RALEIGH — There’s no question that this year’s legislative primaries in North Carolina offer greater-than-usual amounts of drama and suspense.

Much of the uncertainty centers on the fate of some 15 to 20 sitting members of the Senate and House who face serious challenges from within their own party in a July 20 primary (the range reflects differences in how one might define “serious.”) More specifically, the political class will be watching a dozen House primaries where friends and foes of Republican Co-Speaker Richard Morgan will square off in a bid to decide the future of the GOP — whether it is a post-Reagan, conservative, tax-cutting party or a pre-Reagan, moderate, tax-increasing party.

I’ve heard lots of folks making confident predictions on both sides. I think their confidence is misplaced. It would be more productive to admit that no one really knows how these contests will turn out. The Morgan scuffle, for example, is unprecedented. So is a mid-July primary following a short post-filing campaign.

There may be some lessons to learn, however, by looking to the results of primary elections last week in South Carolina. In addition to the headline race — a Republican primary for U.S. Senate that has now narrowed to a runoff between former Gov. David Beasley and U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint — there were many primary challenges to legislative incumbents. As usual, a majority of them survived their challenges, which almost invariably fail unless they are well-financed (which isn’t typical) and feature either scandal or ideological apostasy. But voters did turn out or force into a runoff several key incumbents.

The most notable outcome was the defeat of the House Majority Leader, Republican Rick Quinn in the state’s Midlands region. Quinn lost to a young conservative upstart, Nathan Ballentine (not to be confused with the differently spelled Patrick Ballantine, who’s running for NC governor, though he might want to be confused with someone enjoying a come-from-behind victory). Also, the children of longtime members — the name-recognition equivalent of incumbency — were defeated in several important match-ups. Even the longest-serving member of the South Carolina House had a scare and must win a runoff against a political newcomer.

Meanwhile, down in the Charleston-Low Country area, state Sen. John Kuhn was forced into a GOP runoff against Chip Campsen, a conservative and former House member who was the top vote-getter and fell just short of clinching a win outright. And in the other key region of South Carolina, the Upstate, Republican primaries for control of the Greenville County Council offered something like the same result, with a conservative incumbent surviving a strong challenge and two moderate incumbents being defeated by conservative opponents.

I don’t mean to suggest a close correspondence between the two sets of Carolina contests. Obviously, the candidates and issues are distinctive. In Greenville, for example, it appears that social rather than fiscal conservatism defined the differences among the local candidates. And despite the attempts of some outside analysts (including The Wall Street Journal) to spin the Quinn defeat (scroll down past the Senate stuff) as a clear victory for low-tax conservatism, it isn’t at all clear that Quinn was perceived as soft on fiscal issues or that they were responsible for his defeat.

Still, what I found intriguing — and suggestive — was that a June primary in South Carolina generated a low-turnout affair dominated by the activist core of each party, which among Democrats is leftish and among Republicans is Reaganite and conservative. Many believe that a similar dynamic might play out here in North Carolina next month. That would augur well for the anti-Morgan candidates (sorry for the clumsy nomenclature, I’m open to suggestions for something better).

This leads to a prediction, though not a confident one, that some incumbents and the NC political establishment may be unpleasantly surprised by the election returns on July 20.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.