35; the precinct is west of Wake Forest and touches Franklin and Granville Counties. Wake County Board of Elections member Gerry Cohen said 4,025 of 9,095 registered voters in the precinct have already voted; 61.5% of all Democratic registered voters  in the precinct have cast ballots, compared with 38.5% of Republican voters and 42.7% of unaffiliated. It’s a “suburbanizing” precinct that Sen. Ted Budd carried 57-42 over Cherie Beasley in the 2022 U.S. Senate race, Cohen said.

“It’s entirely unincorporated,” Cohen added in a text message to a reporter on Monday. “This area until the 1970s when it was very rural was known as ‘the Harricane,’ a hard scrabble area with moonshiners.”

Win the Harricane, win the race?

For weeks, Alicia Oxendine watched poll after poll show Democratic turnout up nationally. By the end of North Carolina’s early voting period on October 31, Democrats had a 12.22-point edge, according to data from the State Board of Elections.

Oxendine, a 57-year-old member of the Robeson County Republican Party and the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, said she hopes Democrats were overrepresented in early voting. Republicans are more likely to vote on Election Day, as she did at lunchtime at Lumberton’s National Guard Armory.

However, she said Republican candidates at the federal, state, and local levels should have focused more on issues that impact voters, especially young adults.

“We need to have better speaking points with what we’re doing to improve the economy,” Oxendine said, listing President Donald Trump’s push for no taxes on tips and efforts to bring manufacturing back to the United States. She approved of North Carolina Republicans’ efforts to limit income and property taxes through the two proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot.

While state and national issues dominated this campaign season, some voters made clear on Tuesday that local subjects matter to them too.

Renferd Scott, a Democrat voting in Pembroke, said he believes it is time for change on the Robeson County Board of Commissioners to tackle a long-standing water issues the county faces.

Local commissioners have not done a good job of filtering the county’s water supply and ensuring it is clean from PFAS chemicals coming from surrounding landfills, Scott said.

He also said he doesn’t trust incumbents like Faline Locklear Dial, one of three commissioners who changed their party affiliation from Democrat to Republican last year.

Locklear Dial, alongside commissioners Lance Herndon and Judy Sampson, has said changing parties reflected a better way represent constituents, not a change in personal values. Only Herndon is also running for reelection this year.

Scott said commissioners would have been more transparent if they waited until they ran for reelection to switch their party affiliation instead of doing so in the middle of their term.

He said he also believes new voices on the local board could help address rising costs of groceries, gas and costs of living.

“It’s time we see some new faces,” Scott said. “I’m worried about those who find it hard to afford life here. We need to be thinking about them.”

Starlet Sims, 45, a Black and Native American Lumberton resident, said people died for her right to vote, and she was going to exercise it.

Black turnout is up across North Carolina, with a 48.4% increase in mail-in and in-person early ballots cast through Sunday compared to 2022. In Robeson County, where almost a quarter of residents identify as Black, turnout was up among that group by 12.8%.

“I wanted to make sure that I put my two cents in about our constitutional amendments,” said Sims, who is an unaffiliated voter.

Sims said she voted against the constitutional amendment requiring voter ID for all voters because she believes it makes it harder for people to vote, especially minorities like herself. As a social work major at the University of North Carolina Pembroke, she said, she knows that it can be hard for people to get IDs. She said she voted for the proposed amendments limiting the state income tax and local property taxes.

Natascha Germinor, 49, a Black Lumberton voter who is registered as a Democrat, channeled her frustration with President Donald Trump in the voting booth. She’s optimistic her party will win big this election after polls showed Democrats up nationally.

Voting disruptions across the state will delay election results for North Carolina until at least 8:15 p.m., 45 minutes after the vast majority of polling places close.

Members of the State Board of Elections heard from county elections directors where polling places opened late or faced delays due to technical problems or experienced disruptions. Select polling places in Columbus, Hertford, Lenoir, and Wilson counties will have hours extended due to voters leaving the line.

The longest delay is in Columbus County at the Tabor City Courthouse, where computers were down for under 90 minutes, and election officials needed to look up voters using the backup paper poll books.

According to county elections director Ashley Collins, no voters were turned away, but no workers were stationed at the door to report if any voters were deterred by long lines. The board voted to extend the Tabor City Courthouse site until 8:15 p.m.

N.C. House Minority Leader Robert Reives spent Tuesday morning shuttling from polling sites in Cabarrus, Forsyth, and Guilford Counties, glad-handing both local Democratic candidates and voters.

While evidence is mounting for a good night for Democrats, Reives is—at least publicly—tempering expectations.

