Wake County Republicans wiped out in 2025 elections as Democrats strengthen in suburbs

Wake County voters flocked to the polls and booted multiple local mayors and incumbent town council members in Tuesday’s elections — results that could foreshadow trouble for Republican candidates and bitter battles across ballots in 2026, when North Carolina will elect a new U.S. Senator and vote on other key offices.

The most important political battlegrounds of this closely divided state are the suburbs. And in the suburban towns of the state’s biggest county Tuesday night — from Wake Forest to Garner to Fuquay-Varina, Holly Springs and Cary — Republicans lost power in areas that Republican President Donald Trump carried just a year ago.

The Wake County Republican Party endorsed 22 candidates. All but one of them lost Tuesday, according to unofficial results. Meanwhile, 25 of 27 candidates endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party appear to have rolled to victory.

It’s a phenomenon in line with elections across the country. Democrats secured key victories in Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and elsewhere as the party campaigned on jobs and cost-of-living issues — and against a president suffering from falling approval ratings.  

Municipal elections in Wake County are technically nonpartisan, but both major parties endorse candidates, and voters Tuesday almost entirely backed whomever the Democratic Party asked them to. 

And they were energized to get out and do so: Twenty-five percent of eligible voters cast ballots — the most in any comparable election in at least 20 years. More detailed voter data is due out in the coming weeks. 

The county’s biggest city — Democratic stronghold Raleigh — didn’t have elections on Tuesday. But Democrats won big in areas that until recently have been reliably conservative bastions of suburban Republicans.

• In Wake Forest, Democrat Ben Clapsaddle cruised to victory in the mayor’s race Tuesday by winning all 13 of the town’s precincts. Trump won 10 of those precincts in 2024. In total Clapsaddle won twice as many votes as longtime Mayor Vivian Jones, a politically unaffiliated conservative who has been mayor since 2002. 
• Fuquay-Varina’s Republican Mayor Blake Massengill won just four of the town’s 15 precincts, losing to Democrat Bill Harris, a longtime town councilman. Trump won all 15 of those precincts in 2024. 
• In Holly Springs, Democratic newcomer Mike Kondratick won 7 of the town’s 12 precincts to unseat Republican Mayor Sean Mayefskie. Trump won 10 of the 12 precincts in 2024.

Democrats’ performance could foreshadow more hard-fought races in 2026, with potential ramifications in the state legislature and Congress.

Wake County Republican Party Chairwoman Sandy Joiner brushed off the widespread losses, giving credit to party volunteers for turning out in large numbers and blaming her candidates’ poor showing on “a national tidal wave of misplaced blame on President Trump” resulting from the federal government shutdown. 

Kondratick, the Democrat who’s about to take over as Holly Springs mayor, questioned similar ideas. He ran a campaign focused on local issues, not national politics, he said in an interview Wednesday — and voters responded to those themes of growth and affordability.

“The entire campaign was argued out along those lines,” he said. “I think the results are reflective of that, and not what was going on from a national political perspective.”

Looking ahead to 2026

Republicans already hold just two of the 19 state legislative districts encompassing Wake County — in areas around Fuquay-Varina and Wake Forest where Democrats just flipped the mayoral races and other town council seats.

And all 120 members of the state legislature will be up for reelection next year. Democrats need to flip just one state Senate seat to break Republicans’ veto-proof supermajority in the chamber and give more leverage to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein to block or negotiate on high-profile bills.

Additionally, North Carolina’s suburbs have long been viewed as bellweathers for bigger statewide races — like the U.S. Senate and state Supreme Court races on the ballot in 2026, or the next presidential and gubernatorial elections in 2028.

In 2026 North Carolina will be electing a new U.S. Senator to replace retiring Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, in a race expected to pit Democrat Roy Cooper against Republican Michael Whatley. A seat on the state Supreme Court is also up for grabs as Democratic Justice Anita Earls seeks to hold on and help her party’s hopes of flipping the court back to Democratic control in the 2028 elections.

And looking ahead to 2026, there are few bright spots for Republicans to take from Tuesday’s results. Whatley has been hammering Cooper hard over a Charlotte stabbing earlier this year that took the life of a local woman, Iryna Zarutska, trying to tie Cooper to local public safety policies. But the voters closest to that issue — Charlotte residents — overwhelmingly reelected Democratic Mayor Vi Lyles on Tuesday. She cruised to victory with more than 70% of the vote.

And in the state’s biggest county, Wake County GOP candidates lost 21 of their 22 races. The lone conservative victory was in Zebulon, where the Democratic Party’s favored candidates won the race for mayor and one of the two town council races on the ballot. But for the other city council seat being contested, Republican George Roa appeared to have barely edged out Democrat Devarus Gardner. Unofficial results show him ahead by 25 votes, or about 0.8% of the total.

“Congratulations to George Roa for winning his Zebulon Commissioner seat,” said Joiner, the Wake GOP chair. “Now our eyes are set on 2026.”

WRAL reporter Flynn Snyder contributed to this article.