North Carolina Superintendent of Schools election, 2016

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North Carolina Superintendent Election

Primary Date: March 15, 2016

General Election Date: November 8, 2016

November Election Winner: Mark Johnson (R)

Incumbent Prior to Election: June Atkinson (D)

State Executive Elections Top Ballot Governor • Lt. Governor Secretary of State • Attorney General Down Ballot Auditor • Insurance Commissioner Agriculture Commissioner Superintendent of Schools • Treasurer Labor Commissioner

Key election dates

Filing deadline (partisan): December 21, 2015

Primary date: March 15, 2016

Filing deadline (independents): June 9, 2016

Filing deadline (write-ins): July 26, 2016

General election date: November 8, 2016

Inauguration: January 7, 2017

North Carolina held an election for superintendent of public instruction on November 8, 2016. Republican Mark Johnson unseated incumbent Democrat June Atkinson, giving Republicans control of the office for the first time in over 100 years.

HIGHLIGHTS

Prior to the 2016 election, the office of superintendent of public instruction in North Carolina had been held by Democrats since 1901.

Incumbent June Atkinson (D) ran for re-election to a fourth term; she defeated high school principal Henry Pankey (D) in the March 15 primary election.

Attorney Mark Johnson (R) defeated J. Wesley Sills (R) and Rosemary Stein (R) in the March 15 primary. Johnson and Atkinson competed in the November 8 general election.

Johnson unseated Atkinson in the general election on November 8, 2016.

Overview

The superintendent of public instruction is the secretary and chief administrative officer of the State Board of Education, and is responsible for the day-to-day management of the state's public school system. North Carolina has been under Republican trifecta control since Governor Pat McCrory (R) assumed office in 2013. This represented a fairly rapid shift in partisan control for the state, which had been under Democratic trifecta control as recently as 2010.

The office of superintendent of public instruction in North Carolina had been held by Democrats since 1901. Incumbent June Atkinson (D) ran for re-election to a fourth term. She defeated primary challenger Henry Pankey on March 15, winning the Democratic nomination. Attorney Mark Johnson (R) won a three-way primary race for the Republican nomination. Johnson and Atkinson competed in the November general election. Johnson unseated Atkinson in the general election on November 8, 2016.

Candidates

June Atkinson (D)
Incumbent superintendent of public instruction since 2005

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Mark Johnson (R)
Attorney, former teacher

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Click [show] to view candidates who were defeated in the primary elections.
Henry Pankey (D) - High school principal J. Wesley Sills (R) - High school teacher Rosemary Stein (R) - Pediatrician

Results

General election

Mark Johnson defeated incumbent June Atkinson in the North Carolina superintendent of schools election.

North Carolina Superintendent of Schools, 2016
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Republican	Mark Johnson	50.64%	2,262,274
	Democratic	June Atkinson Incumbent	49.36%	2,205,483
Total Votes				4,467,757
Source: ABC11

Primary elections

North Carolina Superintendent of Schools Democratic Primary, 2016
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
June Atkinson	79.8%	776,302
Henry J. Pankey	20.2%	196,703
Total Votes		973,005
Election results via North Carolina State Board of Elections.

North Carolina Superintendent of Schools Republican Primary, 2016
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Mark Johnson	53.3%	441,865
Rosemary Stein	32.9%	272,131
J. Wesley Sills	13.8%	114,274
Total Votes		828,270
Election results via North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Context of the 2016 election

Primary elections

A primary election is an election in which voters select the candidate they believe should represent a political party in a general election. Primaries usually take place several months before a general election. North Carolina utilizes a hybrid primary system. Parties decide who may vote in their respective primaries. Voters may choose a primary ballot without impacting their unaffiliated status.

In North Carolina, when more than two candidates run in a primary election and one candidate does not receive more than 40 percent of the vote, the second-place candidate can request a runoff primary, sometimes referred to as a second primary. However, because of the redrawing of congressional and state legislative district boundaries, state executive elections in 2016 did not feature a runoff primary. This means the 2016 primary elections for state executives were unique and particularly competitive in that the winning candidate automatically received the party nomination regardless of the percentage of votes received.

North Carolina's primary elections took place on March 15, 2016.

Incumbent June Atkinson (D)

June Atkinson (D) was first elected in 2004, defeating Republican Bill Fletcher by a margin of just 0.2 percent. She then handily won re-election in 2008 and again in 2012. She was the first female to be elected to the position. Prior to her tenure as superintendent, she had worked as an employee of the Department of Public Instruction since 1974. She was previously a high school teacher.

Party control in North Carolina

See also: Party control of North Carolina state government

North Carolina had been under Republican trifecta control since Governor Pat McCrory (R) assumed office in 2013. This represented a fairly rapid shift in partisan control for the state, which had been under Democratic trifecta control as recently as 2010. North Carolina's electoral votes went to the Republican presidential candidate in every election cycle since 1980, with the exception of 2008 when the state voted to elect Barack Obama (D). North Carolina began attracting significant attention as a presidential battleground state with Obama's unexpected 2008 win in the state—the first Democratic candidate to do so since Jimmy Carter (D) in 1976. For the past two presidential elections, the state's presidential preference influenced statewide elections. This influence, coupled with the recent trend of close elections in the state, promised competitive races in 2016.