“I think we went into the cycle thinking we could pick up four extra seats and keep what we have,” Reives told The Assembly outside the Friendly Hills Church polling location in Jamestown. “I think that’s still what we’re thinking.”

Flipping control of either the state House or Senate is a tall order due to Republican gerrymandering that has taken place since the GOP took both chambers in 2010, Reives said.

“If every time you lose an election anywhere you’re able to then go in and change those maps to your advantage, that will remain really difficult,” Reives said. “You really do need a wave to overcome that.”

Still, he said, he’s seen powerful Democratic enthusiasm this cycle—especially from young voters like those at N.C. A&T State University and UNCG, who recently organized multiple marches to the polls after losing their struggle for on-campus voting sites this year.

“They have attacked A&T every cycle,” Reives said. “So I was incredibly happy and incredibly proud to see that.”

Younger voters are some of the most perceptive he’s spoken to this year, Reives said, in understanding what is at stake.

“They understand what is happening and why it has been happening,” he said. “They are connecting the dots this cycle and understanding better than anyone that you’re not always going to get a perfect candidate.”

After having lived through cycles of “supernova” candidates like presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Reives said young people are becoming more interested in policy than personality.

“I think they understand the issues that are important to them, they understand what’s at stake, and they’re voting on that,” Reives said.

At polls across Guilford County Tuesday, voters seemed torn on Shelley Headen’s candidacy, the Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Rep. John Blust. Headen was abandoned by House Democrats and local Democratic groups after reporting on her past social media posts calling for violence against Republicans.

Some voters in Guilford said they would still be casting their votes for her, tired of Republicans supporting their candidates through much worse speech and scandals.

“You hear that frustration a lot, and I understand it,” Reives said Tuesday. “Especially in the majority party right now, it’s become more acceptable to say a lot of things that used to be unacceptable. I don’t think people are saying they want that out of our candidates, but they’re tired of it being acceptable on one side.”

“I’ve been very unhappy with the breakdown of civility,” Reives said. “I think we can do better than that.”

Some New Hanover County Democratic operatives are raising concerns about GOP electioneers misleading voters in a predominantly Black precinct.

Democratic volunteers witnessed Republican campaign workers handing out blue-colored sample ballots to voters Tuesday morning at Freeman Elementary School, a majority-Black precinct in Wilmington.

The volunteers also reported observing the blue ballots in the nearby Forest Hills precinct. Photos of the ballots provided by county Democratic Chair Jill Hopman indicate that they were paid for by the New Hanover County Republican Party.

“Unbelievable,” Rep. Deb Butler, a Democratic lawmaker representing downtown Wilmington, wrote on Facebook under a post by WHQR’s editor about the tactic.

The county’s GOP chairman, John Hinnant, didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment

Tailing Republican Sen. Michael Lee on Election Day is like watching a celebrity. Voters and electioneers do double-takes, stopping him every couple of minutes to shake his hand, wish him luck, or thank him for something he did in office.

He’s undoubtedly Wilmington’s best-known state representative, and as Senate Majority Leader ranks No. 3 in the chamber hierarchy. But as residents filtered in to to cast their votes at Masonboro Elementary School, one of the city’s most affluent precincts, Lee said he still doesn’t see himself as the area’s biggest fish.

“I doubt it,” he said.

Lee hopes to hang onto his hotly contested Senate seat in District 7.

One voter thanked him for helping craft a local real estate rule that allowed her family to divide a larger property into smaller parcels. Another said he was grateful that Lee had made calls behind the scenes to help a coworker qualify for a necessary heart surgery last month.

At one point, Lee and other candidates chatting with voters got a little too close to the polling site. “Fifty feet!” shouted a poll volunteer, herding us away.

“Normally candidates burst into flames when they cross the line,” Lee quipped.

Political analysts have compared this year’s midterms to 2018, both for its heightened early voting turnout among Democrats and a frustration with federal policies. That year, Lee lost by just 231 votes. This year has felt calmer, Lee said, and not quite as acrimonious. Last election cycle, Lee ended up with an 9-point margin over his opponent in one of the state’s most expensive races. Even then, he said, he wasn’t certain of his chances.

“They’re all pretty much nail-biters,” he said.

Just after lunchtime at Lindley Community Recreation Center in Greensboro, Rep. Pricey Harrison, a longtime State House District 61 representative, stood outside talking to voters.

Harrison, a Democrat who has held the district since 2004, handed out flyers and shook voters’ hands.

“The turnout has been great, and the voter enthusiasm has been incredible,” Harrison said.

She has, in particular, been talking to voters about the three proposed state constitutional amendments on the ballot. Two amendments pertain to taxes, while the third adds additional language around voter identification.

