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North Carolina Insurance Commissioner election, 2016
2020 →
← 2012
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March 15, 2016[1] |
November 8, 2016 |
Mike Causey (R) |
Wayne Goodwin (D) |
Governor • Lt. Governor Secretary of State • Attorney General Down Ballot Auditor • Insurance Commissioner Agriculture Commissioner Superintendent of Schools • Treasurer Labor Commissioner |
December 21, 2015 |
March 15, 2016[2] |
June 9, 2016 |
July 26, 2016 |
November 8, 2016 |
January 7, 2017 |
North Carolina held an election for insurance commissioner on November 8, 2016. Republican Mike Causey unseated incumbent Democrat Wayne Goodwin, giving Republicans control of the seat for the first time in the state's history.
Overview
The commissioner is the head of the North Carolina Department of Insurance, serves as a member of the Council of State and is also the state fire marshall. North Carolina has been under Republican trifecta control since Governor Pat McCrory (R) assumed office in 2013. This represented a fairly rapid shift in partisan control for the state, which had been under Democratic trifecta control as recently as 2010.
The office of insurance commissioner in North Carolina has never been held by a Republican. Incumbent Wayne Goodwin ran for election to a third term in 2016. He was challenged by Republican Mike Causey, who won the Republican nomination in the March 15 primary election. Causey and Goodwin previously competed for the seat in 2012; Goodwin won re-election to his second term by a margin of 4 percentage points.
Causey unseated Goodwin in the general election on November 8, 2016.
Candidates
Wayne Goodwin (D)
Incumbent commissioner of insurance since 2009
Mike Causey (R)
Adopt-A-Highway coordinator for NC Department of Transportation
| Click [show] to view candidates who were defeated in the primary elections. | |||
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Results
General election
Mike Causey defeated incumbent Wayne Goodwin in the North Carolina insurance commisioner election.
| North Carolina Insurance Commisioner, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Republican |  Mike Causey |
50.44% | 2,247,595 | |
| Democratic | Wayne Goodwin Incumbent | 49.56% | 2,208,241 | |
| Total Votes | 4,455,836 | |||
| Source: ABC11 | ||||
Primary elections
Democratic primary election
Wayne Goodwin was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He automatically advanced to the November general election and therefore did not appear on the March 15 primary ballot.
Republican primary election
| North Carolina Labor Commissioner Republican Primary, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes | ||
| Mike Causey |
41.2% | 340,936 | ||
| Joe McLaughlin | 33% | 272,846 | ||
| Ronald (Ron) Pierce | 25.9% | 214,126 | ||
| Total Votes | 827,908 | |||
| Election results via North Carolina State Board of Elections. | ||||
Context of the 2016 election
Primary elections
A primary election is an election in which voters select the candidate they believe should represent a political party in a general election. Primaries usually take place several months before a general election. North Carolina utilizes a hybrid primary system. Parties decide who may vote in their respective primaries. Voters may choose a primary ballot without impacting their unaffiliated status.[3]
In North Carolina, when more than two candidates run in a primary election and one candidate does not receive more than 40 percent of the vote, the second-place candidate can request a runoff primary, sometimes referred to as a second primary. However, because of the redrawing of congressional and state legislative district boundaries, state executive elections in 2016 did not feature a runoff primary. This means the 2016 primary elections for state executives were unique and particularly competitive in that the winning candidate automatically received the party nomination regardless of the percentage of votes received.
North Carolina's primary elections took place on March 15, 2016.
Incumbent Wayne Goodwin (D)
Wayne Goodwin (D) was first elected in 2008, defeating Republican Joe Odom by a seven percent margin. Goodwin was re-elected in 2012 over challenger Mike Causey (R). Causey won the 2016 Republican nomination for insurance commissioner on March 15; he and Goodwin competed again in November. Prior to his tenure as commissioner, Goodwin served as Assistant Commissioner of Insurance and was a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives.
Party control in North Carolina
North Carolina had been under Republican trifecta control since Governor Pat McCrory (R) assumed office in 2013. This represented a fairly rapid shift in partisan control for the state, which had been under Democratic trifecta control as recently as 2010. North Carolina's electoral votes went to the Republican presidential candidate in every election cycle since 1980, with the exception of 2008 when the state voted to elect Barack Obama (D).[4] North Carolina began attracting significant attention as a presidential battleground state with Obama's unexpected 2008 win in the state—the first Democratic candidate to do so since Jimmy Carter (D) in 1976. For the past two presidential elections, the state's presidential preference influenced statewide elections. This influence, coupled with the recent trend of close elections in the state, promised competitive races in 2016.
Both Republican and Democratic candidates gained success in recent elections. Democrat Bev Perdue won the gubernatorial election and Democrat Kay Hagan defeated incumbent Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole in 2008. The state swung back to Republicans in 2012 when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney narrowly beat President Obama by a margin of 2 percentage points. McCrory defeated his Democratic rival by a small margin of victory that same year. The trend of close statewide elections in North Carolina continued into 2014: Republican Thom Tillis narrowly defeated incumbent Senator Kay Hagan (D) in a statewide race that year, earning 48.8 percent of the vote to Hagan's 47.3 percent.[5]
The office of insurance commissioner in North Carolina has never been held by a Republican.[6] While recent elections for the seat were usually handily won by Democrats, Goodwin won re-election in 2012 over challenger Mike Causey (R) by just 4 percentage points. Causey again won the Republican nomination in the March 15, 2016, setting up a competitive rematch for the two in the general election.
