Election Results: Sheriff Garry McFadden Wins a Third Term

A few longtime local and state representatives fell in Tuesday’s primary elections, but perhaps the most embattled incumbent will remain in his role. 

With no Republican opponent to face in November, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden will serve a third four-year term after winning Tuesday’s primary with just a third of the vote. 

McFadden beat his closest competitor, CMPD Sgt. Ricky Robbins, by 2,717 votes. McFadden’s winning total represented 33.79% of the total votes cast in the race. Robbins came in at 31% of the vote while retired chief deputy sheriff Rodney Collins took 26.82%. 

McFadden’s win comes despite a number of controversies that nearly came to a head in January when NC Rep. Carla Cunningham joined several former sheriff’s office employees in filing a petition to remove McFadden from office. The petitioners cited a number of misdeeds ranging from threatening behavior and extortion to misuse of resources and retaliation against whistleblowers. 

A judge threw away the petition just days later, though an investigation by the NC State Bureau of Investigations into the allegations made in the petition remains active. 

Cunningham falls following controversy in NC House

Facing her own controversies following an anti-immigrant speech on the floor of the North Carolina General Assembly last year, NC District 106 Rep. Cunningham will be removed from office at the end of 2026. The lawmaker lost her bid for an eighth term on Tuesday night in a landslide, with challenger Rev. Rodney Sadler getting nearly 70% of the vote. 

Cunningham worked for decades as a nurse and has been a prominent voice in the legislature on health and mental health matters. She is the widow of longtime NC House member Pete Cunningham, who resigned his seat in 2007 and died in 2010. Carla Cunningham won her first term in 2012.

In recent years, Cunningham emerged as one of the Democrats who voted most often with the Republican majority. In 2025, she voted with Republicans more than any other Democrat. 

Prior to voting with the GOP to override Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of House Bill 318, which put more requirements on law enforcement to help US Immigration and Customs Enforcement with deportations, Cunningham made a speech in which she stated that “all cultures are not equal,” adding that immigrants must assimilate.

After participating in a rally and march to protest the presence of Border Patrol in Charlotte in Uptown in November 2025, Sadler told Queen City Nerve he was there to show solidarity with Charlotte’s immigrant community.

“Our neighbors are under attack and we need to figure out ways to stand together to protect us all,” he said. “We’re stronger when we’re standing together than when we try to stand on our own and this is one of those instances where I think that we have the opportunity to truly come together as a community. I don’t believe that Charlotte’s ethos will support what ICE is trying to do to us.” 

Another Charlotte area NC House rep who had garnered a reputation for crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans, NC District 99 Rep. Nasif Majeed, was also defeated handily on Tuesday. Challenger Veleria M. Levy took that race with more than 68% of the vote. 

Neither Levy nor Sadler will face any Republican opposition in November’s general election. 

Vilma Leake stopped at nine terms

Mecklenburg County commissioner Vilma Leake, who has represented District 2 in west Charlotte since 2008, was halted in her try for a 10th term on Tuesday, falling to challenger Monifa “Mo” Drayton in a race decided by just 602 votes. 

Drayton gained the endorsements of some big names in Charlotte, including former mayor Harvey B. Gantt and civil rights icon Dorothy Counts Scoggins. Drayton will face Republican Angela White Edwards in November.

Elsewhere on the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, all three incumbents — Leigh Altman, Arthur Griffin Jr., and Yvette Townsend-Ingram — kept their seats, as did District 3 commissioner George Dunlap. 

In District 1, where Elaine Powell did not run for reelection, Morris “Mac” McAdoo beat out two other candidates and will join Drayton as the second newcomer on the board. 

In a notable judicial primary result that will serve as a deciding race, former public defender Habekah Cannon successfully challenged incumbent judge Cecilia Oseguera for her seat in the district court. 

Queen City Nerve spoke with Cannon in 2020 about her efforts in launching an “abolitionist law firm,” though she emphasized throughout her candidacy that her past advocacy work and commentary did not represent her judicial philosophy as it pertained to the 2026 election.