Both Republican and Democratic candidates gained success in recent elections. Democrat Bev Perdue won the gubernatorial election and Democrat Kay Hagan defeated incumbent Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole in 2008. The state swung back to Republicans in 2012 when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney narrowly beat President Obama by a margin of 2 percentage points. McCrory defeated his Democratic rival by a small margin of victory that same year. The trend of close statewide elections in North Carolina continued into 2014: Republican Thom Tillis narrowly defeated incumbent Senator Kay Hagan (D) in a statewide race that year, earning 48.8 percent of the vote to Hagan's 47.3 percent.

The office of superintendent of public instruction in North Carolina had been held by Democrats since Charles H. Mebane left office in 1901.. The last open election for the seat in 2004 was decided by less than 1 percentage point; incumbents had been re-elected by margins ranging from 6 to 10 percentage points over the past two decades.

North Carolina Party Control: 1992-2024
Fourteen years of Democratic trifectas  •  Four years of Republican trifectas
Scroll left and right on the table below to view more years.

Year	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24
Governor	R	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	R	R	R	R	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
Senate	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R
House	D	D	D	R	R	R	R	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R

Campaigns

Endorsements

Key endorsements, Republican primary candidates
Mark Johnson	J. Wesley Sills	Rosemary Stein
Winston-Salem Journal
What is a key endorsement?

Campaign media

Note: If a candidate is not listed below, Ballotpedia staff were unable to locate any campaign media for that candidate. Do you know of any? Tell us!

Democrats

June Atkinson (D)
Henry Pankey (D)

Republicans

Mark Johnson (R)
J. Wesley Sills (R)
Rosemary Stein (R)

About the office

See also: North Carolina Superintendent of Schools

The North Carolina superintendent of public instruction is an elected executive position in the North Carolina state government. The superintendent is the secretary and chief administrative officer of the State Board of Education, and is responsible for the day-to-day management of the state's public school system.

Incumbent

The incumbent was Democrat June St. Clair Atkinson. She was first elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2008 and 2012.

Authority

The state Constitution establishes the office of superintendent of public instruction in Article III, Section 7:

(1) Officers. A Secretary of State, an Auditor, a Treasurer, a Superintendent of Public Instruction, an Attorney General, a Commissioner of Agriculture, a Commissioner of Labor, and a Commissioner of Insurance shall be elected by the qualified voters of the State in 1972 and every four years thereafter, at the same time and places as members of the General Assembly are elected. Their term of office shall be four years and shall commence on the first day of January next after their election and continue until their successors are elected and qualified. ...

Qualifications

Article VI, Section 6 of the North Carolina Constitution establishes the qualifications of the office:

Every qualified voter in North Carolina who is 21 years of age, except as in this Constitution disqualified, shall be eligible for election by the people to office.

• qualified North Carolina voter
• 21 years of age

Duties

The Department of Public Instruction, with the superintendent at its helm, manages the daily operations of the state's entire public school system. The department has a staff of nearly 750 people that is directly involved in the education of North Carolina's students, leading the public schools in the areas of curriculum and instruction, accountability, finance, teacher and administrator preparation and licensing, professional development, and school business support and operations.

In addition to ensuring the education of North Carolina's children, and the office is responsible for:

• enforcing North Carolina's state education laws
• implementing State Board of Education policies and procedures
• managing public school funds totaling approximately $8 billion in state and federal funds
• licensing the almost 120,000 public school teachers and administrators
• collaborating with the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching, the NC Teacher Academy, the NC virtual Public School, the nine Regional Education Service Alliances/Consortia, and the state's 115 local education agencies.

Past elections

2012

See also: North Carolina down ballot state executive elections, 2012

Incumbent June Atkinson (D) successfully won re-election, defeating John Tedesco (R) in the November 6, 2012 general election.

North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction General Election, 2012
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	June Atkinson Incumbent	54.2%	2,336,441
	Republican	John Tedesco	45.8%	1,971,049
Total Votes				4,307,490
Election results via NC State Board of Elections

To view the full electoral history for North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, click [show] to expand the full section.

2008 On November 4, 2008, June Atkinson won re-election to the office of North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction. She defeated Richard Morgan (R) in the general election. North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2008 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Democratic June Atkinson Incumbent 53.7% 2,177,934      Republican Richard Morgan 46.3% 1,881,075 Total Votes 4,059,009 Election results via North Carolina State Board of Elections. 2004 On November 2, 2004, June Atkinson won election to the office of North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction. She defeated Bill Fletcher (R) in the general election. North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2004 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Democratic June Atkinson 50.1% 1,655,719      Republican Bill Fletcher 49.9% 1,647,184 Total Votes 3,302,903 Election results via North Carolina State Board of Elections. 2000 On November 7, 2000, Mike Ward won re-election to the office of North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction. He defeated Michael Barrick (R) in the general election. North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2000 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Democratic Mike Ward Incumbent 53.4% 1,475,309      Republican Michael Barrick 46.6% 1,289,472 Total Votes 2,764,781 Election results via North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms North Carolina Superintendent Public Instruction Election 2016. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

North Carolina Superintendent of Schools election, 2016 - Google News

See also

North Carolina government:

• North Carolina state executive offices
• North Carolina State Legislature
• North Carolina courts

Previous elections:

• State executive official elections, 2015
• State executive official elections, 2014

Ballotpedia exclusives:

• State executives compensation
• State of the state addresses
• Who runs the states?

External links

Suggest a link

• North Carolina Public Schools