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North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner election, 2016
2020 →
← 2012
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March 15, 2016[1] |
November 8, 2016 |
Steve Troxler (R) |
Steve Troxler (R) |
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 agriculture commissioner on November 8, 2016. Incumbent Steve Troxler (R) won election to his fourth term.
Overview
The commissioner of agriculture is the head of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and is a member of the Council of State. 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. Incumbent Steve Troxler was the first Republican to have held the office of commissioner of agriculture in North Carolina since 1908.
Troxler ran for re-election to his fourth term in 2016. He won the Republican nomination on March 15, 2016, after defeating primary challenger Andrew Stevens. Troxler competed with Walter Smith (D). The two previously competed in the 2012 election, with Troxler emerging the winner by about 5 percentage points.
Troxler won the general election on November 8, 2016.
Candidates
Walter Smith (D)
Board member, North Carolina Agricultural Foundation
Steve Troxler (R)
Incumbent commissioner of agriculture since 2005
| Click [show] to view candidates who were defeated in the primary elections. | |||
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Results
General election
Incumbent Steve Troxler defeated Walter Smith in the North Carolina agriculture commissioner election.
| North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Republican |  Steve Troxler Incumbent |
55.62% | 2,498,988 | |
| Democratic | Walter Smith | 44.38% | 1,994,038 | |
| Total Votes | 4,493,026 | |||
| Source: ABC11 | ||||
Primary elections
Democratic primary election
Walter Smith was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He did not appear on the March 15 primary election ballot, instead automatically advancing to the general election.
Republican primary election
| North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Republican Primary, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes | ||
| Steve Troxler |
68.8% | 634,100 | ||
| Andy Stevens | 31.2% | 287,948 | ||
| Total Votes | 922,048 | |||
| 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 Steve Troxler (R)
Steve Troxler (R) was first elected in 2004, narrowly defeating Democrat Britt Cobb by less than a tenth of a percentage point.[4] Troxler subsequently won election in 2008 and again in 2012. Prior to his tenure as agriculture commissioner, Troxler founded and operated Troxler Farms in Guilford County.
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).[5] 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.[6]
Troxler was the first Republican to have held the office of commissioner of agriculture in North Carolina since Samuel L. Patterson left office in 1908.[7][8] Troxler won election to the seat in 2004 by less than one-tenth of a percentage point, unseating incumbent W. Britt Cobb, Jr.—who was appointed to the position in July 2003 after the resignation of Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps over allegations of campaign finance violations. Phipps was convicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in October 2003.[9] Troxler had won re-election to the seat twice since, each time by 5 percentage points.[10]
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 |
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
The North Carolina commissioner of agriculture is a state executive position in the North Carolina state government.
The commissioner is the head of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and is a member of the Council of State.
Incumbent
The incumbent was Steve Troxler (R). He assumed office in February 2005 and won re-election in 2008 and 2012.
Authority
The position and duties of commissioner of agriculture are established by Article III, Section 7 of the North Carolina Constitution.
Article III, Section 7:
| 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... |
Qualifications
Article VI, Section 6 of the North Carolina Constitution establishes the qualifications of the office:
| Every qualified voter in North Carolina who is 21 years of age, except as in this Constitution disqualified, shall be eligible for election by the people to office. |
- Qualified North Carolina voter
- 21 years of age
Past elections
2012
Incumbent Steve Troxler (R) successfully won re-election, defeating Walter Smith (D) in the November 6, 2012 general election.
| North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture General Election, 2012 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democratic | Walter Smith | 46.8% | 2,025,054 | |
| Republican | Steve Troxler Incumbent |
53.2% | 2,303,586 | |
| Total Votes | 4,328,640 | |||
| Election results via NC State Board of Elections | ||||
To view the full electoral history for North Carolina Agriculture 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 Agriculture Commissioner election. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
State profile
| Demographic data for North Carolina | ||
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | U.S. | |
| Total population: | 10,035,186 | 316,515,021 |
| Land area (sq mi): | 48,618 | 3,531,905 |
| Race and ethnicity** | ||
| White: | 69.5% | 73.6% |
| Black/African American: | 21.5% | 12.6% |
| Asian: | 2.5% | 5.1% |
| Native American: | 1.2% | 0.8% |
| Pacific Islander: | 0.1% | 0.2% |
| Two or more: | 2.4% | 3% |
| Hispanic/Latino: | 8.8% | 17.1% |
| Education | ||
| High school graduation rate: | 85.8% | 86.7% |
| College graduation rate: | 28.4% | 29.8% |
| Income | ||
| Median household income: | $46,868 | $53,889 |
| Persons below poverty level: | 20.5% | 11.3% |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, "American Community Survey" (5-year estimates 2010-2015) Click here for more information on the 2020 census and here for more on its impact on the redistricting process in North Carolina. **Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here. | ||
Presidential voting pattern
North Carolina voted Republican in six out of the seven presidential elections between 2000 and 2024.
Pivot Counties (2016)
Ballotpedia identified 206 counties that voted for Donald Trump (R) in 2016 after voting for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012. Collectively, Trump won these Pivot Counties by more than 580,000 votes. Of these 206 counties, six are located in North Carolina, accounting for 2.91 percent of the total pivot counties.[11]
Pivot Counties (2020)
In 2020, Ballotpedia re-examined the 206 Pivot Counties to view their voting patterns following that year's presidential election. Ballotpedia defined those won by Trump won as Retained Pivot Counties and those won by Joe Biden (D) as Boomerang Pivot Counties. Nationwide, there were 181 Retained Pivot Counties and 25 Boomerang Pivot Counties. North Carolina had six Retained Pivot Counties, 3.31 percent of all Retained Pivot Counties.
More North Carolina coverage on Ballotpedia
- Elections in North Carolina
- United States congressional delegations from North Carolina
- Public policy in North Carolina
- Endorsers in North Carolina
- North Carolina fact checks
- More...
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
- ↑ Troxler won by less than 3,000 votes.
- ↑ 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 Agriculture," accessed September 23, 2016
- ↑ NCpedia, "Patterson, Samuel Legerwood," accessed September 23, 2016
- ↑ WRAL.com, "Phipps Found Guilty Of Perjury, Obstruction Charges; Taken To Jail," October 31, 2003
- ↑ Our Campaigns, " Commissioner of Agriculture - History," accessed September 22, 2016
- ↑ The raw data for this study was provided by Dave Leip of Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.
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