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United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2026 (March 3 Republican primary)

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← 2022
U.S. Senate, North Carolina
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Democratic primary
Republican primary
General election
Election details
Filing deadline: December 19, 2025
Primary: March 3, 2026
Primary runoff: May 12, 2026
General: November 3, 2026
How to vote
Poll times:

6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Voting in North Carolina

Race ratings
Cook Political Report: Toss-up
DDHQ and The Hill: Pending
Inside Elections: Toss-up
Sabato's Crystal Ball: Toss-up
Ballotpedia analysis
U.S. Senate battlegrounds
U.S. House battlegrounds
Federal and state primary competitiveness
Ballotpedia's Election Analysis Hub, 2026
See also
U.S. Senate, North Carolina
U.S. Senate • 1st • 2nd • 3rd • 4th • 5th • 6th • 7th • 8th • 9th • 10th • 11th • 12th • 13th • 14th
North Carolina elections, 2026
U.S. Congress elections, 2026
U.S. Senate elections, 2026
U.S. House elections, 2026

A Republican Party primary takes place on March 3, 2026, in North Carolina to determine which Republican candidate will run in the state's general election on November 3, 2026.

Candidate filing deadline Primary election General election
December 19, 2025
March 3, 2026
November 3, 2026


Heading into the election, the incumbent is Thom Tillis (Republican), who was first elected in 2014.

A primary election is an election in which registered voters select a candidate that they believe should be a political party's candidate for elected office to run in the general election. They are also used to choose convention delegates and party leaders. Primaries are state-level and local-level elections that take place prior to a general election. North Carolina utilizes a semi-closed primary system. Parties decide who may vote in their respective primaries. Voters may choose a primary ballot without impacting their unaffiliated status.[1]

For information about which offices are nominated via primary election, see this article.

This page focuses on North Carolina's United States Senate Republican primary. For more in-depth information on the state's Democratic primary and the general election, see the following pages:

Candidates and election results

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate North Carolina

The following candidates are running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate North Carolina on March 3, 2026.

Candidate
Image of Don Brown
Don Brown
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Richard Dansie Candidate Connection
Image of Margot Dupre
Margot Dupre
Image of Thomas Johnson
Thomas Johnson Candidate Connection
Image of Michele Morrow
Michele Morrow
Image of Elizabeth Anne Temple
Elizabeth Anne Temple
Image of Michael Whatley
Michael Whatley

Incumbents are bolded and underlined.

Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Candidate profiles

This section includes candidate profiles that may be created in one of two ways: either the candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey, or Ballotpedia staff may compile a profile based on campaign websites, advertisements, and public statements after identifying the candidate as noteworthy. For more on how we select candidates to include, click here.

Richard Dansie

Silhouette Placeholder Image.png Do you have a photo that could go here? Click here to submit it for this profile!

WebsiteFacebookXYouTube

Party: Republican Party

Incumbent: No

Key Messages

To read this candidate's full survey responses, click here.

I am running for the United States Senate to restore fiscal discipline, accountability, and constitutional limits on federal power. I believe government should be evaluated based on measurable results, not the size of budgets or the number of programs created. Incentives matter, and Congress should be rewarded for stewardship and restraint, not perpetual growth in spending and debt.

I believe the federal government has grown disconnected from the people it represents. Career politicians, centralized leadership, and special interests have accumulated disproportionate influence, while rank-and-file members and voters have less impact on outcomes. I support reforms that decentralize power, reduce undue influence, and return responsibility to elected representatives who are accountable to their constituents.

I approach public policy from a practical perspective that emphasizes evidence, outcomes, and long-term sustainability. Policies should be reviewed honestly, ineffective programs should be ended, and successful policies should be strengthened. I believe lasting reform requires changing incentive structures so good behavior is rewarded and failure carries real consequences.

Thomas Johnson

Image of Thomas Johnson

WebsiteFacebook

Party: Republican Party

Incumbent: No

Key Messages

To read this candidate's full survey responses, click here.

Extend Religious Liberty and the essential freedom of assembly to include all Evangelical Christian churches. Designate churches and houses of worship as essential institutions in our state with a right to convene during national or state crisis or tragic events.

Dramatically improve American military veteran healthcare across North Carolina and our nation. Our veterans deserve the BEST healthcare. I will tie veteran healthcare outcomes directly to healthcare provider, hospital executive, and VA Administration leaders pay, job tenure and incentives.

