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With results starting to come in, U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson is leading in the Democratic primary for attorney general.

Polls closed at 7:30 p.m. As of 8:45 p.m., Jackson led with 55% of votes reported, most of which were cast during early voting. Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry trailed Jackson with 33% of the vote. Fayetteville attorney Tim Dunn had 11% of the vote.

The attorney general’s race is expected to be one of the most competitive and expensive races on the ballot this November.

Republicans have been shut out of the attorney general’s office for more than a century. The last time a GOP candidate was elected to the office was in 1896.

But recent contests for the state’s top law enforcement position have been exceedingly close. In 2020, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein defeated Republican Jim O’Neill by just 13,622 votes, or 0.26%.

In the Democratic primary, Jackson, who has been representing the state’s 14th Congressional District in the U.S. House since January 2023, is facing off against Deberry, the top prosecutor in Durham County, who has argued on the campaign trail that she is the most qualified candidate, and Dunn, a veteran of the Marines who served for more than 33 years, and runs a law practice in Fayetteville.

Waiting in the fall will be U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, who is the only Republican running for attorney general, and as such, did not appear on GOP primary ballots on Tuesday.

Bishop and Jackson are two of North Carolina’s most prominent congressmen. A member of the House Freedom Caucus, Bishop was one of 20 Republicans who contested the election of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year.

The two major Democratic candidates

Jackson entered the race in October, declining to run for another term in the House after GOP state lawmakers enacted a new congressional map that drew him out of his district, replacing a temporary map that was put into place by the N.C. Supreme Court in 2022, for use only in that year’s elections.

In less than a year on Capitol Hill, Jackson received national attention for building an immense following on social media, particularly on TikTok, where he reached millions of people with videos explaining the goings-on of Congress.

After announcing his campaign for attorney general, Jackson quickly locked down support from many influential Democrats in North Carolina, including all of the Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation, and several Democrats in the General Assembly. He was also quick to raise money.

By mid-February, Jackson’s campaign had raised nearly $3 million. Bishop’s campaign had raised just over $1.5 million by that point.

Deberry has challenged Jackson’s experience for the job, and has argued she’ll be uniquely able to excite a broad coalition of voters that includes African Americans, women, young voters, rural voters, and seniors, ahead of the general election. She’s raised far less money than Jackson and Bishop have, but has argued that fundraising isn’t the most important factor.

AG’s race already attracting outside spending

Outside groups are expected to pour millions of dollars into this race between now and November, and some already have.

A new super PAC that started buying ads in support of Deberry, touting her liberal credentials, spent more than $950,000 on TV, radio and digital ads last month.

Recently published election filings showed the mysterious group was funded by $1 million from the Republican Attorneys General Association in early February, The News & Observer reported on Saturday.

Jackson blasted the spending by RAGA as a “mass deception effort,” while Deberry, who said her campaign had nothing to do with the super PAC, said she didn’t care “what big money wants in this race,” and was focused on “what regular people need from their Attorney General.”