No runoff in the NC presidential primary. But what about other races?
Some of the primary election races on Tuesday’s ballot in North Carolina were so crowded that no candidate was able to win more more than 30% of the vote.
If a runner-up requests a runoff, there will be a second primary election scheduled later this spring for those races — in either April or May. If that happens, the ballot would include only the top two candidates from the primary, and not the full field of candidates.
A runoff was never in question for the Democratic presidential primary, though — even if Joe Biden hadn’t ended up winning North Carolina with with 43% of the vote, followed by Bernie Sanders (24%), Michael Bloomberg (13%) and Elizabeth Warren (10%).
The North Carolina Democratic Party will use those results to divvy up the state’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer. The party uses a formula that takes into account how well each candidate does both statewide and also within each of the state’s 13 congressional districts, which run the gamut from very conservative to very liberal. The number of delegates they might receive is weighted, with fewer delegates assigned to districts in more conservative areas.
Candidates are eligible to receive delegates only if they get at least 15% of the vote statewide or in a congressional district. That means Biden and Sanders will receive delegates. And while Bloomberg and Warren didn’t reach 15% statewide, they could still receive delegates depending on how they do in individual congressional districts.
Runoffs in other races
Races with three or fewer candidates on the ballot are essentially guaranteed to avoid a runoff, due to the realities of math and a historical lack of organized write-in campaigns. And even in races with bigger fields, there are plenty of elections in which one candidate rises above the rest and avoids a runoff.
“Runoff elections tend to be most prevalent when there is an open-seat election,” said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College in western North Carolina. “Unless incumbents are scandal-plagued or on the outs with their party base, runoffs are usually (in) open-seat contests that draw a larger than expected field of candidates.”
At least two races may be headed to a runoff: The statewide Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, and in western North Carolina the Republican primary to replace retiring Rep. Mark Meadows in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The leading Democrats for lieutenant governor were two state legislators: Yvonne Holley, who represents southeast Raleigh in the N.C. House of Representatives, and runner-up Terry Van Duyn, who represents Asheville in the N.C. Senate.
Van Duyn’s spokesperson told The News & Observer Wednesday that she planned to decide by the end of the week whether to call for a runoff.
The winner of the Democratic primary will take on Mark Robinson, a gun rights activist from Greensboro who won a nine-way GOP primary with 32% of the vote.
In the 11th Congressional District, which represents Asheville and other areas farther west, the GOP runoff would be between Lynda Bennett and runner-up Madison Cawthorn for the chance to replace Meadows. Neither has previous political experience.
On Wednesday, Cawthorn used his Facebook page to repost messages from supporters encouraging him in a runoff.
The winner would take on Democrat Moe Davis, a retired Air Force veteran and the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay.
Several other North Carolina GOP primaries for congressional seats have gone to runoffs since 2014. Looking at those races and others, Bitzer said that in most cases the person who wins the most votes in the original primary also wins the runoff primary.
However, there’s a lot more margin for error for candidates during a runoff because voter turnout drops dramatically. Turnout is already low in primaries — only about a third of North Carolina’s voters cast a ballot in the 2016 primary — and in runoff elections, it’s not uncommon for eight or nine out of every 10 eligible voters to stay home.
“In those electoral environments, it is literally every vote matters and the candidates have to think about what made their vote totals in the first primary,” Bitzer said.
If there’s a runoff for any of the congressional primaries, the new election will take place on May 12. But if there’s only a runoff for one or more state-level races, like lieutenant governor, then the new election will take place on April 21.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misspelled Madison Cawthorn’s name.
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This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 10:52 AM with the headline "No runoff in the NC presidential primary. But what about other races?."
