It’s endorsement season in NC. Here’s what’s changed — and hasn’t — with ours.
Our Editorial Board is proud each day to be a part of important conversations our communities are having, and few are as important as discussing and debating the candidates who want to represent us locally, in North Carolina and in Washington.
Early voting begins Thursday throughout North Carolina, and as we do each year, we’ll be making endorsements in local and state races, as well as North Carolina primaries for the U.S. House and Senate.
This is a consequential year in Congressional elections, with majorities in the U.S. House and, although less likely, the U.S. Senate at stake. At home, supermajorities in the N.C. House and Senate are in play, and we’ll also be electing critical office holders in county and city elections.
We’re approaching the 2026 primary election recommendations similar to previous years, with one notable difference: we’ll have them to you earlier this year so that early voters can consider them as they cast their ballots. Look for endorsements to start online Wednesday and appear later in our print editions. Readers can find links to all of our recommendations in Raleigh and Wake County in one place, and we’ll update each day with new endorsements.
Some background: In 2019, the boards of The Charlotte Observer and News & Observer of Raleigh joined forces to provide fuller opinion content to our readers. The combined board is led by N.C. Opinion Editor Peter St. Onge, who is joined in Charlotte by Observer Executive Editor Rana Cash and Deputy Opinion Editor Paige Masten. In Raleigh, Deputy Opinion Editor Ned Barnett is joined by News & Observer Executive Editor Nicole Stockdale.
Charlotte members of the board do not participate in endorsements of Triangle-specific races or vice versa. As always, the full board does discuss and recommend candidates for statewide races, such as this year’s US Senate primary and general election race.
We will make recommendations in competitive and notable races, but not all races. In each race we pursue, members of the editorial board conduct research, interview candidates and talk to others who know and have worked with the candidates. We then discuss together what we’ve learned and make our endorsements.
We’re not telling you what to think with those endorsements. We’re telling you what we think, and we weigh a lot of factors, including candidates’ records, experience, positions on issues and how their values align with voters in their districts. Sometimes our considerations go beyond individual races to the makeup of the larger body the candidates want to join. For example, we generally don’t want a city council or state Senate to have such a majority that the minority is too muted.
We’ll do it all over again this fall for the general election. We’ll start with a clean slate then - a primary endorsement doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll endorse that candidate against a different opponent in the general.
One more thing: we’re not predicting winners with these endorsements. We’re recommending candidates we think deserve your consideration. We hope our research and reporting is helpful, and we appreciate that some of you will disagree with our choices (we’re used to that!) But we hope you too, participate in this important responsibility all of us have. Please vote.
Peter St. Onge is Opinion editor at the Charlotte Observer, News & Observer in Raleigh and Durham Herald Sun.
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "It’s endorsement season in NC. Here’s what’s changed — and hasn’t — with ours.."
