Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Rachel Hunt, the daughter of four-term Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt, looks likely to become the state’s next lieutenant governor. Hunt defeated Republican Hal Weatherman, a longtime political operative but first-time candidate.

With all precincts reporting as of Wednesday morning, Hunt had 49.44 percent of the vote to Weatherman’s 47.75.

North Carolina is among just 17 states where the governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately, rather than via a shared ticket.

Weatherman was one of 11 Republican candidates in the March primary–an unusually high number given that the office hasn’t historically had much power. The General Assembly stripped away the office’s most substantial powers in the late 1980s, when a Republican was elected to the role for the first time since Reconstruction, putting the Democrats’ long-held control of state machinery in doubt. 

Responsibilities include presiding over the Senate, but voting only to break a tie; serving on the State Board of Education; and “such additional duties as the General Assembly or the Governor may assign to him,” according to the state constitution. 

Hal Weatherman listens during a Republican primary candidates forum in January. (Julia Wall for The Assembly)

But governors have rarely seen fit to share their power. In recent years, not all that much has been assigned, even when there was both a Republican governor and a Republican-led General Assembly. Legislators have given the lieutenant governor a seat on a handful of boards and the power to make a few appointments. Last year, lawmakers debated reducing the office’s influence further, stripping away the lieutenant governor’s seat on the community college governance board before restoring it. 

The office has been a stepping stone to the governor’s mansion, however. Hunt’s father became lieutenant governor when she was 7 years old and went on to dominate state politics for more than a generation–becoming the state’s first governor to serve more than one full term and the only one to serve four. And current Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson used the office to launch his campaign for governor despite having limited political experience prior to the 2020 race.

A state senator from Charlotte, Hunt ran her campaign much like her father did, using county-level volunteers to organize support. Even her campaign logo is similar: a red, white, and blue North Carolina map emblazoned with her name and an oversized “H” in the middle.

Kate Sheppard is The Assembly’s managing editor. She was previously a senior enterprise and national editor at HuffPost and has covered environment, health, and labor for Mother Jones, Grist, and The American Prospect. Email her at kate@theassemblync.com.