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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Governor’s Race in N.C. |Still Too Close to Call

(CN) - North Carolina's Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper claimed victory over incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, but the election is still considered too close to call with votes still to be counted.

"This election is not over," McCrory told his supporters early Wednesday morning.

At the time, Cooper had a lead of a few thousand votes, of the more than 4.6 million that had been counted.

The race has been closely watched and is considered a referendum on the state's shift to the right under McCrory who has championed a much-litigated state law that has limited anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and directs transgender people to use public restrooms matching the gender on their birth certificates.

The uncertainty confronting McCrory was a marked contrast to the decidedly favorable night Republicans enjoyed in state races across the country.

The GOP picked up a number of formerly Democratic governorships and also took control of a number of state legislatures.

Speaking on MSNBC Tuesday night, political commentator James Carville said combined with Donald Trump's win in the presidential race and the GOP's hold on both houses of Congress, Democrats have rarely been so out of power.

Heading into Tuesday night, Republicans controlled more than two-thirds of the nation's legislative chambers and 31 of the 50 governors' offices.

As of Wednesday morning, they potentially held 34 governorships the most since 1922.

In addition to the race in North Carolina, the governor race in Montana is also still considered too close to call.

Republicans took away governors' offices from Democrats in Missouri, New Hampshire and Vermont.

The GOP also won the Kentucky House for the first time in nearly a century and reclaimed the Iowa Senate from Democrats, giving the party control of both legislative chambers and the governor's offices in those states.

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