In this post, I’m going to look at a) what happened in these races, b) why it happened, and c) cap it off with how my predictions turned out.

U.S. Senate Republican Primary – Everyone has already covered this: early on, Tillis suffered from low name recognition and was hardly the ‘inevitable’ nominee the media depicted him as. Outside groups stepped in and pushed him over the 40% hurdle. The electability argument seems to have worked, and Tillis’s Tea Party foes never got traction. The GOP base is more wary of extremists now and seems to have learned their lesson from the 2012 losses. I predicted that the Tillis people would be waiting nervously for the results, but it turns out the polls were accurate and he won a clear victory.

U.S. Senate Democratic Primary – I’ll have a big post later about this, but Hagan’s 77% finish isn’t anything to write home about. Basically, Hagan = Obama, and she should expect the same support from conservative Democrats in the fall. She has no brand of her own.

NC-02 Republican Primary – Isn’t Ellmers glad that she didn’t get a strong primary challenger? (Jim Duncan of Chatham County and George Holding’s brother briefly considered challenging her.) Either one of those would have beaten her. I predicted she would win by about 20 points; she won by 18.

NC-02 Democratic Primary – Remember that poll Aiken touted which had him up 20 points? And their strategy of “let’s just do nothing and coast on name recognition”? Well, the poll was accurate and the strategy was sound, though Aiken was in danger of losing last week. Crisco ran a hard-fought campaign but it doesn’t look like he’ll be close enough to ask for a recount. Aiken’s celebrity and name recognition carried the day.

The geographic breakdown was interesting. As expected, Aiken did very well with the yuppies in the Wake County portion of the district, which is also where he lives. Democrats elsewhere weren’t as impressed, but Crisco just didn’t do as well with the conservative Democrats as he needed. Also, Toni Morris won Hoke County and is probably responsible for Crisco’s defeat; had the anti-Aiken vote coalesced then Crisco would be the nominee.

Ellmers got another break (she seems to get a lot of those, doesn’t she?) with Aiken being the nominee. While it’s possible the “Claymates” might come out for Aiken on Election Day, Crisco would have had more crossover appeal, especially in Randolph County, which is a large part of the district. Ellmers can breathe a little easier now.

NC-03 Republican Primary – This one’s pretty simple. Walter Jones is just too well-entrenched in this district for anyone to defeat him. I’ve heard people speculate that Jones might be scared into retiring in 2016, but why? The GOP establishment threw everything they had at him, and he survived by 6 points. If anything, this should discourage any challenger in the future. Jones might have this seat for life. (By the way, I predicted Jones would survive ‘by the skin of his teeth’. While he looked like a goner earlier in the night, 6 points isn’t quite skin-of-your-teeth territory.

NC-06 Republican Primary – As I expected, the fighting between Berger and VonCannon hurt them both. Berger ended up well below 40%, and VonCannon placed a poor third. Almost fourth, as a matter of fact. If you had been reading my posts, you would have known that VonCannon had no chance whatsoever of developing any traction in this race. Berger will face pastor Mark Walker in July. Berger, in his “victory” speech, stressed that he was a “Christian conservative.” A new challenger calls for new messaging.

NC-06 Democratic Primary – Laura Fjeld’s victory here was pretty underwhelming. Fortunately, she’ll have Republicans mired in an ugly primary, but I haven’t seen any evidence yet that this is anything less than Likely Republican.

NC-07 Republican Primary – I predicted Rouzer would defeat Woody White by “more or less the same margin as last time” (against Pantano) but Rouzer won by 14 points. Woody White started his campaign too late; Rouzer had a ton of name recognition and goodwill from his previous run for Congress;White also had problems becoming better-known in the Raleigh exurbs, etc. White was actually getting some traction before the Chamber of Commerce came in with their ads comparing him to John Edwards, which pretty much sealed the race for Rouzer.

NC-09 Republican Primary – Steinberg actually did stronger than I expected him to. He came within 20 points in Union County. Still, Pittenger won big without really campaigning. A race that wasn’t on the radar, and for good reason.

NC-12 Democratic Primary – Now, this is one of the surprises of the night, and the race that I really screwed up on, predictions-wise. Alma Adams won outright, which is quite an impressive feat considering the crowded field and that she’s not from Charlotte, the population center of the district. I predicted an Adams/Battle runoff … so much for that. Battle finished a distant third. Congratulations to Alma Adams on running an excellent campaign.

Overall, my predictions had a fairly mixed record. I nailed the 6th district Republican primary, but the Alma Adams race knocked me down a few pegs. One last thing: ads involving child rapists tend to backfire. We saw that in the Berger/VonCannon race and in the Supreme Court race, where Robin Hudson finished first against two Republican challengers. Voters know a desperate attack when they see one, and it turns them off to whichever candidate or group runs them.

John Wynne

John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.