Primary Recap: What you need to know from Tuesday's elections

Several incumbents lost their reelection bids, as other candidates secured surprising victories.

There’s a lot to dive into, so let’s break things up by theme:

Rage against the machine

State Reps. John Bradford, Jon Hardister and Grey Mills all lost primary races for higher elected office.

Establishment candidates failed at all levels on Tuesday. To name a few:

• In what is perhaps the most shocking result of the night: State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt lost her GOP primary to Michele Morrow, an ideologically extreme candidate who has called public schools “indoctrination centers,” said that “the biggest threat to our constitutional republic is the indoctrination happening right now in the public educational system in North Carolina” and was at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Morrow is a homeschool teacher and property manager who believes the state hasn’t gone far enough in combatting instruction she finds objectionable. Morrow’s victory over Truitt is made all the more surprising by the wide gap the two had financially. Despite raising just $58,000 since December, Morrow got over 455,000 votes, or 52%. Meanwhile, Truitt had raised over $392,000 this election cycle. She got over 418,000 votes, or 48%.