Recount Confirms Page Leads Berger by 23 Votes in Senate District 26

Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page will advance to the November general election as the Republican nominee for North Carolina Senate District 26 after Phil Berger conceded the race to Page, who led Berger by 23 votes after two recounts.

A sample hand-eye recount conducted Tuesday morning in Guilford and Rockingham counties did not find any additional votes for longtime Republican North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger. Unofficial state election results showed Page with 13,135 votes to Berger's 13,112. Under state law, the North Carolina Board of Elections randomly selects 3% of precincts in a contested race; it selected two precincts in Guilford and one in Rockingham, totaling about 1,300 votes out of the more than 26,000 cast in the primary.

The Guilford portion of Tuesday's recount took place at the New Guilford County Courthouse on 201 S. Eugene St. in Greensboro. Guilford County's Board of Elections reported no changes at Oak Ridge Town Hall or McLeansville Baptist Church. Rockingham County's Board of Elections reported identical results to last week's machine recount.

By law, a full hand-eye recount is not conducted unless the sample recount finds a large enough deviation from the machine recount to change the outcome of the race if extrapolated across the rest of the precincts in the district. In this case, Berger needed to pick up two votes to proceed to a full recount. He did not.

Berger made the announcement Tuesday afternoon after multiple partial recounts failed to change the outcome of the tight race. "While this was a close race, the voters have spoken, and I congratulate Sheriff Page on his victory," Berger said. Berger had filed protests amounting to 13 votes, saying some voters were given incorrect ballots and others were either improperly allowed to vote or prevented from casting a vote. Both the Guilford and Rockingham county boards of elections had found probable cause to hold evidentiary hearings on those protests, but Berger's concession renders that path moot.

Page responded Tuesday afternoon after receiving a call from Berger. "I appreciate Senator Berger's call earlier today and his concession. I'm grateful for his years of service to our state, and I thank him for wishing me the best moving forward. This was a hard-fought campaign, and I'm honored that the voters of Guilford and Rockingham counties placed their trust in me. Now it's time for our community to come together and focus on winning in November," Page said.

Berger, who led the Republican majority in the state Senate since 2011 and is arguably the state's most powerful politician, was outspent by Page's campaign by more than 50-to-1 through mid-February, and that does not include several million dollars that a pro-Berger independent expenditure group spent on mailers and advertising. Trump had endorsed Berger in December, choosing to back the Senate leader instead of Page, who had closely aligned himself with Trump's efforts in the state for more than a decade. In 2016, Page helped found the Sheriffs for Trump organization and chaired Trump's North Carolina campaign in 2020.

The State Board of Elections was scheduled to meet Wednesday to canvass and certify vote totals for the primary. Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicut had noted that with Berger's protests still formally pending, "The SBE will just wait to certify that contest," but Berger's concession clears the way for a straightforward certification. Page will face Steve Luking, a Democrat, in November's general election.