Garrett v. Wade in the 27th NC Senate District

Democrat Michael Garrett filed to run in NC Senate District 27 against the notorious Republican incumbent Senator Trudy Wade, who tried her hand in 2015 at redistricting the Greensboro City

Council, gerrymandering the districts so that Republicans could win and attracting the scorn of a Federal judge who said, "Not so fast there, Senator Wade." Wade's Greensboro redistricting was so atrocious that even Governor Pat McCrory called it “a bad bill and a shameful process,” but he was brave against one of his own party perhaps because the Wade redistricting was a "local bill" not requiring the governor's signature.

It's been said that no one likes Trudy Wade, not even the members of her own party, perhaps because she operates like a Romanov tsarina, or like a Virginia Foxx, high-handed and imperious and mean toward anyone who doesn't toe her line. Going into her 2016 reelection campaign, some polling found her underwater with a majority of her constituents, though she won anyway with 53% of the vote in a Republican district drawn to insure she'd win.

The man she beat in 2016, Democrat Michael Garrett, who got a respectable 46.68% of the vote, is running again, and many think his chances are better than merely good for a re-do. Garrett, like many other North Carolina Democrats running this year, has public education as a prime commitment: "I can’t sit on the sidelines as career politicians like my opponent continue to strip our schools of the resources they need and play politics with our insurance and taxes." We expect that Garrett will

hammer Wade and the General Assembly for abysmal teacher pay and for eliminating education programs like the North Carolina Teaching Fellows.

Garrett is civic-minded and has served on the Guilford County Gang Commission, Guilford County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council, the United Way’s Education Impact Council, the UNCG Excellence Foundation Board of Directors, and as the president of UNCG's alumni association and chair of its alumni board.

Incumbent Wade was a big supporter of HB2, a discriminatory law that Garrett called "a trainwreck." “I think any discrimination is wrong, but it’s also bad for business,” he said, and we know that was the truth. Greensboro especially suffered from canceled concerts and conventions because of "the bathroom bill." It's what happens, said Garrett, when legislation is rushed through “without deliberate conversations.”

Garrett is 33 and the managing partner of a Greensboro marketing firm. He used to be a Republican. In fact he ran an unsuccessful primary campaign against House member John Blust in 2010, running to Blust's left in the year of the Tea Party, but he also managed his mother Darlene Garrett's winning race for the Guilford County School Board, and she ran and won as a Democrat.

His website hasn't been fully built out yet, but we expect a good showing from a man who makes his living in marketing.