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Senate District 36

Wilkes, Surry, Yadkin & Alexander counties · 2026
Likely R
Partisan baseline (2024)
R+54.9
runs 53.3 pts more Republican than NC overall · moving toward Republicans since 2018
2024 result
R+58.0
won by Settle (R)
Trevor Cole Hardwick
Democrat · Candidate
  • Substitute teacher in the Yadkin County Schools since 2019, from the Hamptonville community.
  • Comes from a family of educators and is making his first run for elected office.
campaign site
Sen. Eddie Settle
Republican · Incumbent
  • State senator for District 36 and a business owner with Nu-Line Printing and the Settle Cattle Company.
  • Served on the Wilkes County Board of Commissioners, including as its chairman, before taking office in the state Senate in January 2023.
campaign site

Election night results

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

Early voting

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

Who lives here

The people of Senate District 36, from the Census American Community Survey (2020-2024). The dark tick on each bar marks North Carolina overall.

Median household income
$56,676
NC
▼ vs NC · NC $75k
Bachelor's degree or higher
18%
NC
▼ vs NC · NC 36%
Poverty rate
16%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 13%
Homeownership
75%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 67%
Unemployment
4.9%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 4.7%
Uninsured rate
10%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 10%
Top communities: Mount Airy 17% · Taylorsville 12% · North Wilkesboro 9% · Yadkinville 6% · Wilkesboro 6%

Who registers vs. who votes

Each group's share of registered voters against its share of those who actually voted in 2024. About 147k voters are registered here; 115,199 voted in 2024.

White
91%
94%
Black
3.6%
3.0%
Hispanic
3.8%
2.4%
Asian
0.3%
0.3%
American Indian
0.1%
0.1%
Other
1.0%
0.6%
Registered (2024)Voted (2024)
Voter race and ethnicity are self-reported at registration; voters without a designation (6% 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
Hollow points are estimates, not measured results: 2022 (100% estimated) modeled - no contested legislative race covered enough of this ground to measure, so most of the value is estimated from statewide races on the same ballot. See Methodology.

How far this district swings

Across these cycles the Democratic share of the two-party vote here has ranged from 21% to 25%.

Precinct detail

70 precincts.

About this seat

SD-36 is rated Likely R from its 2024 partisan baseline of R+54.9. 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 2.1 points of vote share here since 2018, moving the seat’s two-way margin 4.2 points their way.

Campaign money

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Hardwick (D) $0 cash$52K cash Settle (R)
Settle has a committee on file; Hardwick has no machine-readable figures (nothing filed yet, or filed on paper). Raised this cycle: Hardwick $0 / Settle $117K.
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
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