Early Voting
Early voting in a midterm election set a record this year in North Carolina, with more than 2.7 million people voting in person by Saturday afternoon. With mail-in ballots included, 2.8 million votes have been cast, meaning 36% of registered voters have cast ballots before Election Day.
The previous high for a midterm was 2022, with about 2 million votes cast in person during the early voting period. Saturday saw the heaviest early vote turnout, with about 249,000 people showing up at the polls.
To date, 38% of those who have voted are registered Democrats, 35% are unaffiliated and 26% are registered Republicans.
The final days of the early voting period showed particularly strong unaffiliated voter turnout. In the last four days of early voting, unaffiliated voters outnumbered registered Democrats and registered Republicans.
Early voting statistics are not election forecasts. Registered Republicans typically outvote Democrats on Election Day.
Road Grant
The federal government is sending $10.2 million to Raleigh to build new sidewalks and crosswalks, reconfigure intersections and upgrade traffic lights to help the city improve safety on its streets. The money comes from the big infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 2021. That bill also provided Raleigh with $1 million to determine where serious crashes take place in the city and come up with strategies to prevent them. The latest grant, from the Safe Streets and Roads For All program, will allow the city to carry out some of those ideas. Raleigh will pitch in $2.5 million. There were nearly 17,000 crashes in Raleigh last year, injuring 6,226 people and killing 38, according to the Division of Motor Vehicles. Most of those crashes result from human mistakes — speeding, impaired or distracted driving or simply poor judgment. The city adopted a goal of preventing car crash deaths and serious injuries several years ago, joining the national Vision Zero movement to eliminate highway fatalities. The city aims to design and regulate its streets in a way that the inevitable human mistakes don’t turn fatal.
Golden LEAF CEO
The Golden LEAF Foundation board picked Winston-Salem native Ted Lord as the organization’s fourth president and CEO. He will succeed Scott Hamilton, who is retiring after leading the group since 2019. Lord has worked at the Rocky Mount-based foundation since 2005, helping guide grantmaking and strategic plans. He is a senior vice president and general counsel. He previously was a lawyer in Greensboro, a law clerk to a federal judge and a fellow at the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. “Golden LEAF has a unique role in helping communities identify and take advantage of opportunities through targeted investments that support long-term economic advancement,” Lord said in a release. Since 1999, Golden LEAF has awarded $1.5 billion to support 2,412 projects across North Carolina. It was formed after the Master Settlement Agreement between the states and cigarette manufacturers in response to public health harms tied to the tobacco industry.
Record Spending
The 2026 race for North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District has broken records to become the most expensive U.S. House general election in history, according to new ad spending data. In a district that Republican state lawmakers redrew last year to favor their party, GOP Army veteran Laurie Buckhout is challenging Democratic incumbent Don Davis. Inside Elections shifted the race from “toss up” to “tilt Democratic” on Thursday. A mammoth $52.9 million has poured into ad spending for the district, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The number includes spending on aired ads and future ads reserved as of Oct. 27. Democrats have spent $29.6 million to support Davis, and Republicans have deployed $23.3 million to back Buckhout. With five days remaining until the general election, Democrats are making pushes across the map. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is placing a coordinated ad buy with Richard Ojeda in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. The ad, titled “Corrupt,” begins airing in the Greensboro media market on Friday. Ojeda, also an Army veteran, is seeking to unseat Republican incumbent Richard Hudson, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Inside Elections moved its rating for the 9th District contest from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican” on Thursday.
Sales Taxes
Voters in 11 counties across North Carolina will decide whether they want to increase local sales taxes in Tuesday's election. About half of the state's 100 counties have already added a quarter-cent sales tax to fund local projects. Leaders in 11 more counties are asking voters this year if they're willing to join that trend, which would bring the total sales tax to about 7%.
The question is on the ballot in Bladen, Dare and Columbus counties, as well as Hoke, Sampson and Currituck. Guilford County is the only urban community with a sales tax referendum this election.
Sampson is proposing a half-cent sales tax increase to fund public education, which County Commissioner Houston Crumpler says could help avoid property tax hikes.
"For every $100 you spend, that would be 50 cents," Crumpler said during a meeting about the tax referendum. "Our children are worth 50 cents. Our children are worth a half a penny."
Crumpler credited N.C. Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, with passing legislation that gives Sampson the option for a higher sales tax rate. "Most of the people who commented on social media or in private would often say they would rather see a sales tax increase than a property tax increase," he said. "Well, that wasn't an option we had then. This is now an option thanks to Sen. Jackson."
Currituck County commissioners pitched the idea as a way to have Outer Banks visitors paying a larger share of the county's needs amid cuts to state funding. "I know people say, 'well, you need to be on a diet,'" County Commissioner Paul O'Neal said. "Yes, we do. But Currituck County runs a pretty lean operation, and so there's only so many places you can cut."
The proposed sales tax increases could face tough odds. They're on the ballot with constitutional amendments limiting property and income tax hikes.
And in four counties where the sales tax question was on the March primary ballot (Gates, Granville, Hyde and Wayne), voters overwhelmingly voted no. About 83% of Granville County voters rejected the proposal.
Sales taxes aren't the only local referendum issues on the ballot. About 10 counties will have bond issues before voters, asking for permission to borrow money for projects like housing, schools and jails — projects that could increase tax rates in the future. Wake County has a school construction bond, for example, while Raleigh wants to borrow for affordable housing and transportation projects.
And in several communities (Perquimans County, Jones County, Pollocksville, Grifton, Columbus County and Wayne County), voters will decide on loosening alcohol sales regulations.
Data Centers
N.C. Gov. Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson called on state regulators Tuesday to require prospective data center developers to shoulder more of the cost for the additional power they’ll need — or to produce more of it themselves through renewable energy.
The N.C. Utilities Commission has been working for months with Duke Energy and other stakeholders to iron out how data centers should be charged for the power they need. On Oct. 7, Duke announced the group had reached an agreement on a large-load tariff on data centers, as well as requirements that data centers pay for any grid upgrades needed, like transmission lines and substations. According to the N.C. Department of Justice, Amazon, Meta affiliate Andale LLC, Google and Microsoft have all agreed to the deal, along with the United States Department of Defense and all other federal agencies.
The Utilities Commission still has to vote to approve the proposed agreement.
Stein called the proposal “a step in the right direction,” but said it’s inadequate because it doesn’t require data center owners to help pay for any new power plants the state will have to build to supply their needs. “The overall rate of load growth projected in the next 15 years is at least five times what it was in the previous 20 years,” Stein said. ”Data centers make up about 80% of that future projected energy demand,” Stein said.
Stein said a new report produced by the state’s Energy Policy Task Force found that by 2050, the additional power that data centers will need is projected to cost North Carolina about $50 billion. “If nothing changes, then we’re all going to end up having to pay for that in our electricity bills. It is absolutely unacceptable,” Stein said.
The governor also urged the commission to consider requiring data centers to “build or bring their own clean energy.” In other states, he said, tech giants like Meta, Google and Amazon have agreed to build or fund hundreds of megawatts of wind, solar and battery storage projects to offset their power needs.
Jackson also urged the commission to approve the deal as a starting point. But he suggested that a large-load tariff might not be sufficient. He said regulators should consider creating an entirely new rate class for large data centers, which he said would better ensure they pay their share. "We have residential, we have commercial, we have industrial, but really these data centers exist as a separate category because of the sheer amount of energy they need,” Jackson said.
No date has been set yet for the Utilities Commission to act on the proposed deal.