by Lilly Knoepp, NCLocal
November 10, 2026
While Western NC saw more Democrats elected to the state House and Senate than the previous decade, most incumbent Republicans held onto their seats in the far west.
After the Nov. 3 election, Democrats in Raleigh will now control the N.C. House of Representatives for the first time in 16 years after winning 71 of 120 seats, according to unofficial results.
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Democrat Lynne Russo won the 117th House district, which covers about half of Henderson County. Her victory marks the first time a Democrat has held the seat since 1959, according to her campaign, and she credits the victory to her focus on Hurricane Helene relief efforts – and the region’s frustration with inadequate funding.
“The morning of the election, I said to my campaign manager, we’re about to find out just how tired America is – and it turned out they were pretty tired,” Russo told NC Local.
She won by just under 4 points over Republican Chelsea Walsh. Walsh took incumbent Republican Jennifer Balkcom’s place in the election after Balkcom was tapped to run for N.C.’s 11th House District Congressional seat.
Russo said she hoped to be appointed to the House’s Appropriations Committee to help speed up Helene recovery funding.
“Because of the time I’ve spent, not just in Henderson County but in Western North Carolina, understanding the needs around Helene recovery, I probably am the right person to go and fight for it to move faster, to get bigger dollars and just solve some of the bottleneck problems,” she said.
One goal is to fund a skilled trades program to help locals rebuild Western North Carolina. For now, though, Russo isn’t worried about difficulty jumping in as a new representative.
“The freshman class is 23 people. It’s crazy,” Russo said. “I just flipped what people consider to be an unflippable seat. I moved 19 points left. I worked on it 16 hours a day. I mean, honestly, if I can do that, I can do this.”
Mark Burrows, the first Democrat to win the 119th House district since 2018, provided another flip after narrowly defeating incumbent Rep. Anna Ferguson. In 2022, the 119th district map was redrawn to include Transylvania, Swain and Jackson counties.
Haywood County representation was shifted to the 118th district with Madison County, which remained in Republican control on Election Day after Jimmy Rogers beat three-term incumbent Rep. Mark Pless in the Republican primary. Rogers earned the seat by fewer than 2 points over Democrat Danny Davis.
House leadership will also play large role in the organization of the chamber. Democrat Robert Reives of Chatham County will be the incoming North Carolina House Speaker. He already called for changes to the budget process at a Tuesday press conference.
Senate incumbents hold strong
While Western North Carolina will see new House representation in 2027, the region’s Senate representation didn’t change. Five incumbents from the mountains are heading back to Raleigh. Four are Republicans, with Democratic Sen. Julie Mayfield of Buncombe County as the sole Democrat.
Preliminary results have the state Senate at almost even with 24 Democrats and 25 Republicans elected, according to WUNC.
The remaining Dist. 24 Senate race between Republican Sen. Danny Britt and Democratic challenger Catina Hamm in Hoke County is still undecided but Britt is currently ahead, WRAL reported.
The balance in the Senate hinges on which party prevails in that race, leading either to a Republican majority or potential where tie votes will be decided by Democratic Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt.
One big change, however, is certain: Longtime Senate leader Phil Berger won’t be in the chamber for the first time in 25 years after losing a close Republican primary to Sam Page. (Page was victorious in the Dist. 26 race last week.)
Republican Sen. Kevin Corbin, who’s represented District 50, the westernmost district in the state, for three consecutive terms, told NC Local he expects cooperation in finding a new leader.
“I think it’s just a matter of each person that’s interested in the job explaining their vision for how they might lead the Senate, what their goals are and just see how many people line up with that,” Corbin said.
He handily won re-election against Democrat Tom Downings with about 58% of the vote.
“Regionally I suspect that we will work reasonably well together,” Corbin said. “We’ve done that in the past. For example, Julie Mayfield is the closest senator to me geographically. Julie and I’ve always worked well together. I’m a conservative Republican. She’s a pretty liberal Democrat. We agree on 90% of things and the things that we disagree about we just disagree and move on.”
Corbin said this political power shift reminds him of when Republicans took over the N.C. House and Senate for the first time in 150 years in 2010.
“That was a larger change than this,” he said. “But we forget that. It’s the same thing. So it’s not earth-shattering. It just is what it is.”
Corbin, who co-chairs the Governor’s Advisory Committee on WNC Recovery, welcomes newcomers in the legislature to join the work on Hurricane Helene recovery.
“We’ve done four different appropriations, those appropriations of total $3.1 billion – with a ‘B,’ $3.1 billion – which is the largest hurricane relief amount that’s been appropriated,” he said. Corbin added that he’s been working “hand-in-hand” on recovery with the Gov. Josh Stein for two years.
He expects another appropriation for Helene recovery in the spring.
Mayfield, Corbin’s Democratic Senate colleague who represents District 49, agrees local collaboration will continue. She won reelection with more than 77% of the vote over Republican C.J. Domingo.
Statewide, the swing is an opportunity for Democrats at the state level, she told NC Local.
“Where I do think it’s going to make a difference is our ability, meaning Democrats’ ability, to move legislation that we couldn’t move last year,” she said.
That means starting with “common sense” policies voters asked for on the campaign trail.
“We need to be focused on what we heard from voters and that was all about affordability,” Mayfield said. “Our levers are not as big as the levers in Washington, but we need to do everything we can to bring down the cost of living. Or do the flipside, put more money in people’s pockets. So here’s an opportunity maybe to raise the minimum wage in North Carolina.”
With the shifts, Mayfield hopes to see collaboration early on in the legislative process when 2027 rolls around.
“I hope there’s a chance to be maybe a little more thoughtful about this and even as the House is developing legislation that Democrats can be involved,” she said. She pointed to housing legislation she’s worked on with Sen. Tim Moffitt, a Republican from Henderson County who represents District 48.
Mayfield said the work will hinge on new leadership in the Senate — and how that leadership will gel with the House in the next legislative session.
“Republicans, if they remain in control of the [Senate] they have to be seen as getting things done, right?,” she said. “If we go through the next two years in a stalemate, with the House passing a bunch of stuff that the Senate never takes up and the Senate passing a bunch of stuff that the House never takes up, the voters are not going to like that.”
While the state legislature will look differently, their relationship with the Trump administration has changed even more drastically.
At the federal level, Democrats control both chambers of Congress. For the first time in nearly 14 years, the mountains are sending a Democrat to Washington.
Newly-elected 11th U.S. Congressional House District Representative Jamie Ager announced a bi-partisan transition team Monday to start work before he’s sworn in on Jan. 3.
A priority will be Helene recovery – which hinges on federal dollars.
This article first appeared on NCLocal and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. 
