Majority Rising NC
2026 NC Legislative Dashboard
Back to dashboard / Senate / SD-33

Senate District 33

Rowan & Stanly counties · 2026
Likely R
Partisan baseline (2024)
R+39.1
runs 37.4 pts more Republican than NC overall · moving toward Republicans since 2018
2024 result
R+42.0
won by Ford (R)
Gary R. Weart
Democrat · Candidate
  • Retired North Carolina public school teacher, coach, and administrator who co-founded Students Against Violence Everywhere in 1989.
  • A U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam era who spent more than 50 years in education and received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
campaign site
Sen. Carl Ford
Republican · Incumbent
  • State senator for District 33 covering Rowan and Stanly counties and a small-business owner.
  • Served as a Rowan County commissioner and in the NC House before taking office in the state Senate in January 2019.
campaign site

Election night results

Follow this race ›

Live returns and a precinct map for this race on Nov. 3.

Early voting

See early voting ›

Ballots cast so far in this district, in person and by mail. Updated every morning.

Who lives here

The people of Senate District 33, from the Census American Community Survey (2020-2024). The dark tick on each bar marks North Carolina overall.

Median household income
$64,607
NC
▼ vs NC · NC $75k
Bachelor's degree or higher
22%
NC
▼ vs NC · NC 36%
Poverty rate
16%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 13%
Homeownership
73%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 67%
Unemployment
4.9%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 4.7%
Uninsured rate
9%
NC
▼ vs NC · NC 10%
Top communities: Salisbury 36% · Albemarle 13% · China Grove 7% · Kannapolis 7% · Rockwell 5%

Who registers vs. who votes

Each group's share of registered voters against its share of those who actually voted in 2024. About 149k voters are registered here; 112,261 voted in 2024.

White
79%
83%
Black
15%
13%
Hispanic
3.4%
2.4%
Asian
0.7%
0.5%
American Indian
0.2%
0.2%
Other
1.7%
1.0%
Registered (2024)Voted (2024)
Voter race and ethnicity are self-reported at registration; voters without a designation (7% here) are excluded from the voted-side shares. Source: NCSBE voter file, 2024.

How this seat has moved

Actual result (solid)MRPI composite (dashed)Shaded = midterm

How far this district swings

Across these cycles the Democratic share of the two-party vote here has ranged from 27% to 32%.

Precinct detail

63 precincts.

About this seat

SD-33 is rated Likely R from its 2024 partisan baseline of R+39.1. Districts this far from even are not competitive in a typical cycle - the outcome tracks the district’s underlying partisanship rather than individual campaigns. Republicans have gained 0.7 points of vote share here since 2018, moving the seat’s two-way margin 1.4 points their way.

Campaign money

Follow the money ›
Weart (D) $5K cash$13K cash Ford (R)
Ford holds 2.7x the cash on hand. Raised this cycle: Weart $10K / Ford $36K.
Actual legislative results, observed except where marked · NCSBE 2018–2024 · boundaries: Redistricting Data Hub (redistrictingdatahub.org) · demographics: Census ACS 2020–2024 · voter file: NCSBE
Data as of October 29, 2026 · campaign finance last refreshed August 20, 2026
Report an error