Why Losing Matters Just As Much As Winning
A neck-and-neck election involving a North Carolinian political giant could provide the latest lesson about the true measure of a republic's health.
By Matt Germer
In the Republican primary for North Carolina State Senate District 26, one of the state’s most powerful political figures was trailing a challenger by just 23 votes at the time of this posting. The race between Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger and Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page is in the midst of an initial recount. But whatever the final outcome, the contest illustrates a basic truth about democratic government: democracy depends upon the consent of the losers.
Berger has served as the President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina Senate since 2011. He and his allies spent roughly $10 million on the primary against Page, in a race with just 26,249 voters. After certification from both counties in the district, Page leads Berger this year by a margin of just 0.08 percent.
The narrow result prompted the beginning of a recount process this week and may also result in additional formal inquiries to determine whether specific ballots ought to be counted. Berger filed four such protests on Tuesday.
While the people of the 26th Senate District are focused on which candidate ultimately wins, the rest of us should instead be focused on the loser and how that candidate and his supporters react to the loss. Electoral winners have every incentive to recognize their own victory as legitimate. What matters more is whether the losing side acknowledges defeat and picks itself up to fight another day. The health of our republic hinges not on the behavior of the winners but rather that of the losers.
If losing candidates refuse to concede and persuade enough supporters to follow them, democratic governance can deteriorate into factionalism and instability. Elections only function as a governing structure if the losing side, no matter how bitter, acknowledges the victor as legitimate and redirects its energy toward persuasion and mobilization for the next contest. If the result is not accepted as legitimate, political competition can shift from ballots to other, more violent means of contestation — as the world’s largest democracies know too well, from Brazil’s to, of course, our own.
Indeed, concession has become less automatic in recent years. Some candidates now refuse to acknowledge defeat, or they cast doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome. The “Stop the Steal” movement is the most visible example, but reluctance to concede has appeared across the political spectrum. The result is a slow erosion of one of democracy’s most important norms.
To be clear, candidates in close races should not be expected to concede the moment the polls close. Our electoral system can handle candidates zealously arguing they should be the rightful winner. We have certification standards and recounts, and even litigation may be justified. Those procedures exist precisely for races like the one in North Carolina’s 26th Senate District.
But once the ballots have been counted, the recounts completed, and the legal avenues exhausted, the losing candidate must accept defeat, even if the margin is razor thin and the outcome deeply frustrating.
Whichever candidate ultimately loses in North Carolina’s State Senate District 26, the moment may matter more for the legitimacy of democracy than the election itself. The losing candidate will help determine whether this contest becomes simply another close race or another small test of whether Americans are still willing to lose well. Hopefully, the losing candidate has the quality of character to lead well even in defeat.
Matt Germer is director of the Governance Program at the R Street Institute.