After full recount, Berger still trails Page in hotly-contested Republican primary
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Full machine recount confirms Sam Page leads Phil Berger by 23 votes.
- Berger likely to seek sample hand recount. He has also claimed voting irregularities.
- Page campaign says Berger refusal to concede is “an insult to voters”
A full machine recount of North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger’s contentious Republican primary election against Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page returned the exact same result as before: Berger trails by 23 votes.
Berger, one of the state’s most powerful politicians, has been fighting for his political future after facing a bruising primary challenge from Page.
On election night, Page led by just two votes. After provisional ballots were counted, he expanded that lead to 23.
That lead didn’t budge by a single vote after recounts concluded in Guilford and Rockingham counties, where Berger’s Senate district is located.
“Phil Berger lost this race — and the recount confirmed it,” Patrick Sebastian, an adviser to Page’s campaign, said in a statement. “His refusal to accept that reality is an insult to voters and a waste of taxpayer dollars. It’s time for Phil Berger to concede and offer his complete and total endorsement to Sam Page.”
Berger did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but he is likely to call for a sample hand recount.
How hand recount would work
In this event, election officials randomly select 3% of precincts and early voting sites in the district and hand count the votes there. If the sample recount shows sufficient discrepancies — which is historically unlikely — the State Board of Elections can then order a full hand-to-eye recount of all ballots cast in the district.
Thursday’s news comes one day after the State Board of Elections declined Berger’s unusual request to prematurely hand count a subsection of 220 ballots he identified as undervotes or overvotes.
An undervote occurs when a voter is recorded as having left a certain contest blank on their ballot, whereas an overvote is when the voter is recorded as having picked more than one preference in a race.
Voters can intentionally choose to leave a contest blank, but Berger argued that these ballots should be examined by hand to determine if the counting machines accidentally missed a voter’s ballot mark.
The board, however, which has a 3-2 Republican majority, decided not to take action on his request and said it would let the normal recount process play out.
Other Berger election protests
Berger has also filed a series of election protests alleging various irregularities, including that some voters were given the wrong ballot. His protests would only affect 13 voters at most — not enough to clear the gap between himself and Page.
But, election protests can — in rare cases — result in a new election being called. This would require a vote of at least four of the five members of the State Board of Elections.
Rockingham and Guilford counties held preliminary hearings on Berger’s protests on Thursday and agreed to allow them to proceed, though they did not weigh in on the merits of his claims.
This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 2:28 PM.
