Path Opens a Little Wider for Sydney Batch in House District 37

Sydney Batch with husband J. Patrick Williams
and their two boys

Surprise retirement of an incumbent Republican from the NC House yesterday. Linda Hunt Williams, who was only first elected to the chamber in 2016 with 52.29% of the vote, has decided that one term was enough for her, and she's not running for reelection. She's going to be spending more time with her family. A Republican rival, attorney John Adcock, had already filed for the seat, setting up a potential primary for her. She also already had a Democratic opponent, attorney and child advocate Sydney Batch, who is a quality candidate for the seat.

House District 37 is southern Wake County, taking in the towns of Fuquay-Varina and Holly Springs.

We wrote about Sydney here on January 2nd, when she was among the first wave of new Democrats announcing their plans to run in 2018. She is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, with both a master's degree in social work and a law degree. She and her husband J. Patrick Williams opened their own law firm in 2005. She has wide and intense experience in child welfare advocacy and family law.

She says on her website, "I fight every day for families across Wake County who are worried about their future. Whether stressed about sending their kids to a good public school, paying back their student loans, or affording quality health care and finding a good, well-paying job, too many people feel the deck is stacked against them. Despite these struggles, I also get to see the many common values that bind us. People want affordable, accessible health care, quality and affordable education, safe air to breathe, clean water to drink, and a fair paycheck. Most of all, they want their children to live a more prosperous life than they have. I’m running because I want to make a difference for those people who feel stressed, and to work with them through our common shared values to make a better Wake county. There’s no doubt that the challenges facing us are great. However, so is our will. I humbly ask for your support.”

Her likely Republican opponent in November, John Adcock, was briefly a candidate for Wake County Commission in 2016 in a district created by the Republican-controlled General Assembly. That redistricting scheme was thrown out by the courts, and Adcock was suddenly a candidate without a race to run in. He attended AppState, and he at least attempts to sound reasonable and sane (though when he ran for county commission, he didn't seem much in favor of mass transit. Republicans who would never ever in a million years use mass transit also never want to spend any money on it). He described himself in 2016 as "a fresh and positive conservative voice," if you can figure out what that means. He says he wants to raise teacher salaries to at least the national average. That's something, but good luck with that project as long as Republicans remain in control of spending.