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Senate District 45

Catawba & Caldwell counties · 2026
Likely R
Partisan baseline (2024)
R+41.0
runs 39.3 pts more Republican than NC overall · moving toward Republicans since 2018
2024 result
R+40.6
won by Hollo (R)
Greg Cranford
Democrat · Candidate
  • Retired social studies teacher from Newton who has worked as a long-term substitute at Newton-Conover High School.
  • A UNC-Chapel Hill graduate.
campaign site
Sen. Mark Hollo
Republican · Incumbent
  • State senator for District 45 and a physician assistant who has practiced at the Family Care Center in Taylorsville.
  • A U.S. Air Force Reserve veteran, he served three terms in the NC House before taking office in the state Senate in January 2025.
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 45, from the Census American Community Survey (2020-2024). The dark tick on each bar marks North Carolina overall.

Median household income
$64,477
NC
▼ vs NC · NC $75k
Bachelor's degree or higher
24%
NC
▼ vs NC · NC 36%
Poverty rate
13%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 13%
Homeownership
73%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 67%
Unemployment
4.1%
NC
▼ vs NC · NC 4.7%
Uninsured rate
11%
NC
▲ vs NC · NC 10%
Top communities: Hickory 32% · Newton 12% · Lenoir 11% · Conover 10% · Granite Falls 8%

Who registers vs. who votes

Each group's share of registered voters against its share of those who actually voted in 2024. About 157k voters are registered here; 117,822 voted in 2024.

White
84%
88%
Black
7.5%
6.3%
Hispanic
4.5%
3.1%
Asian
1.8%
1.2%
American Indian
0.1%
0.1%
Other
2.1%
1.2%
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
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 29% to 33%.

Precinct detail

50 precincts.

About this seat

SD-45 is rated Likely R from its 2024 partisan baseline of R+41.0. 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 1.4 points of vote share here since 2018, moving the seat’s two-way margin 2.9 points their way.

Campaign money

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Cranford (D) $0 cash$38K cash Hollo (R)
Hollo has a committee on file; Cranford has no machine-readable figures (nothing filed yet, or filed on paper). Raised this cycle: Cranford $0 / Hollo $46K.
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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