Democrat Graig Meyer has won re-election to his seat representing North Carolina’s Senate District 23, defeating Republican challenger Laura Pichardo.

With 75% of precincts reporting in the race, Meyer held a 70.95% to 29.05% lead over Pichardo — with the overwhelming majority of Orange County voters favoring the incumbent, while the results votes from Caswell and Person counties slightly favored Pirchardo, a first-time candidate.

Once certified, this will be Meyer’s second term in the Senate. He previously served in the North Carolina House of Representatives for nine years, representing District 50, which consisted of northern Orange County and Caswell County. Meyer left his seat in the House to run for Senate in 2022, as Valerie Foushee moved from the state government to run for Congress.

“I’m very honored to serve Orange, Person and Caswell Counties again,” he told 97.9 The Hill on the air Tuesday. “I spent today driving across the three counties, catching up with people who helped keep me informed about what I need to be doing for their communities — and I look forward to two more years of trying to work on their behalf.”

While he earned significant Democratic support, Meyer said Tuesday that North Carolina is a prime example of the country’s polarization based on how little voters split from their party registration to support individual candidates — and his election is another example.

“Even in a race like mine, you can easily predict the results just by looking at what the affiliations numbers are and what the previous results are. There’s just so much negative polarization across the parties, and so few examples of people choosing candidates based on the individual candidate rather than the letter next to their name.”

While he held out hope of breaking the Democrats breaking Republicans’ supermajority in this cycle, Meyer said he believes his top priorities in the next session should be bipartisan issues: Hurricane Helene recovery rooted in addressing climate resiliency and funding public education.

“How do we get it done… that’s where I have to wait and see what the balance of power looks like,” he said. “I’ve served in super-minorities, I’ve served in regular minorities… I’ve never been in the majority, and I don’t think we’re going to end up in the majority after tonight. But I do know that getting out of the super-minority makes it much easier to have negotiating power and leverage, and so I hope we’ll be able to do that in both chambers.”

For more election results across North Carolina and the nation, click here.

 

Featured image via Committee to Elect Graig Meyer

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