N.C.'s political state of play heading into 2026

There are so many unknowns, but here are the key factors I'm watching

I spent yesterday up in Marion at the N.C. Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual Salt & Light conference. It was a fantastic experience, and I’ll drop a little more info about that in tomorrow’s regular newsletter.

But I had the privilege of addressing a group of General Assembly members over lunch on the state of play politically heading into 2026, and I wanted to share some of those thoughts with you, as well.

After all, we are now only 64 days to the start of candidate filing and 157 days to primary election day and 402 days until Election Day 2026

That’s both a long time and not a long time at all. Here’s a quick run-through of where things stand, what could change, and what to do about it.

The closest comparison

When you try to start to set a baseline for an upcoming election, it’s helpful to look at a recent election with similar dynamics. You want to compare midterm elections with midterm elections, for example, and not presidential election years.

In that context, 2026 is pretty unusu…