The winners, losers, and weirdness of North Carolina’s primary

My primary-night superlatives go beyond the race everyone watched.

Are you sick of hearing about the primary election yet? Well, too bad — because it’s not going away anytime soon.

I’ve obviously written a ton about the biggest-ticket race last week, the still-pending primary race between Sen. Phil Berger and Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.

But even beyond that, it was a pretty wild night. Eight incumbents went down (five Republicans, three Democrats), which is highly unusual. That’s what I focused on for my newspaper column. You can read that here, free with gift link: North Carolina lawmakers just found out nobody is safe

Here are a few of my trademarked Longleaf Politics awards for the 2026 primary election.

Biggest surprise: Caroline Eason

Eight-term Rep. Kelly Hastings was not on my list of vulnerable incumbents, but sure enough, he went down to a pharmacist in her mid-20s from Lawndale.

Caroline Eason has a fascinating backstory, and her victory feels a lot like that of Rep. Wyatt Gable in 2024. It wasn’t one of those super slick, polished camp…