Reduce North Carolina's grocery bills by at least $200 a month / $2,400 a year by revising and amending existing legislation. Extend existing provisions for tax credits and tax offsets for grocery stores like Food Lion, Harris Teeter and Walmart to pass along savings to grocery store customers. Incentivize the reduction of the cost of cold-chain storage, freight bottlenecks and last mile deliveries so consumers enjoy the savings.

Voting information

See also: Voting in North Carolina

Election information in North Carolina: March 3, 2026, election.

What is the voter registration deadline?

  • In-person: Feb. 6, 2026
  • By mail: Postmarked by Feb. 6, 2026
  • Online: Feb. 6, 2026

Is absentee/mail-in voting available to all voters?

Yes

What is the absentee/mail-in ballot request deadline?

  • In-person: Feb. 17, 2026
  • By mail: Received by Feb. 17, 2026
  • Online: Feb. 17, 2026

What is the absentee/mail-in ballot return deadline?

  • In-person: March 3, 2026
  • By mail: Received by March 3, 2026

Is early voting available to all voters?

Yes

What are the early voting start and end dates?

Feb. 12, 2026 to Feb. 28, 2026

Are all voters required to present ID at the polls? If so, is a photo or non-photo ID required?

N/A

When are polls open on Election Day?

6:30 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. (ET)

Polls

See also: Ballotpedia's approach to covering polls

Polls are conducted with a variety of methodologies and have margins of error or credibility intervals.[2] The Pew Research Center wrote, "A margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level means that if we fielded the same survey 100 times, we would expect the result to be within 3 percentage points of the true population value 95 of those times."[3] For tips on reading polls from FiveThirtyEight, click here. For tips from Pew, click here.

Below we provide results for polls from a wide variety of sources, including media outlets, social media, campaigns, and aggregation websites, when available. We only report polls for which we can find a margin of error or credibility interval. Know of something we're missing? Click here to let us know.


United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2026 (Republican primary) polls
PollDatesBrownMorrowWhatleyUndecidedSample sizeMargin of errorSponsor
Change Research
–
643654
1,105 LV
± 3.5%
Carolina Forward
Note: LV is likely voters, RV is registered voters, and EV is eligible voters.


Campaign finance

Name Party Receipts* Disbursements** Cash on hand Date
Don Brown Republican Party $114,296 $70,326 $44,811 As of September 30, 2025
Richard Dansie Republican Party $2,410 $1,780 $630 As of December 31, 2025
Margot Dupre Republican Party $0 $0 $0 Data not available***
Thomas Johnson Republican Party $3,560 $1,932 $1,629 As of December 31, 2025
Michele Morrow Republican Party $0 $0 $0 Data not available***
Elizabeth Anne Temple Republican Party $0 $0 $0 Data not available***
Michael Whatley Republican Party $1,380,875 $253,977 $1,126,898 As of September 30, 2025

Source: Federal Elections Commission, "Campaign finance data," 2026. This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

* According to the FEC, "Receipts are anything of value (money, goods, services or property) received by a political committee."
** According to the FEC, a disbursement "is a purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit or gift of money or anything of value to influence a federal election," plus other kinds of payments not made to influence a federal election.
*** Candidate either did not report any receipts or disbursements to the FEC, or Ballotpedia did not find an FEC candidate ID.


Ballot access

The table below details filing requirements for U.S. Senate candidates in North Carolina in the 2026 election cycle. For additional information on candidate ballot access requirements in North Carolina, click here.

Filing requirements for U.S. Senate candidates, 2026
State Office Party Signatures required Filing fee Filing deadline Source
North Carolina U.S. Senate Ballot-qualified party 10,000 $1,740.00 12/19/2025 Source
North Carolina U.S. Senate Unaffiliated 1.5% of all registered N.C. voters who voted in the most recent election for N.C. Governor $1,740.00 12/19/2025 Source

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ North Carolina General Assembly, "N.C. Gen. Stat. § 163–119," accessed December 15, 2025
  2. ↑ For more information on the difference between margins of error and credibility intervals, see explanations from the American Association for Public Opinion Research and Ipsos.
  3. ↑ Pew Research Center, "5 key things to know about the margin of error in election polls," September 8, 2016


North Carolina's current delegation to the United States Congress
Senators
Ted Budd (R)
Thom Tillis (R)
Representatives
District 1
District 2
District 3
District 4
District 5
District 6
District 7
District 8
District 9
District 10
District 11
District 12
District 13
District 14
Republican Party (12)
Democratic Party (4)


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