“The language on the ballot seems deliberately vague,” Harrison said. “And I don’t think folks understand that voting for that will not be in their best interest, and then it will be incredibly difficult to undo that damage.”

Harrison, who represents a Democratic leaning district, said she’s campaigned in Alamance and Carteret Counties ahead of Tuesday. She said voters have told her their main concerns are rising gas and food prices.

Kianna, a 25-year-old Black woman, said when she initially read about the amendments, she thought they sounded good. But after doing more research, she decided to vote against them.

“It looks like they’re trying to trick you,” said Kianna, who did not share her last name.

She said voting, women’s, and immigrant rights brought her out on Tuesday.

“I think it’s important for people my age to get out and vote,” she said. “To turn North Carolina blue.”

N.C. Commissioner of Labor Luke Farley, a Republican, was out greeting voters at River Dell Elementary School in Johnston County around noon. 

Farley lives in Raleigh and voted there Tuesday, but he said he came to this Clayton precinct to support Republicans because it’s one of the largest in the state, with more than 16,000 voters assigned. The parking lot was full and there was a steady stream of voters for Farley to offer a sample ballot promoting conservatives.

“I’m just a citizen who cares about the direction of the country,” said Farley, who was elected in 2024 and is not on ballot Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, Johnston County resident Linda Conklin was offering information about the Democratic candidates on the ballot to voters—or at least “the people that will talk to me,” a nod to the Republican stronghold in the county. Conklin said she believes “democracy is slipping away from us” and worries about the future of the country on behalf of her grandchildren. 

Stacy Blankenship said the economy was her top concern and that she trusted Democrats over Republicans to improve the issue. A social worker employed by the state, Blankenship said she struggles to make ends meet and works multiple jobs. 

“I want to make sure that we get people in that will actually give us some living raises,” she said.

Voter Lois James said the state of the economy and the cost of property taxes brought her to the polls. But she said she voted against the constitutional amendments that would cap state property taxes at no more than 3.5% and limit how much money local governments could raise from taxes. Proponents of the measures, which the Republican-led state legislature put on the ballot, say they would let people keep more of their income. Critics say they could hamper funds for education and other services.

“We, the people, have to deal with that,” James said. 

Farley noted that North Carolina routinely ranks as a top state for business, which he attributed to low tax rates. He is optimistic about the outcome of the election for Republicans around the state, he said.

“I want to see the state maintain common-sense, conservative policies,” Farley said. “I think that’s what the majority of the state wants to see.”

The State Board of Elections held a press conference at 11 a.m. Tuesday covering questions about delays at polling places and federal election observers. 

Here’s what they highlighted:

• Technical issues caused delays at polling places in four eastern counties: Gates, Hertford, Lenoir, and Wilson. The NCSBE will be meeting this afternoon to discuss whether to extend voting hours there, which could delay reporting results statewide.
  
• Polling places in other counties also had issues, but none that delayed opening or paused voting.
  
• Election monitors from the Department of Justice were also in Alamance, Wake, and Mecklenburg in 2020, according to NCSBE Executive Director Sam Hayes.
  
• Congressional monitors are in Buncombe County, part of the 11th Congressional District. NCSBE Deputy Director Parker Holland said they did not have information about where they may be in the 25 eastern counties that make up the 1st Congressional District. 

Had Sen. Michael Lee not voted for himself, he couldn’t have become one of the state’s highest-ranking lawmakers. This is, of course, metaphorically speaking.

The Wilmington lawmaker notably lost his first three races for public office in 2006, 2008, and 2010, defeats most aspiring politicians may have taken as a sign to give up. But Lee overcame those rejections to win his first election in 2014 for the office he still holds today. He’s had to scrap to maintain it, however; in 2018, he lost by just 231 votes.

After watching Lee cast a ballot for himself at Harbor United Methodist Church on Tuesday morning, I asked him to reflect on how he was able to keep trying after the early losses. “It’s the first thing I talk about when I go talk to kids at different schools,” he said.

It was his passion for policy that carried him. “Some people love politics, and some people love policy. I really love policy,” he said. “Politics is the necessary thing you have to do to be able to implement policy.”

In a midterm environment generally unfavorable to Republicans, Lee faces two very different potential outcomes today: losing to a newcomer, or winning and continuing his bid to become the Senate’s next leader.

No matter the outcome, Lee said he hopes to continue the work he’s been doing for and in Wilmington: “There are no grander plans.”

There was a slow trickle of voters at West Clayton’s Church at Clayton Crossings at around 10:30 a.m. Yard signs for Republican and Democratic candidates lined the curb, and members of both parties were out talking with voters arriving to cast ballots.

