How Phil Berger lost — and what it means

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Visit www.findchildcarenc.org or call +1 (888) 600-1685 for free personalized guidance. Hey. It's Tony Mascia with The Charlotte Ledger, and you're listening to The Charlotte Ledger Podcast. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger at thecharlotteledger.com. Today's podcast is a conversation I had with former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory on 03/27/2026.

In the conversation, we talked about the significance of the election loss of Phil Berger, who has led the North Carolina senate for the last sixteen years and is one of the most powerful politicians in the state. He lost to sheriff Sam Page by just 23 votes. McCrory and I talked about why Berger lost and what it means for the future of North Carolina politics. The Ledger is a media partner of PBS Charlotte, which has a weekly program called Unspun that McCrory hosts on Friday nights at 8PM. This recording is of a monthly online segment called Unspun Unscripted, in which the ledger teams up with PBS Charlotte and talks about current events and takes viewer questions.

It's a good discussion on important statewide political news, and I hope you enjoy it. Governor, welcome.

It's great to be here, Tony. We predicted on a past Unspun show that this was gonna be the race of the decade in North Carolina between, Sam Page and Phil Berger. And people are in this area going, who? Sam Page and Phil Berger? Who are they?

Well, you know, Sam Page was the, sheriff of of Rockingham County, a small county up on the Virginia border just, north of Greensboro. And, this district was Guilford County and Alamance County. So why does anyone care about a small senate race? Well, the incumbent was state senator Phil Berger, who's been president of the senate for over fourteen years. And some would say the most powerful person in state government and solid seat, gerrymandered seat for the Republican Party.

He controls what legislation has been passed under Republican and Democratic control, and, he raised a lot of money over $10,000,000 spent on this race, and he lost by 23 votes.

I mean, let's let's just unpack this a little bit because a lot of time, there have been close races in the past and different things, but we're talking about Phil Berger who is, like you said, the the majority leader in the senate, you know, ruled over the senate for the last as as leader for the last sixteen years. And I I it's important that we state exactly how powerful Bill Berger is. How would you characterize the power of Bill Berger?

He controlled whether legislation passed or not in North Carolina during the last fourteen years. And during his tenure, he kept trying to take more power away from the executive branch. In fact, when I was governor, I had to sue Phil Berger because he was trying to take away more authority of the governor and pass it to him in the legislative branch. And we had a case called Berger versus McCrory. I happened to win that case, but there were a lot of scars.

And we were in the same party, but he didn't care if there was Republican governor or not. He said, we are the boss, and we're gonna you're gonna have to do what we say you wanna do. And so there was a constant fight regarding who has the authority regarding separation of powers. We're seeing a little bit of that in DC between Trump and, the congress right now, between executive powers and congressional powers. Well, that's what Phil kinda like to have.

He was following a model, Tony, of what he had learned from senator Bass Knight from Eastern North Carolina when there is total democratic control. His predecessor, senator Bass Knight, wanted total control too. It took away power from lieutenant governor when it was Republican Jim Gardner at the time. And, if you wanted anything done, you better go through Bass Knight, if not through him, some lobbyists who used to work for Bass Knight. And that was very similar with Phil Berger.

He had if you were an ex staffer with Phil Berger, you got a job somewhere in North Carolina as a lobbyist, as a consultant, as working at the hospitals, working, you name it, for the Carolina hurricanes, UNC governor's, post. You got a job because that was an entryway to Phil Berger. And so once you got Phil Berger on your resume, you had access, and you could almost kind of sell that access, very similar to what the Democrats used to do with senator the Bastianite. When I was mayor of Charlotte, man, you had to work through senator Bastianite.

Let's talk a little bit about this race because, ordinarily, you would think someone that powerful who has such an ability to raise money that, in a safe Republican seat, is is gonna be untouchable, just about. This race, after the ballots were tallied, on election night, he was down 23 votes, asked for a recount. The recount didn't really change anything, was still down 23 votes, Was looking at, okay. Are there any legal challenges? And then finally, this week decided, I'm I'm not gonna fight it.

I'm gonna I'm gonna concede.

They did a partial recount too. Partial hand recount would change no votes.

Right. And so we talked about how unusual this is. What were some of the dynamics in this race? And, you know, you look at it say, how did he lose this race? He obviously run against the the sheriff there, in rocking there's a there's a district, by the way, North of Greensboro, Rockingham, and and Guilford Counties.

