North Carolina Labor Commissioner election, 2016
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← 2012
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March 15, 2016[1] |
November 8, 2016 |
Cherie Berry (R) |
Cherie Berry (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 Labor Commissioner on November 8, 2016. Incumbent Cherie Berry (R) won election to her fifth term.
Overview
The commissioner is the head of the North Carolina Department of Insurance, serves as a member of the Council of State, and is also the State Fire Marshall. 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 Cherie Berry, first elected in 2000, is the first Republican to ever win election to the office of commissioner of labor in North Carolina. She ran for re-election to a fifth term in 2016. She was unopposed for the Republican nomination and competed in November with Charles Meeker (D), who won the Democratic nomination in the March 15 primary election. North Carolina was considered a battleground state in the 2016 presidential election. It also had a number of other competitive state executive elections in 2016. As a result, voter turnout was expected to be higher than usual, making this race more competitive.
Berry won the general election on November 8, 2016.
Candidates
General election candidates
Charles Meeker (D)
Mayor of Raleigh, 2001-2011
Cherie Berry (R)
Incumbent commissioner of labor since 2001
| Click [show] to view candidates who were defeated in the primary elections. | |||
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Results
General election
Incumbent Cherie Berry defeated Charles Meeker in the North Carolina labor commissioner election.
| North Carolina Labor Commissioner, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Republican |  Cherie Berry Incumbent |
55.29% | 2,479,451 | |
| Democratic | Charles Meeker | 44.71% | 2,005,037 | |
| Total Votes | 4,484,488 | |||
| Source: ABC11 | ||||
Primary elections
Democratic primary election
| North Carolina Labor Commissioner Democratic Primary, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes | ||
| Charles Meeker |
56.5% | 531,273 | ||
| Mazie Ferguson | 43.5% | 408,243 | ||
| Total Votes | 939,516 | |||
| Election results via North Carolina State Board of Elections. | ||||
Republican primary election
Cherie Berry was unopposed for the Republican nomination and therefore did not appear on the March 15 primary ballot.
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 Cherie Berry (R)
Incumbent Cherie Berry ran for a fifth term as labor commissioner. Berry was first elected in 2000's open race, narrowly defeating Democrat Doug Berger by a margin of just 0.2 percentage points. She had won re-election three times since by margins ranging from 1 to 7 percent. Prior to her tenure as commissioner of labor, Berry served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1993 to 2000. She previously owned a company that produced spark plug wires for the automotive industry.[4]
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]
Incumbent Cherie Berry, first elected in 2000, is the first Republican to ever win election to the office of commissioner of labor in North Carolina.[7] She won the seat by a margin of just 0.2 percentage points and had faced significant challengers to her re-election efforts in recent years, winning re-election by margins ranging from 1 to 7 percentage points.
Campaigns
Campaign media
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Democrats
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Republicans
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About the office
- See also: North Carolina Commissioner of Labor
The North Carolina labor commissioner is an elected state executive position in the North Carolina state government. The commissioner is the head of the North Carolina Department of Insurance, serves as a member of the Council of State, and is also the State Fire Marshall.[8]
Incumbent
The incumbent was Republican Cherie Berry. She was first elected in 2000.
Authority
The state Constitution establishes the office of labor commissioner in Article III, Section 7:
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(1) Officers. 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 in 1972 and every four years thereafter, at the same time and places as members of the General Assembly are elected. Their term of office shall be four years and shall commence on the first day of January next after their election and continue until their successors are elected and qualified. ...[9] |
Past elections
The superintendent of public instruction in North Carolina is popularly elected every four years, in presidential election years. The superintendent of schools, barring any vacancies, will be elected in 2012, 2016, and 2020. The term of office is four years, and begins on the first day of January next after their election.[9]
2012
Incumbent Cherie Berry (R) successfully won re-election, defeating John C. Brooks (D) in the November 6, 2012 general election.
| North Carolina Commissioner of Labor General Election, 2012 | ||||
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| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democratic | John C. Brooks | 46.7% | 2,019,266 | |
| Republican | Cherie Berry Incumbent |
53.3% | 2,300,500 | |
| Total Votes | 4,319,766 | |||
| Election results via NC State Board of Elections | ||||
To view the full electoral history for North Carolina Commissioner of Labor, 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 Labor Commissioner Election 2016. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
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
- ↑ North Carolina Department of Labor, "Commissioner's office," accessed September 15, 2012
- ↑ 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 Labor," accessed September 24, 2016
- ↑ North Carolina Department of Insurance, "Wayne Goodwin," accessed May 14, 2011
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "North Carolina State Constitution," accessed Sept. 30, 2015
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