NC Democrats oust 3 party lawmakers who crossed Gov. Josh Stein on veto overrides

Democratic voters ousted three party lawmakers who broke ranks to help Republicans override Gov. Josh Stein’s vetoes last year. All three lost primary challenges Tuesday, and none came particularly close to winning.

And a comeback bid by a fourth Democrat — who was similarly unseated in 2024 after siding with the GOP on key votes — also flopped on Election Day.

The results showed that across the state, in districts rural and urban, Democratic Party voters are frustrated with lawmakers willing to cross the aisle — and instead want politicians who will enforce the agenda of the party’s Democratic governor, who won election in 2024 with the largest margin of victory in nearly half a century.

Through a spokesperson, Stein declined an interview request on Wednesday. He had previously endorsed at least two of the candidates who won in those four races — Rep. Rodney Pierce, a more liberal Democrat who unseated moderate Michael Wray in 2024 and defeated him again this year to retain his seat, and Rodney Sadler, a Charlotte pastor who unseated incumbent state Rep. Carla Cunningham on Tuesday.

Stein congratulated all four winners Wednesday in a social media message: “North Carolinians want representatives who champion the issues that matter to them — from bringing costs down and supporting public schools to keeping communities safe and protecting people’s fundamental freedoms.” 

• Northeastern NC: State Rep. Rodney Pierce won 64% of the vote, defeating former Rep. Michael Wray’s comeback bid in a district covering Halifax, Northampton and Warren counties. 
• Rocky Mount: Patricia Smith won 56% of the vote to unseat Rep. Shelly Willingham, who represents Edgecombe, Martin and Bertie counties. 
• North Charlotte: Rodney Sadler won 70% of the vote to unseat Rep. Carla Cunningham.
• Northwest Charlotte: Valeria Levy won 69% of the vote to unseat Rep. Nasif Majeed.

Wray, Willingham, Cunningham and Majeed had voted in favor of overriding vetoes by Stein, and by former Gov. Roy Cooper before him, on bills affecting energy and business issues that Stein and Cooper criticized as bad for people’s pocketbooks or the environment. Wray and Majeed have also sometimes aligned with Republicans on social issues, and Cunningham has sometimes aligned with Republicans on immigration.

The progressive political group Carolina Forward paid for mailers attacking Cunningham, WIllingham and Majeed in the primaries this year. The group had also backed the 2024 efforts to unseat Wray and former Rep. Cecil Brockman, another Democrat who sometimes sided with the GOP on veto overrides. Wray lost that year; Brockman narrowly won but was later arrested on child sex crimes charges and resigned from office. His case is still pending in court.

While the group’s 2024 efforts to unseat incumbents with more liberal challengers weren’t entirely successful, the 2026 primary saw a more resounding message from voters looking to oust their local representatives. Carolina Forward founder Blair Reeves told WRAL the mailers focused on their willingness to cross Stein and help Republicans render the governor’s vetoes powerless — sometimes on bills affecting business interests that also donated to their campaigns.

“Our legislature is incredibly corrupt,” Reeves said. “But there’s some changes starting to be made.”

Majeed, a decorated combat pilot in the Vietnam War who also served on the Charlotte City Council and has been involved in the local business community, strongly disagreed with the corruption allegation.

“Frankly speaking, there is no room in the ‘Big Tent’ of the Democratic Party if you don’t agree with their hierarchy of ideas,” Majeed told WRAL. “If you disagree with them, their professional psychological marketing teams and their big money organizations have the capability to effectively reverse the thinking of any constituency.”

Majeed said he’s still considering whether to remain a member of the Democratic Party, or if he’ll continue caucusing with fellow Democrats at the state legislature, where members discuss strategy and priorities. Cunningham and Willingham didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Morgan Jackson, a top Democratic political strategist who works with Stein and other party leaders, said he doesn’t think voters were angry at the fact that the lawmakers had worked with Republicans in general.

It was policy-specific, he said, noting that Cunningham, Willingham and Majeed were also the only three Democrats in the House who voted to override Stein’s veto on a major energy bill and allow changes to the way power is priced in North Carolina. 

That new law, backed by every legislative Republican as well as the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, Duke Energy and others, is expected to increase what residential customers pay for energy to help subsidize costs for data centers, factories and other energy-intensive businesses.

“That's the betrayal of values, and that's hiking up energy prices in a time when people can barely afford to play them as they are,” Jackson said. “That's not a partisan issue. That's a values issue.”

Sadler, who unseated Cunningham with Stein’s endorsement, promised Wednesday to vote more in line with workers’ interests than corporate interests.

“This victory is only a first step forward to breaking the Republican majority, so that extremist politicians and the billionaires they work for can no longer claw away the hard-won gains of previous generations,” he said in a written statement.

GOP incumbents also go down

It wasn’t only Democratic voters who were unhappy with some of their local state lawmakers. In the most high-profile result of the night, powerful state Senate leader Phil Berger trails challenger Sam Page by two votes. Page, the sheriff of Berger’s home of Rockingham County, had painted Berger as out-of-touch with voters on the ground in their rural area.

The Berger-Page race is still too close to call; a result is still more than a week away at the earliest. But half a dozen other Republican incumbents did lose their reelection bids, according to unofficial results.

• Seth Woodall won 57% of the vote in Rockingham County, defeating Rep. Reece Pyrtle, the former Eden police chief.
• Darren Armstrong won 52% of the vote in a coastal district, defeating Rep. Keith Kidwell, who leads the hardline Freedom Caucus group in the state House.
• Caroline Eason won 54% of the vote, defeating Rep. Kelly Hastings, who has represented Gaston County for most of the past two decades.
• Jimmy Rogers won 55% of the vote, defeating Rep. Mark Pless of Haywood County.
• Kevin Crutchfield, a former lawmaker, won 54% of the vote, defeating Sen. Chris Measmer of Cabarrus County.

For most state legislative seats, the general election isn’t competitive, and the primary election is the true contest. It’s likely that these primary winners, Democrats and Republicans alike, are now the favorite to win in November as well.

Columbus County Republican Rep. Brendan Jones, the House Majority leader — a leadership position tasked with running the political side of the House GOP caucus — spoke with WRAL as results were being finalized on election night.

Jones said while he’s sorry to see some of his colleagues taken down in their primaries, he’s also excited about a few of the newcomers who are likely soon to join the legislature.

“Fresh fresh faces and fresh ideas is not always a bad thing,” Jones said. “You know, the folks that we lost tonight are absolutely huge losses — like Representative Hastings, who's been with us a long time — but we do honor the will of the voters when they speak. We'll invite those new members in, and we'll embrace them. And some of them are absolute superstars.”