Uncontested races are fairly common. For this year’s midterm elections, close to 54% of all races are uncontested, including state legislators, sheriffs and district attorneys, and county commissioners and school boards. That’s according to data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, analyzed by Dr. Chris Cooper, professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University.
“We spend so much of our time thinking about the election, thinking about who's going to get elected and who will lose, but the reality is a little bit more than half of the time, we know who's going to be the winner before a single vote is even cast,” he said.
Most of the regional races with no challenger are in Pender County. Uncontested races include Alan Cutler for Sheriff, Camille Harrell for Clerk of Courts (though Brenda Tucker has a write-in campaign), Andy DeVane and Jimmy Tate for commissioner seats, and Jennifer Hansen, Jason Jordan, and Jason Spivey for school board. State Republican Senator Brent Jackson has no competitor for his district, which includes Pender, Bladen, Duplin, Jones, and Sampson counties.
“I think it's not reflective of a strong democracy. I think one thing that we tend to agree on as Americans is that competition is a good thing, and choice is a good thing, and essentially we have no choice for slightly more than half of the offices that we elect in the state of North Carolina,” Cooper said.
This is a prominent trend for sheriffs both in the state and around the Cape Fear region.
“Sheriffs have incredible power in North Carolina and in other states. Yet, in a whole lot of counties, there's just one candidate who happens to be running for sheriff, so if you can get through the primary, you've won the election,” Cooper said.
For New Hanover County, incumbent Sheriff Ed McMahon, who recently switched his party from Democrat to Republican, is running unopposed.
Republican Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Chism is also running unopposed. McMahon was not primaried nor was Cutler; however, Chism was challenged by Tim Daniels.
This trend carries locally for district attorney offices. New Hanover County and Pender County District Attorney Republican Jason Smith and Brunswick, Columbus, and Bladen counties District Attorney JK Somers are running unopposed. However, Jenna Early primaried Somers. Smith’s predecessor, Democrat Ben David, ran unopposed five times.
For the courts, Lindsey McKee is without a competitor for the 5th Judicial District, Seat 1, same goes for the Clerk of Superior Court in Brunswick County, Katie Madon. There are three uncontested judicial races in District 15, which serves Brunswick County, as well as Bladen and Columbus counties: Bryan D. Wilson, Will M. Callihan, Jr., and Sarah McPherson, all Republicans.
Cooper said the rise in unaffiliated voters across the state, who are now the largest group of registered voters, might make the uncontested race issue even worse.
“For some of these offices, that's fine. Folks can run in nonpartisan offices unaffiliated, but for partisan offices, things like sheriff, for example, you have to be a member of one of the two major parties to have a realistic chance of winning.”
Cooper added that the chances for those who run as unaffiliated or independent are “tiny. Even to get on the ballot is a difficult task. And this is a problem that is only going to increase as more young people and more migrants to the state choose unaffiliated as their party registration.”
This year, unaffiliated candidate Rebecca Trammel campaigned to get enough petition votes to appear on the general election ballot for North Carolina Senate District 7 alongside Republican incumbent Michael Lee and Democratic challenger Jessica Bichler. Trammel received nearly 1,400 signatures, but that fell short of the estimated 6,700 required to appear on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate (based on 4% of the district's registered voters as of January 1 of the election year).
The third party that has been most consistent historically has been the Libertarian Party.
Bob Drach is running as a Libertarian in the New Hanover Commission race against Republicans LeAnn Pierce and Richard Collier and Democrats Dr. LeShonda Wallace and Democrat Rob Zapple. Only two will win seats on the county commission.
Republican Senate District 8 incumbent Bill Rabon faces a challenge from Libertarian Tim White and Democrat Richard Combes. Libertarian Maad Abu-Ghazalah is running in the U.S. 7th Congressional race against Republican incumbent David Rouzer and Democrat Dr. Kimberly Hardy.
North Carolina’s first congressional district, which covers the northeastern part of the state, was recently redistricted and is being closely watched by political analysts.
“The first congressional district, which is arguably the most competitive district in the state of North Carolina, that one has a Libertarian running and could very much be the person who decides the winner, even if they themselves are not the winner,” Cooper added.
Other parties that have shown up in North Carolina elections in recent years include the Green, Constitution, and No Labels.
However, Cooper said the two-party system is fairly entrenched among Democrats and Republicans, which likely wouldn’t warrant election reform to make it easier for independents or other third parties to run.
While the Cape Fear region has its share of uncontested races, Cooper said not to discount New Hanover County voters' independent streak.
“For my money, New Hanover is the most competitive and interesting county in the state of North Carolina. [...]. When I've run numbers before on the counties that have the most split ticket outcomes, New Hanover is almost always near or at the top of the list. It's almost politically schizophrenic at this point,” he said.
That means New Hanover County voters tend to support both Democratic and Republican candidates.
Another aspect of uncontested races is that candidates without challengers sometimes don’t respond to media questions.
In early October, WHQR, WECT, and Port City Daily sent questions that we wanted some of those uncontested candidates to answer. We did not receive responses from the following candidates: Ed McMahon, New Hanover County Sheriff; Brian Chism, Brunswick County Sheriff; Alan Cutler, Pender County Sheriff; Katie Madon, Clerk of Superior Court in Brunswick County; and Brent Jackson, NC Senate District 9.
We also didn’t hear from Andy DeVane and Jimmy Tate, who are running for Pender County Commissioner. However, Tate answered questions during the primary, while DeVane didn’t. Jason Jordan, Jason Spivey, and Jennifer Hansen also didn’t respond for the general election, though Hansen answered questions during the primary.
