2020 North Carolina Council of State elections


Elections were held in North Carolina on November 3, 2020, to select the ten officers of the North Carolina Council of State. These elections coincided with the presidential election, elections to the House of Representatives, elections to the Senate and elections to the North Carolina General Assembly and top state courts. Primary elections were held on March 3, 2020, for offices for which more than one candidate filed per party.
The ten members of the North Carolina Council of State are statewide-elected officers serving four-year terms.
The result of the 2020 elections was a Council of State consisting of four Democrats and six Republicans, just as it had been before the elections. Three seats were open, but in each case, a Republican succeeded a fellow Republican.

Governor

Incumbent governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, ran for a second term. The Republican Party nominated Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest. The Libertarian Party nominated Steven J. DiFore, and the Constitution Party nominated Al Pisano. Cooper won re-election to a second term with 51.5% of the vote. Cooper received the most votes of any Democrat on the ballot in North Carolina in 2020.

Lieutenant governor

Incumbent lieutenant governor Dan Forest, a Republican, was ineligible to run for a third term due to term limits set by the North Carolina Constitution. Forest ran for the governorship.
The Republican Party nominated Mark Robinson, a businessman and first-time political candidate. The Democratic party nominated State Representative Yvonne Lewis Holley. Robinson defeated Holley, winning 51.6% of the vote to Holley's 48.4%. Robinson thus became North Carolina's first African-American lieutenant governor.

Attorney general

Incumbent attorney general Josh Stein, a Democrat, ran for a second term. He faced Republican nominee Jim O'Neill in the general election. Stein defeated O'Neill by just over 13,000 votes out of over 5.4 million cast.

Secretary of state

Elaine Marshall, a Democrat, was first elected to the position of secretary of state in 1996 and had held the position since then. She was currently the longest-tenured member of the Council of State. She was unopposed in the primary. The Republican Party nominated businessman E.C. Sykes. Marshall won with 51.2% of the vote, a slightly smaller percentage of the vote than what she received in 2016. She was elected to her seventh term as secretary of state. No Republican had won election to this office since 1872, the longest streak for any state office in the country.

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declared

Republican primary

Candidates

Declared

State auditor

Incumbent Auditor Beth Wood, a Democrat, ran for a fourth term. She was narrowly re-elected in 2016, winning by just over six thousand votes. Wood was challenged in the Democratic primary by Luis Toledo, a former Assistant State Auditor. Toledo argued that change was needed in the Auditor's office. Beth Wood won the primary by a large margin. Anthony Street, a small business owner and member of the Brunswick County Soil and Water Board, won the Republican primary. Wood won the general election with 50.9% of the vote.

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declared

Republican primary

Candidates

Declared
  • Tim Hoegemeyer, general counsel for the Office of State Auditor and U.S. Marine Corps veteran
  • Tony Wayne Street, Brunswick County Soil and Water Board member

State treasurer

Incumbent Treasurer Dale Folwell, a Republican, ran for a second term.
Duke University professor Ronnie Chatterji won the nomination of the Democratic Party by receiving 36% of the vote in the primary. He defeated Charlotte City Council member Dimple Ajmera and Matt Leatherman, who served as policy director for former state treasurer Janet Cowell.
Folwell defeated Chatterji in the general election. Folwell won 52.6% of the vote to Chatterji's 47.4%.

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declared

Republican primary

Candidates

Declared

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Mark Johnson was elected to the position of State Superintendent in 2016, defeating incumbent June Atkinson by a narrow margin. Johnson opted not to run for a second term as Superintendent, instead declaring his candidacy for lieutenant governor. Republican Catherine Truitt, chancellor of Western Governors University North Carolina and a former education advisor to Governor Pat McCrory defeated Democrat Jen Mangrum, an associate professor at UNC Greensboro, in the general election.

Commissioner of Agriculture

Incumbent Commissioner Steve Troxler, a Republican, was first elected in 2004. He was unopposed in the primary.
Three Democrats ran to challenge Troxler: Walter Smith, who ran for the office in 2012 and 2016, Jenna Wadsworth, a Wake County Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor, and Donovan Alexander Watson, a businessman from Durham. Wadsworth came in first place in the primary.
On election day, Troxler won a fifth term as Agriculture Commissioner. He won 53.9% of the statewide vote, a slightly smaller percentage than he received in 2016, when he won 55.6%. Despite this, Troxler still won the largest percentage of the vote of statewide candidate in North Carolina in 2020.

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declared
  • Walter Smith, 2012 and 2016 Democratic nominee
  • Jenna Wadsworth, Wake County Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor
  • Donovan Alexander Watson, businessman

Republican primary

Candidates

Declared

Commissioner of Labor

Cherie Berry was first elected to the position of Commissioner of Labor in 2000 and took office as only the second Republican Labor Commissioner in the history of North Carolina. On April 2, 2019, Berry announced that she would not seek re-election, and would retire from politics. Josh Dobson, a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives since 2013, won the Republican primary over Chuck Stanley, a construction safety manager, and former State Rep. Pearl Burris-Floyd. Wake County commissioner Jessica Holmes was the only Democrat to run. Dobson won the general election with 50.8% of the vote.

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declared

Republican primary

Candidates

Declared
  • Pearl Burris-Floyd, former state representative
  • Josh Dobson, state representative
  • Chuck Stanley, construction safety manager
    Declined
  • Cherie Berry, incumbent State Labor Commissioner

Commissioner of Insurance

Incumbent Commissioner Mike Causey, a Republican, ran for a second term.

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declared

Republican primary

Candidates

Declared

Aftermath

The Council of State was sworn in on January 9, 2021.