You know, fairly suburban rural district.

Well, first of all, four major dynamics, if I can remember. One is an incumbent almost never gets challenged within a primary, especially the most powerful incumbent state politics. And the sheriff, a very popular sheriff, decided to challenge him mainly because of a gambling issue. Phil Berger tried to implement gamble get a gambling casino in Rockingham County, and it just so happened the gambling lobby gave Phil and the Senate Superback a lot of money. Legal, not under the cover money, but a lot of money.

And his main guy, Jim Blaine, and others benefited from a large amount of money. We're talking 7 figure money from the gambling industry, and the gambling effort failed at the last minute. And the people of Rockingham County were furious with, Phil Berger. He goes, we don't want gambling, and we need real jobs in Rockingham County, a county that's been hurting, by the way, for a long time. The second major dynamic, which is incredibly unique, Donald Trump, not only endorsed Phil Berger, a state senate race Donald Trump got involved in.

And when Donald Trump gets involved in a Republican primary nationally, Donald Trump's candidate wins. Not only did Donald Trump get involved, he personally called sheriff Page at his home and offered him a job at the White House. Said you need to come work for me. Now you gotta understand, Phil Berger had just gerrymandered North Carolina senate district one or House District 1 to add another Republican seat. Bill Berger did that as a favor to the president.

The president got involved in this race because of that most likely. I assume some other congresspeople from North Carolina said, you need to help with this. So they thought that was that was it, you know, based upon the McCrory factor where, you know, the president endorsed Ted Budd, and next thing I knew, I lost 30 lead just like that. It didn't happen. But he offered sheriff Sam Page a job at the White House, and Sam said, I'm not interested.

I'm filing. I'm gonna do this. I mean, that's unheard of. He even had the state the personnel department from the White House call him up a week later and said, hey. We're what are you gonna do?

And he said, I haven't changed my mind. I mean, that's never happened in North Carolina politics for a state senate race. And I'll mention a third thing. 10,000,000 and more was raised. Every major corporation in North Carolina, every major nonprofit in North Carolina, every special interest, including gambling, gave to Phil Berger's campaign or super PAC, including many right here from the Charlotte area that benefited from Phil Berger being in the senate job.

They liked working with him because he could get things done that they wanted. They know how they knew how to work with him, and, they didn't wanna get on the bad side of him either. So 10,000,011 million dollars and the guy running it was Jim Blaine political consultant pr person never been a registered lobbyist but he has lobbyists working for him Many people say he makes well into 7 figures. He used to drive for Phil Berger back in the day, young driver. Podcast,

So he was one of the people who benefited from having access to Phil Berger and and Blaine and a guy named from Charlotte

Sheehan, very influential political consultant lawyer in North Mecklenburg. He was treasurer of this effort, and they spent 10 and more on this race. And the most malicious ads that we never saw in Charlotte, but Greensboro, they saw the ads. I mean, if you would have seen an ad, you would have never voted for sheriff Sam Page. And the people in Guilford County voted two to one against him, but the people in Rockingham County voted two to one for Sam Page because the commercials had no impact on him because they knew Sam Page.

Those are four things.

Alright. There's a lot to unpack there, and you mentioned the Trump endorsement of of, senator Berger. Does this, Everybody, particularly in Washington, always likes to try to read the tea leaves on these sorts of things. Does this signal trouble for Republicans in the midterms in that you had a president, like you say, very unusual, getting involved in a state Senate race, but it backs the wrong per backs the losing candidate. Is it does that is that a referendum on on Trump, or are we gonna see big, big anti Trump wave this year in the election?

Well, we haven't seen it. The primaries are over. So this was usually the wave in the primary. In the general election, yeah, there's no doubt the numbers are impacting other candidates with president Trump. And the question will be, will they use president Trump on the campaign trail?

But many are in office because they got endorsed by president Trump. So but this is a state senate race, and maybe we've learned the local issues mean even more than the president of The United States like gambling. It's a very conservative community, big churchgoers, very religious. They don't want gambling. And by the way, the Berger family, his son is on the Supreme Court and his other son's chairman of the county commission in Rockingham County.

Can I ask you, governor? How hard is it in something like this? You know, the margin was so razor thin, 23 votes. How hard is it? Okay.

