The Zoom meeting with wealthy potential donors kicked off with thoughts from Thom Tillis, a U.S. senator from North Carolina. He had been following the Republican primary for a State Senate seat that was drawing outsized national attention and had some urgent words about the race.
The contest — pitting Phil Berger, North Carolina’s powerful Senate leader who was endorsed by President Trump, against Sam Page, a county sheriff loyal to the MAGA movement — had become surprisingly tight in the months leading up to the March 3 primary. Mr. Tillis had worked well with Mr. Berger for years in the General Assembly. But on the call last month he was clear: Mr. Berger had to go.
His comments — including that Mr. Berger had become too power hungry, according to five people familiar with the call who requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting — have not been previously reported. But that a U.S. senator who is not seeking another term would get involved at all in a local race reflected just how eager many Republicans had been to topple Mr. Berger.
He is the country’s longest-serving active State Senate leader, in power since 2011, which has naturally attracted enemies and criticism. Some conservatives have long felt that their political ambitions have been stifled by Mr. Berger and his far-reaching network of lobbyists, corporate executives and government allies.
The efforts to unseat him succeeded: On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported that Mr. Berger had lost the primary by 23 votes.
In a statement announcing that he was conceding, Mr. Berger said: “Over the past 15 years, Republicans in the General Assembly have fundamentally redefined our state’s outlook and reputation. It has been an honor to play a role in that transformation.”
His defeat now raises questions about the future of Republican leadership in the rapidly growing battleground state. There is uncertainty over who will fill the void left by Mr. Berger, who has steered the legislature to lower income taxes, slash regulations, restrict abortion access, create gerrymandered maps and weaken the governor’s office.
He has said that he will finish his term, which ends in January. But the tight primary race has underscored a growing anti-incumbent sentiment as the midterms continue, and some Republicans in North Carolina have already begun succession talks.
Still, such chatter has been kept to a hush in Raleigh as the shock settles in over Mr. Page’s victory. A closer look at his campaign reveals not just the power of local grievances in a nationalized race, but also the way old feuds festered, boiled over and brought together a motley crew to try to take down, as Mr. Page put it, “North Carolina’s king.”
Mr. Berger’s campaign would not make him available for an interview. Mr. Tillis’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Best Not Miss’
A decade ago, Mr. Berger clashed with another Republican: former Gov. Pat McCrory, whose vetoes and legislative priorities were often upended by Mr. Berger.
That infighting did not go unnoticed by Patrick Sebastian, Mr. McCrory’s nephew and a Republican strategist. In 2022, when Mr. McCrory lost the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Mr. Sebastian watched Mr. Berger’s former chief of staff say on TV that his uncle was “the biggest loser” of the year.
“It’s almost like we found out the emperor has no clothes,” the former aide, Jim Blaine, said on a news show.
Fuming in his home, Mr. Sebastian did not forget the insult, he said in a recent interview. Soon, he saw a chance for payback and to prove that it was Mr. Berger who was the “emperor with no clothes.”
In 2023, the Senate leader tried to rush through legislation that would have brought a casino to a rural area in Rockingham County. The community, which is deeply conservative and Christian, angrily pushed back on the proposal, saying that the process had not been transparent, that it would cause crime and that it would not create high-paying jobs.
Mr. Berger, who viewed the casino as an opportunity to improve the economic fortunes of a poor area, abandoned the measure. But the damage was done.
Mr. Page, who had been serving as county sheriff for almost three decades, stood out at the time as a vocal casino critic.
Beyond that, he was already popular, with his cowboy hat, tall stature and talkative nature. Residents recalled being invited to his backyard barbecues, meeting him as children when he spoke at their schools and seeing him cheer on the Reidsville High School Rams.
Several voters said they rarely saw Mr. Berger in the district.
Around that time, Sheriff Page said in a recent interview, he and Mr. Berger met in Raleigh to clear the air. He told Mr. Berger that he would be running for lieutenant governor in 2024, not the State Senate seat.
Mr. Page’s campaign for lieutenant governor was unsuccessful. But, soon after, he got lunch with Doug Isley, a roofer in Rockingham County who once campaigned for Mr. Berger but had become disillusioned with the Senate leader over the county’s economic stagnation.
Mr. Isley asked the sheriff if he would consider running for State Senate.
“We’ll be going up against a machine and a lot of money,” Mr. Isley said he told him. Mr. Page said he would pray on it. Pastors upset over the casino debacle told him to run.
Once the sheriff decided he would, Mr. Isley became a campaign manager of sorts. Then Mr. Sebastian jumped in, forming pro-Page super PACs. But Mr. Sebastian quickly discovered that wealthy donors were nervous about antagonizing Mr. Berger.
Mr. Berger is widely considered much more powerful than even North Carolina’s governor, Josh Stein, a Democrat. When Medicaid expansion was passed in 2023 under Gov. Roy Cooper, also a Democrat who is now running for U.S. Senate, many conservatives insisted that was only because Mr. Berger was reluctantly onboard.
“When you go after the king, you best not miss,” Mr. Sebastian recalled people telling him.
‘Berger Doesn’t Scare Me’
Sheriff Page was pressured by some donors to announce his candidacy early, arguing that it would give the sheriff some runway to raise money before filing in December. Mr. Sebastian believed it would make the sheriff a “sitting duck” for attacks from Mr. Berger.
The sheriff formally announced in February 2025, on his wedding anniversary. In the ensuing months, attack ads criticized his stewardship of the county jail, which has had at least 12 deaths since 2021. Mr. Berger’s supporters also argued that the sheriff would be ineffective in Raleigh and shallowly crave the limelight.
Some donors who had promised to support Sheriff Page got cold feet. At the same time, Mr. Berger was building a war chest. He would ultimately raise around $10 million with his allies, virtually unheard-of for a State Senate race.
But the pro-Page PACs and independent expenditures did have a handful of donors. None gave more or were as vocal as Sheila Mikhail, who founded several multibillion-dollar gene therapy companies in the Research Triangle.
Ms. Mikhail, who has donated to Republican and Democratic candidates, was featured in an ad accusing Mr. Berger of being bought out by insurance companies that oppose legislation to expand insurance coverage for additional breast cancer screenings. Mr. Berger’s campaign described the ad as a false attack peddled by a “Democrat donor.”
Ms. Mikhail, a breast cancer survivor, said in an interview that after her support for Mr. Page became public, she was pressured to step down from the state Board of Science, Technology and Innovation because it received funding from the General Assembly.
She also said she was warned that Mr. Berger would come after her.
“But Berger doesn’t scare me,” she said. “Cancer scares me.”
With such a tight margin of victory, Sheriff Page’s supporters have spent the last few weeks pondering the small efforts that may have made the ultimate difference.
Heather Dickson, a Republican fund-raiser, brought up the volunteer in his 90s who made 100 calls a day to turn out voters.
Tyres Tatum, who organized events for Sheriff Page, mentioned how many of his friends had been turned off by the sight of Mr. Berger’s allies from Raleigh campaigning for him in Rockingham County.
Sheriff Page, who often repeated that his campaign was about “We, the people,” said he had begun to meet with more voters in Guilford County, which is also partly in the district.
When he arrives in Raleigh, he plans to wear a new gift from his older brother: a new cowboy hat with an inscription reading, “Senator Sam Page.”
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
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