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Senate District 40

Mecklenburg County · 2026
Likely D
Partisan baseline (2024)
D+52.4
runs 54.0 pts more Democratic than NC overall · moving toward Republicans since 2018
2024 result
Uncontested
no major-party opponent filed · Waddell (D) unopposed
Sen. Joyce Waddell
Democrat · Incumbent
  • State senator for District 40 in Mecklenburg County and a career educator who spent 21 years in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as a teacher and administrator.
  • Has served in the state Senate since January 2015.
campaign site
Bobbie Shields
Republican · Candidate
  • Licensed professional engineer and business owner from Charlotte with 27 years of leadership in Mecklenburg County government.
campaign site

Election night results

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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 40, from the Census American Community Survey (2020-2024). The dark tick on each bar marks North Carolina overall.

Median household income
$63,840
NC
▼ vs NC · NC $75k
Bachelor's degree or higher
33%
NC
▼ vs NC · NC 36%
Poverty rate
16%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 13%
Homeownership
52%
NC
▼ vs NC · NC 67%
Unemployment
5.9%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 4.7%
Uninsured rate
18%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 10%
Top communities: Charlotte 97% · Matthews 3%

Who registers vs. who votes

Each group's share of registered voters against its share of those who actually voted in 2024. About 143k voters are registered here; 89,990 voted in 2024.

White
33%
37%
Black
48%
47%
Hispanic
10%
8.8%
Asian
3.4%
3.4%
American Indian
0.2%
0.2%
Other
5.1%
3.2%
Registered (2024)Voted (2024)
Voter race and ethnicity are self-reported at registration; voters without a designation (10% 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: 2024 uncontested (100% estimated) - no major-party opponent, so the value shown is the district’s underlying partisanship, not an election result. See Methodology. Solid points can also carry a smaller estimated share where old district lines crossed today’s (2022 10%); hover any point for the exact split.

How far this district swings

Across these cycles the Democratic share of the two-party vote here has ranged from 75% to 77%.

Precinct detail

43 precincts.

About this seat

SD-40 is rated Likely D from its 2024 partisan baseline of D+52.4. 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 0.5 points of vote share here since 2018, moving the seat’s two-way margin 1.1 points their way.

Campaign money

Follow the money ›
Waddell (D) $10K cash$0 cash Shields (R)
Waddell has a committee on file; Shields has no machine-readable figures (nothing filed yet, or filed on paper). Raised this cycle: Waddell $9K / Shields $0.
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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