{"id":161093,"date":"2026-04-02T00:26:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=161093"},"modified":"2026-04-02T00:26:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:26:51","slug":"republican-phil-berger-one-of-north-carolinas-most-powerful-politicians-concedes-state-senate-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=161093","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Republican Phil Berger, one of North Carolina\u2019s most powerful politicians, concedes state Senate primary&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/24\/politics\/phil-berger-sam-page-north-carolina-senate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CNN:<\/a> &#8220;North Carolina State Senate leader Phil Berger on Tuesday conceded his primary race to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page \u2014 a political earthquake that took down arguably the most powerful politician in a pivotal swing state. A full machine recount held Page&#8217;s narrow 23-vote lead in the March 3 Republican primary for state Senate District 26. An endorsement from President Donald Trump and millions of dollars in outside spending weren&#8217;t enough to save Berger, whose loss hinged on a very local complaint: backlash surrounding a failed casino expansion proposal that Berger had championed grew into bitter resentment in his district. Page, the county&#8217;s cowboy hat-wearing sheriff since 1998, had helped lead the effort to oppose the casino, accusing Berger of making deals behind closed doors and trying to &#8216;sneak&#8217; the project into their community.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNN: &#8220;North Carolina State Senate leader Phil Berger on Tuesday conceded his primary race to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page \u2014 a political earthquake that took down arguably the most powerful politician in a pivotal swing state. A full machine recount held Page&#8217;s narrow 23-vote lead in the March 3 Republican primary for state Senate&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161094,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161093\/revisions\/161094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}