GOP’s Bradford defeats Clark in Mecklenburg state House race; Senate seats go to Dems

Democrats won most of the Mecklenburg County legislative races Tuesday night, but one Republican candidate pulled ahead with a surge of Election Day votes in the 98th House District and recorded a surprising victory.

Republican challenger John Bradford clinched the race with 51.66% of the vote with 100% of the precincts reporting late Tuesday, after Democratic incumbent Christy Clark had taken an early lead.

District 98 is the northern-most House seat geographically in Mecklenburg County. Bradford’s slim lead came via election-day voting: He tallied 4,464 votes cast Tuesday, compared to 1,911 for Clark, with all of the precincts counted.

Bradford represented the 98th District prior to losing a close election to Clark in 2018.

Democrats held all but one Mecklenburg-area district seats going into the 2020 election — four of five Senate seats, and all 12 House seats. And with a chance to flip control of the state’s General Assembly on the line, it was crucial for local Democrats to hold onto those seats.

But now Republican Bradford has taken one of those seats away.

With 100% of precincts reporting, here are the final but unofficial numbers from Tuesday’s election:

NC Senate

District 37

▪ Jeff Jackson, D — 55.02%

▪ Sonja Nichols, R — 41.31%

▪ Jeff Scott, L — 3.67%

District 38

▪ Mujtaba Mohammed, D — 78.20%

▪ Jack Brosch, R — 21.80%

District 39

▪ DeAndrea Salvador, D — 62.16%

▪ Joshua Niday, R — 37.84%

District 40

▪ Joyce Waddell, D — 72.06%

▪ Bobbie Shields, R — 27.94%

District 41

▪ Natasha Marcus, D — 71.92%

▪ Christopher Cole, C — 28.08%

NC House

98th District

▪ John Bradford, R — 51.66%

▪ Christy Clark, D — 48.34%

103rd District

▪ Rachel Hunt, D — 54.91%

▪ Bill Brawley, R — 45.09%

104th District

▪ Brandon Lofton, D — 53.85%

▪ Don Pomeroy, R — 46.15%

105th District

▪ Wesley Harris, D — 54.78%

▪ Amy Bynum, R — 45.22%

Democrats needed five seats to flip control of the N.C. Senate, or four if Democrat Yvonne Holley is elected lieutenant governor, and six seats to shift control of the House.

Some legislative districts have changed dramatically since the last time Mecklenburg Democrats won their seats.

Notably, the race featuring Republican Sonya Nichols in Senate District 37 had shaped up to be a tough fight for Democratic incumbent Jeff Jackson, who saw three easy victories before the 2020 contest.

“It would be fair to call this my first real challenge,” Jackson, 38, said as he greeted early voters at Myers Park High School in October.

Jackson’s district changed after court-ordered redistricting in 2019 took away Democratic-leaning areas of east Charlotte and added traditionally Republican areas in the southeast.

Jackson, a captain in the Army National Guard, was called away Oct. 25 for annual training that runs through the rest of the election cycle — so his wife, Marisa Jackson, stepped in for the homestretch.

This is the first time California native Nichols has run for office. Jackson outraised Nichols by more than $700,000, bringing in over $974,000 in his race to keep his Senate seat, according to reports filed with the State Board of Elections. Nichols raised over $268,000.

The other four Senate districts representing Mecklenburg County lean more heavily Democratic. But District 39 could play a big role in the Democratic Party’s play to gain control of the state Legislature.

The 39th District is represented by Mecklenburg’s sole Republican senator, Rob Bryan. Bryan, a former state representative, was moved into the district to replace Dan Bishop, who was elected to Congress. But the was redrawn in 2019 during redistricting and Bryan was unable to run for re-election in that district. It’s now considered a “likely Democratic district,” according to the conservative Civitas Institute’s Partisan Index.

The race for the District 39 Senate seat is between Democrat DeAndrea Salvador and Republican Joshua Niday.

Two other Senate races pitted incumbent Democrats and Republican challengers:

▪ In District 38, First-term Democratic Sen. Mohammed Mujtaba faced off against Republican challenger Jack Brosch.

▪ In District 40, three-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Joyce Waddell was challenged by Republican and former Mecklenburg County Manager Bobbie Shields. The race is a rematch of their 2018 race, in which Waddell won 75% of the vote.

In Senate District 41, first-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Natasha Marcus was seen to have an easy path to victory, facing Chris Cole of the Constitution Party.

All 12 House seats in Mecklenburg County were held by Democrats. Before Tuesday, Republicans held a 65-to-55 majority, so Democrats would have to gain a net six seats this election to take control of the House. In all likelihood, Democrats would have to continue to hold all Mecklenburg seats for that to be possible.

Mecklenburg candidates from both parties for House seats acknowledged there were huge stakes in the 2020 election because this is a census year. That means the legislature will redraw congressional and legislative districts based on those census figures.

“That is crucial in this election,” said Republican Amy Bynum, challenging Democratic incumbent Wesley Harris in southern Mecklenburg’s 105th district. “This legislature will be drawing the lines once the census data comes out. That is a major issue in this race. I think the main thing is that we do it fairly and properly once we come to that day.”

Rachel Hunt, Democratic incumbent in the 103rd District, said this might be the most important election, statewide and nationally, of her life:

“Everything is at stake,” she said.

This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 9:01 PM.

Hannah Smoot

The Charlotte Observer

704-358-5349

Hannah Smoot covers business in Charlotte, focusing on health care and transportation. She has been covering COVID-19 in North Carolina since March 2020. She previously covered money and power at The Rock Hill Herald in South Carolina and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.