That included Pat LeGrand, the Democrat running for N.C. Senate District 10 against incumbent Republican Benton Sawrey. LeGrand said she decided to run after no other Democrat stepped up; the state party recruited candidates for all 170 races in the legislature this election cycle.

LeGrand said her top campaign issues are education, the environment, and economic security. The economy has consistently ranked as voters’ top issue in national polls leading up to the election. She noted that state policies generally don’t have the same impact as federal actions when it comes to the economy, but said the “havoc” of President Donald Trump’s tariffs has put the issue atop voters’ minds.

But Derrick, who was campaigning for Republican candidates at the site, said he thinks Republican state legislators’ recent vote to pause the state gas tax will be popular with voters. He declined to give his last name.

“Ultimately, we’re here to share that Republicans are trying to bring the costs of living down and reduce taxes, so that folks can buy the things they need,” he said.

Fatimah, a 30-year-old Johnston County voter who also declined to give her last name, cast a ballot for the first time on Tuesday. She said the high cost of living and a general feeling that “things are too chaotic” inspired her to get out this year. She was also excited to vote for her mother-in-law, soil and water district supervisor candidate Gracie Chamblee.

It’s been 10 years since Fayetteville and Cumberland County had a Democratic representative in the U.S. House.

Going into the 2026 midterms, the conventional wisdom has been that this wouldn’t change—Republican Reps. Richard Hudson in the 9th District and David Rouzer in the 7th were expected to easily retain their seats.

But early voting brought a surge of Democratic and independent voters, and with it new optimism among Democrats.

“I think that we’re on the verge of flipping these seats,” said Hudson’s Democratic opponent Richard Ojeda.

Hudson’s campaign was dismissive.

“Democrats can dream all they want, Richard Hudson wins because he delivers for the people he represents,” said campaign manager Cam Mills in a statement. “Washington Democrats are still selling open borders, empty prisons, and men in women’s sports. North Carolina voters already said no to that agenda once and they’ll say no again.”

It may seem like we’ve barely started Election Day 2026, but Phil Berger Jr. is already looking at 2028.

The Republican state Supreme Court associate justice has filed paperwork signaling his intent to run for chief justice in the next election. An amended Statement of Organization form that the N.C. State Board of Elections received on October 22 requests a change in the office he is seeking.

Berger Jr., son of longtime Senate leader Phil Berger, was first elected to the state’s highest court in 2020. The term of the current chief justice, Paul Newby, expires in 2028. The General Assembly raised the mandatory retirement age from 72 to 76, allowing him to complete the term.

As WRAL notes, Berger’s filing doesn’t actually put him on the ballot; he’ll still have to wait until the official candidate filing period opens.

This summer, the Wake County Board of Elections voted to move a longtime NC State University polling place from Talley Student Union on campus to the university’s business service center, more than a mile away and across Western Boulevard.

The board’s Republican majority said the new location would offer more parking and easier access than a site in the middle of NC State’s bustling campus. Critics of the move argued it would be harder for students to vote because many do not have cars and the route would require crossing a busy, multi-lane road to a site that many weren’t familiar with.

“Students definitely came up to me confused. It isn’t a site that we normally use,” said Alexa Hill, who worked with a nonpartisan student group called Pack the Polls to help her classmates make plans to vote. “But the majority of those issues were able to be sorted out really easily.”

Unofficial early voting numbers from Wake County show that 14,502 voters cast their ballots at the business service center, out of a total 334,127 voters so far across the county. That’s a roughly 40% increase in the number of votes cast at Talley in the last midterm election in 2022 and on par with the 14,491 votes cast at the student union in the 2018 midterm.

Happy Election Day to all who celebrate! Through Monday, more than 2.8 million ballots had been cast in North Carolina. That’s up 30.3% from this time in the 2022 midterms.

Republicans historically tend to perform better than Democrats on Election Day, but they face substantial deficits in many parts of the state. Democrats accounted for 38% of the ballots and had a 7-point edge over Republicans in terms of the share of votes cast through the day before the 2022 election. This year, Democrats have a 12.3-point edge in ballots cast over Republicans.

What remains to be seen is which way a rising cohort of unaffiliated voters will skew.

This post has been updated to correct the 2022 numbers.

In-person Election Day voting runs from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. today, so go out and make your voice heard if you haven’t already. The busiest times tend to be early in the morning and shortly before polls close. If you want to avoid lines, the middle of day is often the least crowded.

To cast a ballot, go to your Election Day polling place and don’t forget to bring a photo ID. 

Unlike early voting, when eligible voters can cast a ballot at any early voting site in their county, today you’ve got to do it at your assigned polling place.

