Election 2018: Mecklenburg incumbents take a beating in the primaries

In today's divided political world most elections in November are decided prior to election day.  Between districts at all levepls of government drawn to favor one party over the other and the general partisan tilt of large parts of the country with Democrats clustering in the cities and Republicans controlling the rural areas, there's not a lot of competition and surprises in most races come November. That often leaves the real action and potential for change among incumbents to the primaries, and yesterday's races in Mecklenburg showed how true that can be.

After the primaries Mecklenburg is assured....

• a new NC9 Congressman as incumbent Republican Rep Robert Pittenger lost to Reverend Mark Harris.  Pittenger was first elected to Congress in the old NC9 that used to include North Mecklenburg.
• a new Sheriff as incumbent Democrat Irvin Carmichael lost handily in a three way race to Garry McFadden.  No Republican is running in November, so this was the deciding vote for Sheriff.
• a new NC Senate 39 Senator as incumbent Democrat Joel Ford lost to Mujtaba Mohammed.
• a new NC House 99 Representative as incumbent Democrat Rodney Moore was ousted by Sasif Majeed.

While these races other than Sheriff did not directly impact North Mecklenburg, there was a Democratic primary competing for the opportunity to challenge Republican John Bradford for the NC House 98 seat in November.  In this race Democrats rallied strongly around candidate Christy Clark.  Clark received over 90% of the vote.  Of all the primaries held on Tuesday, Clark received the highest percentage of the vote of any candidate.

The general election is November 6th.