The 3-Way Dem Primary in HD45 May Be the Quietest in the State

 

NC House District 45 in southern Cumberland County is another of those "safe" Democratic seats that Dave's Redistricting scores at 55.9% Democrat. It's an open seat this year. It got redrawn to expose incumbent Republican House member John Szoka to instant defeat, so he announced he would jump over and run for Congress in the new 4th CD, but that rug got jerked away from him too by the court-ordered redrawing of Congressional districts. Szoka's now running for a Cumberland Co. Commission at-large seat and might get the prize as the most abused-by-redistricting Republican in the whole state.

The new NCH45 is 39% Black, and the three-way contest to replace Szoka features three Black candidates.

Frances Jackson

Jackson came within 703 votes of defeating Szoka in 2020 when some analysts considered the old district a "toss-up," and she's back this year with some instant name recognition. She was heavily promoted in 2020 by the Long Leaf Pine Slate (now known as Carolina Forward), and she even got a highly publicized shout-out from President Obama.

She teaches political science at Fayetteville Tech and holds a doctorate from Walden University in Minnesota. She's been active in civic life in Fayetteville. She was appointed to a seat on the Fayetteville City Council after the death of a member but was forced to resign after only a month because of a possible conflict of interest with her other appointed position as a Cumberland County magistrate.

If she has a website, I can't find it. The link on her moribund Facebook page goes to a Chinese site, and her Twitter account hasn't been updated since her 2020 campaign. I hope her absence from social media means she has a good ground game going, but it looks like some coasting to me.

Chris Davis

Davis was elected to the Fayetteville City Council in 2019. He is retired from the Army and serves as the senior pastor at Force of Life Fayetteville Ministry. While in the Army, Davis was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for wounds sustained from improvised explosive device blasts while leading route clearance operations in Marjah City, Afghanistan. Prior to his election to the Fayetteville City Council, he served as chairman of the Planning Commission, vice chairman of the Joint Appearance Commission, and as a teen court judge for Cumberland County.

Whereas a veteran candidate like Frances Jackson seems asleep at the wheel this year, Davis is actually mounting a campaign. His Facebook page features a photo of a canvassing team in matching T-shirts, usually a good sign.

Keith Byrd

Byrd actually ran against Frances Jackson in the 2020 Democratic primary for this seat, and she buried him. He's back for a rematch. He's the only one of these three candidates who has a website, though it's the one he had before the March 2020 primary and hasn't been updated.

He attended Shaw University in Raleigh, entered the Army Reserve during that time, and from Fort Bragg, the Army sent Byrd to Iraq to oversee security for the Iraqi High Tribunal during the trial of Saddam Hussein. "Upon return to Fort Bragg as the provost marshal (police chief), Keith’s leadership was instrumental in helping transform Fort Bragg into one of the safest and most secure facilities in the military...."

He retired from the Army at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Un-Trumping the NC House: Frances Jackson in HD45

We're grateful to the Long Leaf Pine Slate for supplying a clutch of new candidate videos for Democrats running in flippable NC General Assembly districts. We've also been writing about these folks for months. The Long Leaf Pine Slate has been successfully raising money for these races all year. Some of the results can be seen in the professional introductory videos -- quick hits of personality and vital biography highlighted by snazzy graphics, so that although the candidate talks directly to the camera, they never lapse into static "talking-head" mode. I'll be highlighting these videos one at a time over coming days/weeks.

Frances Vinell Jackson in House District 45 (Cumberland Co.). John Szoka is the incumbent Republican. Race is rated "Toss-Up." FlipNC.org says it now leans "slightly Democratic." Trump took only 49.93% of the vote there.

Frances Jackson: "A Fayetteville native, long-time public servant, and local magistrate." "A longtime Hope Mills resident, government planner, and professor at Fayetteville Technical Community College. Her key priorities include increasing teacher pay, assuring water safety in the Gray’s Creek area, and protecting women’s reproductive rights."

The Elections of March: Democratic Primary in NCH45

Frances Jackson

North Carolina House District 45 in Cumberland County was redistricted and is now rated "Toss-Up" with a Republican incumbent, John Szoka, who was first elected to the seat in 2012. Two African-American Democrats are facing each other in the March 3rd primary, one a serious candidate -- Frances V. Jackson -- and the other apparently not (Keith Byrd, who has no campaign presence and no biography that we can detect).

Frances Jackson could be formidable -- and she'll have to be to take the seat in November -- so I was glad to see on her Facebook page that she's mounted at least one canvass in the district leading up to the primary. She's been endorsed by both the local AFL-CIO and by Planned Parenthood.

She teaches political science at Fayetteville Tech and holds a doctorate from Walden University in Minnesota. She's been active in civic life in Fayetteville. She was appointed to a seat on the Fayetteville City Council after the death of a member but was forced to resign after only a month because of a possible conflict of interest with her other appointed position as a Cumberland County magistrate.

According to Michael Bitzer, the newly drawn District 45 has a population that's 33% African-American, with Democrats out-numbering Republicans some 38% to 27%, and with unaffiliated voters holding the balance of power, accounting for 34% of registered voters. Bitzer classifies 79% of the district as "suburban voters outside a central city but inside an urban county." All of these numbers sound good for Francis Jackson ... except for this: Hillary Clinton took 47.37% of the district in 2016 to Trump's 49.93%.

Ought to be a pretty solid Democratic district. Goes wobbly, though, when the Democrat on the ballot fails to inspire.

Frances Jackson, assuming she easily wins her primary, will need an intense ground game -- especially canvassing those suburban neighborhoods -- to carry the vote come November. This could be an unanticipated Democratic pickup in the NC House is she's got the mojo, the volunteers, and the shoe leather.