If you are in line by 7:30 p.m., stay in line. Your vote will still be counted, as you can’t be turned away if you arrive before the voting site closes.

The State Board of Elections will post results on its website, with early voting numbers first, followed by Election Day results.

It’s not unusual for minor issues to occur at polling places. In cases where voting is interrupted for at least 15 minutes, the State Board of Elections can hold an emergency meeting to extend voting hours at any location. In 2022, for example, sites in three counties were extended by an hour. 

Jason Tyson, a spokesman for the State Board of Elections, said the NCSBE won’t post results until voting at every precinct has wrapped up. We’ll let you know on the live blog when to actually expect results.

Polls are open in North Carolina. Here’s all of our Election Day resources in one place:

• Check out The Assembly‘s 2026 Election Guide to learn more about important dates, access our sample ballot tool, and see common voter FAQs.
• Read our latest politics coverage on our website.
• Voters in the Triangle can follow INDY’s live blog here, and voters in the Fayetteville area can follow CityView’s live blog here.
• Sign up for our politics newsletter, The Caucus, at this link.

As part of beefed-up monitoring across the country, North Carolina voters could see federal election observers at polling places in several counties on Election Day.

The State Board of Elections notified county elections officials on Friday that polling places in congressional districts 1 and 11 will have observers in place–likely trained U.S. House staff members sent by GOP members of a House committee with jurisdiction over federal elections, according to an email The Assembly obtained. 

Both are large districts with close U.S. House races.

North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement is investigating a business that has offered video gambling at a Lee County property owned by Republican state House candidate Charles Taylor. 

The development follows an Assembly report this month about a building with 22 video lottery machines on site that appeared to be luck-based slot games. In North Carolina, such games are illegal.  

The North Carolina Tribune first reported the state investigation on Friday. ALE spokesperson Ashley Thornton confirmed the agency’s inquiry to The Assembly. 

“ALE received a complaint regarding 2101 Tramway Rd,” Thornton told The Assembly in a statement, referring to the address of Taylor’s Sanford property. Thornton said the complaint had been sent to the agency’s Lee county office so an agent could investigate. Thornton didn’t say who filed the complaint, but she said in a follow-up message that it was focused on the video gambling business. 

This year’s election has the dubious distinction of being the first since the widespread deployment of generative artificial intelligence.

“We’re in uncharted territory at this point,” a communication researcher, who also happens to be my husband, recently told The New York Times.

A few months ago, everyone was worried about the prospect of deepfakes and other potential uses that might generate plausible, convincing facsimiles of the candidates for malicious ends. Instead, what we’ve seen in 2026—at least here in North Carolina—has been mostly weird, wild, or ham-handed.

Here are the five most terrifying uses of AI in N.C. this cycle.

This year’s U.S. Senate race is abnormal, in more ways than one. While Democrats haven’t run a successful Senate campaign in N.C. since 2008, two-term former Gov. Roy Cooper enjoys enormous name recognition—not to mention the benefit of a midterm broadly expected to skew blue. 

Republican Michael Whatley, conversely, has never run for public office. While many of his partymates know him from his time as head of the North Carolina Republican Party, and later the national GOP, he’s a new face to pretty much everyone else in the state. 

It’s the kind of matchup many would be eager to see on a debate stage—that is, everyone but the candidates themselves. For the first time in nearly three decades, the two have not met in a public forum to respond to questions and exchange platform planks. They’ve largely stuck to one-on-one interviews with friendly national news outlets, such as MS NOW and Fox News.

Ahead of Tuesday’s election, here are 10 questions we wish someone had asked the two candidates in a public forum.

Michael Lee can’t be sure, but he suspects he’s the first North Carolina Senate majority leader who was a college cheerleader. 

The lithe and athletic Lee could pass for a decade younger than his 57 years despite his gray hair. Still, it’s hard to imagine him tossing people in the air or shouting into megaphones. He’s not particularly large, and he sometimes speaks so quietly that you have to strain to hear him. 

Lee also doesn’t possess the outsized personality that many politicians rely on. He listens more than he talks, a trait he inherited from his late father, a Taiwanese physician who moved his family to rural North Carolina in the 1970s. 

Now, the 26-year Wilmington resident is vying to replace another understated politician, outgoing President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, as the state’s most powerful lawmaker. But first, Lee needs to win a sixth term in his competitive New Hanover County district. Without Lee’s seat, Senate Republicans have almost no hope of keeping their veto-proof supermajority. But with President Donald Trump deeply unpopular heading into the midterm election, winning will be no small feat.

These are the 2026 midterm contests in North Carolina that are expected to be the most competitive, consequential, or interesting—or all three.