I'm gonna actually not contest these Because I would imagine, especially if you're surrounded by loyalists, you probably have people that are like, Listen, all we need to do is we need to pick up 23 votes. We can challenge these votes. We have things we can do. We have legal maneuvers we can do. How hard is that to say, after sixteen years of majority leader, especially, I'm conceded?

Well, you're you're asking the right guy because I had to do that with, 10,000 votes or at the time 5,000 votes out of 4,600,000. So less than 1% of the vote.

And this is in your 2016 reelection.

'26 reelection against Roy Cooper, and I was declared the winner initially on TV, and then some votes came in from Durham. I had a 90,000 lead and, with less than 1% of the vote. And then some late votes came in from Durham that were supposed to be turned in at 07:30. Next thing, I'm down 5,000 votes. So my But

what's that like being in that situation? Like, you had to decide. Do I press how long do I press this, and how long do I nor do I let it go?

You know, I try to relate it to a basketball game where the official makes a bad call, and you're looking for a video review. Do you use your time out or not? It's a good time to talk about that during the NCAA basketball, or do you embarrass yourself by asking? But the state law says if it's less than 1%, you can get an automatic recount. The dilemma is it costs a lot of money to be a recount, not by the state, but the candidates have to hire lawyers.

And, Sam Page didn't have a lot. I think they I don't know how much money they spent, maybe $300,000 to fill Berger's 10 to 11,000,000. Bill had a lot of money for lawyers, and he raised more money for that. And, I'll bet you they spent over a quarter of $1,000,000 on lawyers for a partial recount on a very small turnout, maybe 20,000 votes, 25,000 votes. Yeah.

It's a tough call. The the call that's toughest for me was to give up, and I still have a lot of Republicans who are mad at me for, conceding the election. You didn't fight McCrory. You didn't you didn't see they rigged it for you. You they stole the election from me.

You should have bought it. And that's what Trump did in, four years later. So there's a lot of pressure, I'm sure, for all these people that raised $11,000,000 going, you're giving up for 23 votes. You're not gonna fight this thing till the death. So, yeah, it's a lot of pressure.

And on the ego, there's ego involved in this.

Of course. We'll be right back to the conversation. This episode of the Charlotte Ledger Podcast is presented by Child Care Search, helping families navigate child care with confidence. I want to talk a little bit about Phil Berger. Obviously, you you're mentioning extremely influential, very powerful.

If you wanted anything done in Raleigh, it went through Phil Berger. You know, a lot of times you hear about legislation. Legislation, of course. Legislation done, you go through Bill Berger. Is that the way it's supposed to work?

That is certainly the way it has worked, but a lot of times you hear about things like restoring normal order, having committees do the work as opposed to having just a handful of very powerful people who at the last minute introduce legislation that goes through. What are the prospects for whoever succeeds Bill Berger? We can talk about that in a minute. What are the prospects for things changing, or or is it all gonna be still run through a small number of Republican legislators in Raleigh?

I hate to say, but both in DC and in Raleigh and most state capitals, when you pick your leadership, the leadership raises a lot of money, gives the impression of maybe even having more power than they do. All the corporations and lawyers and special interests give the money to the leaders, then the leaders threaten the members going, if you don't go for me, I'll spend money against you in the primary and get someone if you don't go along with me, I'll pay you back. You will be defeated. You saw this with Democrats in Mecklenburg County who voted with the Republicans one time, and they were voted out of office in the primary. And Governor Cooper made sure they weren't gonna be around anymore.

So it may remain the same, but probably with that not much power. They might challenge the new person a little more, and it might be instead of a group of one or two, it might be a group of five to 10 people who hold that power. It might be a committee as opposed to two or three people.

Alright. I see we have a question from Roxelana. She asks, do you think Sam Page acted independently, or do these actions reflect support from a new faction in North Carolina Republican Party?

Well, I know Sam Page, and Sam Page is really not aligned with anyone. He was the only people he was aligned with was his people back home where he's been sheriff for well over a decade. And, you know, he's a good old boy. Wears a cowboy hat, sunglasses. He'd meet he he'd it'd be great for a TV show.

So, I I don't see Sam Page being a group of any faction. He was in charge of president Trump's statewide campaign in 2016, I think '16. So he was very aligned with Trump, and Trump never went after him. You know, when Trump didn't endorse me, he went after me. He called me a loser and the the the name after name after name.

When he didn't endorse Sam, he said Sam's still a good guy. So Trump held back a little bit compared to the way he usually does endorsements.

