Edmunds, Morgan advance in Supreme Court primary

Associate Justice Bob Edmunds and Wake County Superior Court Judge Mike Morgan have advanced to November’s general election for a seat on the North Carolina’s Supreme Court after a June 7 special primary marked by low voter turnout across the state.

Edmunds captured 48 percent of the vote, with Morgan following at 34 percent. Attorneys Sabra Faires of Cary and Daniel Robertson of Advance received 12 and 5 percent of the vote, respectively.

Fewer than 488,000 people voted in an election where the only other race on a voter’s ballot, if any, was a U.S. congressional primary—a voter turnout of just 7 percent.

The judicial election was the result of a lawsuit which successfully overturned a state law that would have replaced traditional elections for the Supreme Court with retention elections. Faires was the lead plaintiff in that suit. Although she was unable to parlay her success in that lawsuit to a spot on November’s ballot, Faires said she had absolutely no regrets about taking on that fight.

“I forced a real election, and the voters had a choice, and that’s what matters the most. I’m already a winner,” Faires said. “I won that lawsuit and the voters will have a real choice in the November elections as well. I won the war but not the battle.”

Supreme Court elections are nominally nonpartisan, but Edmunds was endorsed by the state’s Republican Party and Morgan was endorsed by the state’s Democratic Party. Faires is an independent, which she says put her at a serious disadvantage, as it did in her 2014 campaign for a seat on the state’s Court of Appeals.

“There’s no doubt, that was absolutely a disadvantage,” Faires said. “You’re just fighting the inexorable tide of the party machineries.”

The June 7 vote tallies may provide limited insight into the state of the general election race. Turnout varied widely by congressional district, with the highest turnout coming in a handful of districts that featured highly competitive primaries on the Republican side.

Follow David Donovan on Twitter @NCLWDonovan