North Carolina Party Control: 1992-2025
Fourteen years of Democratic trifectas • Four years of Republican trifectas
Scroll left and right on the table below to view more years.
| Year | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
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| Governor | R | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | R | R | R | R | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D |
| Senate | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R |
| House | D | D | D | R | R | R | R | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R |
Race background
Candidate field
Incumbent Wayne Goodwin (D) was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He did not appear on the March 15 primary ballot.
Three candidates competed for the Republican nomination to challenge Goodwin in November; Mike Causey ultimately won. Causey was on his fifth run for the insurance commissioner seat, having lost most recently to incumbent Wayne Goodwin in 2012 by a four percent margin. He also ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House in 2014. Causey defeated Joe McLaughlin (R), a former Oslow County commissioner, and Ron Pierce, a Charlotte businessman, in the March 15 primary election.[7]
Issues
Affordable Care Act
- See also: Public Policy Desk's Obamacare overview
Goodwin had been vocal in criticizing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was enacted in 2014 in order to expand healthcare coverage for U.S. citizens via health insurance marketplaces. The ACA faced unanimous opposition from Republicans in the U.S. Congress, who later made attempts to repeal it. North Carolina rejected $74 million in federal aid earmarked for the creation of a healthcare exchange and expansion of Medicaid as mandated by the ACA.[8]
In early 2016, Goodwin penned a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell that decried the ACA and outlined the many ways he claims it has harmed the insurance market in North Carolina. Goodwin stated that the ACA had inflated costs and decreased insurance options for consumers while decreasing revenue for insurers at the same time. Over the past year, Goodwin has approved average rate increase of 27 percent for North Carolina insurers in order to combat rising expenses due to new coverage of the sick and elderly as mandated by the ACA.[9][8]
Supporters of the ACA claim that Goodwin is overstating the ill effects of the act and that states nationwide are experiencing similar problems as they adjust to the new system. Raleigh health policy analyst Adam Linker called the letter "unnecessarily alarmist," stating that “[h]aving a lower uninsured rate and fewer products is better than having fewer products and more uninsured people.”[8]
Campaigns
Campaign media
Note: If a candidate is not listed below, Ballotpedia staff were unable to locate any campaign media for that candidate. Do you know of any? Tell us!
Democrats
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Republicans
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About the office
- See also: North Carolina Commissioner of Insurance
The North Carolina insurance commissioner is an elected state executive position in the North Carolina state government. The commissioner is the head of the North Carolina Department of Insurance, serves as a member of the Council of State and is also the state fire marshall.[10]
Incumbent
The incumbent was Wayne Goodwin.
Authority
The state Constitution establishes the office of insurance commissioner in Article III, Section 7:
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(1) Officers. A Secretary of State, an Auditor, a Treasurer, a Superintendent of Public Instruction, an Attorney General, a Commissioner of Agriculture, a Commissioner of Labor, and a Commissioner of Insurance shall be elected by the qualified voters of the State in 1972 and every four years thereafter, at the same time and places as members of the General Assembly are elected. Their term of office shall be four years and shall commence on the first day of January next after their election and continue until their successors are elected and qualified. ...[11] |
Divisions
Divisions
The Department of Insurance includes the following divisions:
- Services for consumers
- Senior Health Insurance Information Program (SHIIP)
- Agent services
- Criminal investigations
- External review program
- Property and casualty
- Forms and rates (Life and Health)
- Market regulation
- Financial evaluation
- Regulatory actions
- Actuarial services
- Legislative services
- Media relations office
- Controller's office
- Regional offices[12]
Past elections
2012
Incumbent Wayne Goodwin (D) successfully won re-election, defeating Mike Causey (R) in the November 6, 2012 general election.
| North Carolina Commissioner of Insurance General Election, 2012 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democratic | Wayne Goodwin Incumbent |
51.9% | 2,226,344 | |
| Republican | Mike Causey | 48.1% | 2,066,601 | |
| Total Votes | 4,292,945 | |||
| Election results via NC State Board of Elections | ||||
To view the full electoral history for North Carolina Insurance Commissioner, click [show] to expand the full section. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Election 2016. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
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North Carolina government: |
Previous elections: |
Ballotpedia exclusives: |
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ The primary for U.S. congressional elections was rescheduled to June 7, 2016, following legal challenges to North Carolina's district maps. State races were unaffected.
- ↑ The primary for U.S. congressional elections was rescheduled to June 7, 2016, following legal challenges to North Carolina's district maps. State races were unaffected.
- ↑ NC Election Connection, "Who Can Vote in Which Elections?" accessed January 3, 2014
- ↑ National Archives and Records Administration, "Historical Election Results," accessed September 15, 2016
- ↑ North Carolina State Board of Elections, "11/04/2014 Official General Election Results - Statewide," accessed August 30, 2015
- ↑ Carolana.com, "North Carolina State Government-Commissioner of Insurance," accessed September 23, 2016
- ↑ The News & Observer, "Insurance commissioner candidate faced insurance fraud charges," December 10, 2015
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 The Charlotte Observer, "NC insurance commissioner blames ACA for industry woes," February 3, 2016
- ↑ The ACA mandates that insurance companies may not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
- ↑ North Carolina Department of Insurance, "Wayne Goodwin," accessed May 14, 2011
- ↑ "North Carolina State Constitution," accessed Sept. 30, 2015
- ↑ North Carolina Department of Insurance, See "Insurance Divisions" tab, accessed Sept. 30, 2015
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