2022 North Carolina Senate race: Ted Budd projected winner over Cheri Beasley

CBS News projects Republican Rep. Ted Budd will defeat former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley for the Senate seat in North Carolina being vacated retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr. The state has a Democratic governor but was won by former President Donald Trump by just over a point in 2020.

Budd, 51, has represented North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District since 2017. An endorsement from President Trump and backing from the Club for Growth helped him decisively win a crowded Republican primary that included former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker. 

Beasley was seeking to flip a GOP seat and would have been the only Black woman serving in the Senate, as well as the first Black woman elected statewide for federal office in North Carolina history. Beasley, 56, was first appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court as an associate justice in 2012 and was appointed as chief justice by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in 2019, making her the first Black woman to serve as chief justice on the state’s highest court.