| |||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 77.4% | ||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||
Tillis: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% >90% Cunningham: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% >90% Tie: 40–50% | |||||||||||||||||
|
Elections in North Carolina |
---|
The 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina was held on November 3, 2020, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of North Carolina, concurrently with the 2020 United States presidential election as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. North Carolina was one of just five states holding presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial elections concurrently in 2020. On March 3, 2020, Republican incumbent Thom Tillis and Democratic former state senator Cal Cunningham won their respective primaries.[1]
Cunningham led Tillis in the polls throughout much of the campaign.[2]
In early October of 2020, it was reported that Cunningham had exchanged sexually suggestive messages with a married woman who was not his wife. Cunningham confirmed the texts were authentic and apologized for his behavior.[3][4] The woman stated that she had a consensual physical relationship with Cunningham in 2020.[5][6]
Incumbent Republican Senator Thom Tillis was re-elected to a second term. Tillis outperformed pre-election polling to win a narrow victory, successfully breaking the "one-term curse" that existed with this particular Senate seat for over thirty years; as no incumbent had been re-elected to this seat since 1996.[7][8][9] On November 10, 2020, a week after Election Day, Cunningham called Tillis to concede the race.[10] Tillis won by a margin of 1.8% over Cunningham, slightly larger than his 1.5% victory in 2014.[11][12]