United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2026 (March 3 Republican primary)
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| 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. |
| Race ratings |
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 • 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 took place on March 3, 2026, in North Carolina to determine which Republican candidate would run in the state's general election on November 3, 2026.
Michael Whatley advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. Senate North Carolina.
| Candidate filing deadline | Primary election | General election |
|---|---|---|
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.
Thirty-three of the 100 U.S. Senate seats are up for election, and another two seats are up for special election. Democrats hold 13 of the seats up for election, and Republicans hold 22. As of January 2026, 11 members of the U.S. Senate announced they are not running for re-election. To read more about the U.S. Senate elections taking place this year, click here.
This is one of 10 open U.S. Senate races this year in which an incumbent is not running for re-election. Across the country, four Democrats and six Republicans are not running for re-election — more than any year since 2012. In 2024, eight incumbents — four Democrats, two Republicans, and two independents — did not seek re-election.
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:
- United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2026 (March 3 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2026
Candidates and election results
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. Senate North Carolina
The following candidates ran in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate North Carolina on March 3, 2026.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Michael Whatley | 64.6 | 403,053 |
 | Don Brown | 15.6 | 97,322 | |
 | Thomas Johnson  | 5.7 | 35,299 | |
 | Michele Morrow | 5.6 | 34,818 | |
 | Elizabeth Anne Temple | 3.8 | 23,758 | |
 | Richard Dansie | 2.4 | 14,889 | |
| Total votes: 623,931 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Margot Dupre (R) (Disqualified, appeared on ballot)
- Brooks Agnew (R)
- Andy Nilsson (R)
- Thom Tillis (R)
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.
Party: Republican Party
Incumbent: No
This information was current as of the candidate's run for U.S. Senate North Carolina in 2026.
Party: Republican Party
Incumbent: No
This information was current as of the candidate's run for U.S. Senate North Carolina in 2026.
Party: Republican Party
Incumbent: No
Submitted Biography: "I am a Christian, Conservative Patriot, a mother of five, nurse, educator and freedom fighter. I have been fighting alongside my NC neighbors for the past eleven years to end the overreach of our local, state and federal governments. I have passionately fought for election integrity, medical freedom and education reform and seek a return to our foundational moral compass based in God's principles of right and wrong. The government exists to serve We The People, not the other way around. I am running for US Senate to return the balance of power to the hands of the citizens. I want to stop the fraud, waste and abuse that has been robbing hard-working Americans for decades. As a Senator, I will do everything in my power to shrink the bureaucratic bloat that has been destroying the middle class. We must stop forcing everyday Americans to fund NGO's, lobbyists, and special interest groups instead of our own families. I am running for US Senate to amplify the voice of the American people and to return the American Dream to our children and grandchildren. The basis of every decision we make in DC should be what is best for our country and her citizens. The government is supposed to be protecting our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Somewhere along the way, our service government became a profit-based corporation with an insatiable greed and lust for power and that needs to end."
This information was current as of the candidate's run for U.S. Senate North Carolina in 2026.
Voting information
- See also: Voting in North Carolina
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.
| Poll | Dates | Brown | Morrow | Whatley | Other | Undecided | Sample size | Margin of error | Sponsor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
– | 8 | 2 | 38 | 3 | 50 | 600 LV | ± 4.0% | The Carolina Journal | |
– | 6 | 4 | 36 | -- | 54 | 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 | $187,238 | $164,131 | $23,947 | As of February 11, 2026 |
| Richard Dansie | Republican Party | $2,410 | $1,780 | $630 | As of December 31, 2025 |
| Thomas Johnson | Republican Party | $5,400 | $3,307 | $465 | As of February 11, 2026 |
| 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 | $6,273,539 | $3,745,342 | $2,528,197 | As of February 11, 2026 |
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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." |
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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
- United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2026 (March 3 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2026
- United States Senate Democratic Party primaries, 2026
- United States Senate Republican Party primaries, 2026
- United States Senate elections, 2026
- U.S. Senate battlegrounds, 2026
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ North Carolina General Assembly, "N.C. Gen. Stat. § 163–119," accessed December 15, 2025
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Pew Research Center, "5 key things to know about the margin of error in election polls," September 8, 2016