Yeah. And and I don't know that you know, just to be clear, I don't know that there are great policy differences between Phil Berger and Sam Page. I mean, Berger was endorsed by Trump, Sounds like sort of for political, for political reasons, but I think if you put them on the issues other than the the gambling issue you're talking about, there's probably a lot more similarities than differences. Right?

I would probably agree. Although Sam also talked about teacher pay raises. He criticized Berger for the budget still not done. He criticized Berger for losing touch with the people of Rockingham County where we never see him. He spent all his time in Raleigh and Charlotte raising money.

So, you know, this happens. Who's the former Kentucky majority of the senate leader? Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell. I'd almost say this is reminisces of Mitch McConnell in in Kentucky, the two people running for his replacement.

All they're doing is cutting down Mitch McConnell for losing touch with the people of Kentucky while he was one of the most powerful people in The United States. So this often happens to leadership where they lose touch with the people back home. And all the consultants around him and ex staffers, you know, Jim Blaine and his other staffers are working for the gambling interest or other interests. They're gonna maybe in fact, I kind of feel maybe didn't see what was hitting him because he was doing orders old staffers were saying, but he did the old staffers are getting paid by their their customers to push this, and they don't care what happens back in Rockingham County. They're not thinking about it.

So they didn't really check out what what the people are thinking back home. You know, think about Mitch McConnell and their other Democratic and Republican leaders in DC who lost their way back home because of their leadership in DC.

Yeah. And wanted to ask you, speaking of those former staffers, so what's next do you think for Phil Berger and for the this group of former staffers and current staffers? What happens to them now?

That's a great question. I think the first question is, are the lobbyists that are coming out of Bill Berger's camp in the past? Are they gonna continue to have all their clients, including some major clients in in Charlotte? Are they gonna go, well, this guy no longer is in, or is he gonna give the impression that he is really in? The other one the other staffers are all over state government right now.

I don't anticipate them losing their jobs, but their influence may be a little different now based on who the new leader is. And will the new leader selected be a Phil Berger person, or will it be someone who says, no. We need a different model now in the state senate. You also have to realize most likely after this election, the state senate will not have a supermajority. So they're gonna not have the power that Phil Berger had as a supermajority all these years.

Yeah. Let's talk about, you know, potential successor. Then I'm assuming that if right now, if you're a Republican in the North Carolina Senate, you probably were a Phil Berger supporter. Like because if you're a leader in the Senate, you get that position by virtue of being in pretty good with Phil Berger.

So

it would seem like a lot of people are gonna who are probably gonna be the successors will have some connection or some alignment, you know, with senator Berger. But some of the names that have been mentioned, Michael Lee from, the, Wilmington area. Todd Johnson, he's a a senator, represents Union and Cabarrus County here in the Charlotte region. And then Ralph High, so I think it's from, I believe Mitchell County, which I think is up in the mountain. So you got from from the, from the mountains to the coast, you have some option.

What what are you what are you seeing there?

I I've known Michael Lee for a long time. He was a senator when I or a house member. I can't remember now when I was governor. I knew him in the Wilmington area, a very popular, at one time, probably more moderate. It's gone more conservative, more Trump.

I think he's got a very good shot at it. The one problem he has, he's in a very competitive race. It's not a totally red seat that he's sitting on, and he could be defeated in the general election. So they might not want someone who might lose either this election or next election. He's well liked, well respected, a smart guy.

Heiss has been there forever. Good old boy, Western North Carolina. I think he has an accounting background. He knows a lot about health care, a lot about the budget. He he knows inside Raleigh altogether.

I don't know. He doesn't seem to be the guy who could be the total leader, but he may surprise me. He's held on to a committee chairmanship for a long time. Very powerful, especially in health care. And the third is from Union County and Cabarrus County.

He might be the leading candidate. All announced that they might be running, and now that's where the real game comes. Do they seek Berger's help? Do they seek Jim Blaine, the lobbyist help, or other lobbyists that are on the payroll of law firms and other people? Do they go against Berger now and say we need fresh leadership?

They're gonna be walking on eggshells running this because Berger is still the senate leader till the session ends. So this is gonna be very you know, it reminds me of the White House a little bit, you know, between Marco and, Vance. You know, what point in time do they start running for president? Or if they start too early, will the president go, what the heck are you doing? I still got three years to go.

Yeah.

So do you see Berger remaining as majority leader through the end of his term, or or is he kind of a lame duck status now where maybe he doesn't have that car?

It's probably lame duck, but I don't I don't see them kicking Berger out. No. I don't. And I got it. Listen.

I people knew my disagreements with Phil, but I gotta say Phil, me, and Tom Tillis at the time, speaker of the house, and Tim Moore, You know, we got major tax reform. We got school reform. We got transportation reform. We reduced the $2,000,000,000 deficit together. We had some we got bonds passed for community colleges, universities, transportation money.

We did a lot, gave the largest teacher pay raises. So in one way, I worked very well with Phil Berger. He's the best poker player I've ever seen in my life. He never would show his cards. You know, when I'd have my meetings with him, he would never give up information.

I wish I had that skill, but that's what the skill you need in legislative.

That that's his forthcoming departure. Does that signal a shift of power in any way in Raleigh? I mean, will we see the house become a little more powerful and the senate not so much? I mean, obviously, you have a dynamic where you have a democratic governor. You're gonna have a republican controlled house and senate.

Although, as you said, the prediction would be that they would not have a supermajority. What does this do to the power dynamics in Raleigh?

I think it could make the house more powerful, and the house has always been rather subservient. So subservient to the senate, which always has made them mad. When I was governor, you know, Tim Moore against Phil Berger. Phil Berger, you know, many would say would just you know, he was the leader, and the house members with The fights are usually between the house and senate. Not it went between me and the house and senate.

It was between them, and I had to moderate, the power struggles between one party. And you see that in DC too. I think it makes Stein more powerful. I think Stein's gonna try to take advantage of this weakness, governor Stein, and maybe, with the without the Berger money from the senate super PAC, he's depleted probably a lot of it. The Democrats might say, we got a chance maybe to even swing, the house or senate and, or at least at a minimum, not give them the super, majority, which increases the power of the governor.

Alright. We have a question here, in the chat from d force. I don't know if that's, actual name or if that's a reference to Delta Force and Chuck Norris. May he rest in peace. But the question is, is there a future for people to enter politics that have integrity and a backbone, or will parties only support individuals who will do what they are told to do regardless of their personal beliefs?

DC indicates only the latter.

Well, I'll tell you this. I think most people who run for office get into office with integrity and idealism. And then when they get in, especially in the legislature, they realize the rules are set. And this is where I think the two party system has failed. I try not to give my political opinion on this show, but from more of a political analyst.

But the dilemma with the two party system is in the legislature, if you don't get along with either party, you're discarded because the the party leaders determine who the chairmans are, and the committees determine what legislation goes through. So if you don't play the game in your first six years and wait for seniority, you're a back mentor, and, that's very disappointing. That's why you see a lot of people, the very idealistic people tend to leave leave congress after a very short time and go run for governor or mayor or something, which is a heck of a lot more fun than kissing someone's rear end in your own party that you might not respect in order to gain influence to get things you want done. Does that make sense?

I think that makes, that's a lot of sense.

Even though I run ran for senate, I don't know if I would have been a good one because I'm not the type to kiss. So so Right.

Well, I'm sure right now as you you know, there are lot of there's a lot of conversations in Raleigh about what happens next, you know, where the legislature goes from here, who's gonna lead, what this means. I'm sure there are a lot of people looking looking at it. Any other thoughts, on this race? Any any other implications of it you think we haven't gotten into?

Well, let me tell you the good news to the person who just asked the question. It's the first time in probably North Carolina history where big money, big power, and big influence lost, and the voters won. And it's no reflection on Phil, but in a way, it's good that it shows that someone without big money, big power, and big influence can actually win. And we're talking about 50 to one spending against them and the most brutal negative ads. And the voters said no, and that is very rare.

I mean, every campaign I lost, I got outspent three to four to one, and the negative ads usually work. So maybe this is a turnaround where both parties will go, god, maybe there's some way we could do what Sam Page did. He took a heck of a risk, and, I gotta give him credit, in that regard.

Well, that sounds like a good place to end it for today. We're interested to see what happens in the coming weeks, and months. Thank you, Governor McCrory. Good good talk with you here. Thank you for the time.

Thanks, Tony. That's it for today. To our listeners, thank you for listening. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger at the charlotteledger.com. This episode of The Charlotte Ledger Podcast was produced by Lindsey Banks.

This episode of The Charlotte Ledger Podcast was presented by Child Care Search, providing families with personalized guidance and free referrals for quality child care programs. Queencitypodcastnetwork.com.