A High-Level Republican Decides Against Running for Reelection in 2020

Rick Gunn, Republican Majority Whip in the NC Senate (District 24, Alamance and Guilford), announced yesterday that he would not be seeking reelection in 2020. Was that a surprise? To me, at least, it was, but he had obviously been planning the announcement for some time. His bowing out was covered in the same Burlington Times-News article that also provided a quick profile of his clearly anointed successor.

Amy Galey

Alamance County Commission Chair Amy Galey has been chosen -- by Gunn at least, if not by the Republican leadership in Alamance -- to run for Rick Gunn's seat next year. She looks formidable. Galey is a young 52. She ran for the Alamance Commission first time in the 2016 Republican primary, fell short by 40 votes, but won a special election the next year for an unexpired commissioner's seat and was promptly elected chair of the commission. She won reelection in her own right in 2018 as the top vote-getter.

Alamance is a very red county, though Galey sounds like a moderate: "I have supported public education while expecting accountability for taxpayer investment, supported farmland preservation, and worked on smart growth answers to Alamance County’s challenges." Talks like a pro-growth Democrat -- the importance of education, farmland preservation, and "smart growth." According to Isaac Groves, Galey is "often the swing vote" on the Alamance County Commission, "sometimes siding with the conservatives on the board" (interesting way to put it). "She also joined the 3–2 majority in June to approve an 8-cent property tax rate increase to fund the voter-approved $189.6 million education bond package and long-range capital plan County Manager Bryan Hagood introduced." Not the type of rural Republican we're used to these days. More of an urban type.

Now with the 24th Senate District an open seat, the winning path for Democratic candidate J.D. Wooten maybe just got a little easier. Wooten ran an energetic campaign for the seat in 2018 but lost. I extensively profiled both him and District 24 back in July after I discovered that he had announced he'll be trying again in 2020. Michael Bitzer rates the district as "Lean Republican," but Real Facts NC considers it among the flippable prospects next year. (FlipNC sees it as a "Longshot," which aligns more with Bitzer. The entry of Amy Galey would seem to bolster that view.)

Here's Wooten's bio in a little over a minute (he's upped his game):

Exploiting Cracks in the NC Republican Wall

In the 2018 midterms for NC Senate, two "lean Republican" districts went Democratic, districts 17 (southern Wake County) and 27 (a C-section of Guilford surrounding Greensboro). Those districts were won by Sam Searcy and Michael Garrett, respectively, riders of the 2018 NC blue wave.

J.D. Wooten
Womble Bond Dickinson photo

The only other "lean Republican" district in 2018 where a Democrat came reasonably close to winning ... District 24, where Air Force veteran J.D. Wooten got 46.14% of the vote against Tea Party incumbent Rick Gunn -- a loss by 6,000 votes, a sobering number. But a damn good base to build on if you're willing to do the work.

The trend with partisan shifts in 2018 -- the higher the income and/or the education, the more likely the flip from Republican to Democratic candidates. That trend is expected to hold in 2020. NC Senate District 24 encompasses eastern Guilford and all of Alamance counties and the burgeoning suburban sprawl along the I-40 and I-85 corridors which slice through the district. Wooten himself lives in the I-40 corridor in eastern Guilford, the little suburb of Whitsett. Over in Alamance, Burlington and Graham are the major urban centers.

In terms of income, Alamance's richest township is Coble, south of I-40, followed in wealth by Melville Township (both I-40 and I-85 adjacent), Albright, and Boone Station. Boone Station also shows up in the statistics as the most educated in the county.

In 2018 Wooten evidently ran an active campaign, and an effective one, or he wouldn't have done as well. He had a pretty relentless canvassing program (judging from Facebook posts) and was effective raising money enough to be a threat to an incumbent who had probably grown a little complacent. Republican Rick Gunn had easily won reelection in 2016 and didn't even have a Democratic opponent in 2014.

Wooten apparently sees a way forward for making up that 6,000-vote deficit in 2020 because he announced back in May that he's in for another go at Gunn next year. I'm glad to hear it. But (cue the ominous chords -- dum dum DUM) ... watching Wooten's announcement video, my heart sank -- didn't flutter in a good way -- because it's standard, lifeless candidate-talking-directly-to-the-camera boilerplate. In an age of amazing candidate announcement videos, Wooten's goes splat.

He's got the bio, the list of accomplishments, the North Carolina policy positions to produce an impressive and engaging video biography, and he needs to do that soon.

Partial biography, gleaned from his own website: "J.D." Wooten is actually John David Wooten IV. He traces his family back dozens of generations to the Jamestown settlement of 1607. (I learned that factoid somewhere last year, but see no mention of family history on Wooten's current website). He was nominated to the U.S. Air Force Academy by Jesse Helms and Congressman David Price, received his appointment in 2003 (studied aeronautical engineering), served a decade in the Air Force as an engineer and program manager for the Situation Awareness Data Link, an air-to-ground radio system used extensively in close air support and homeland defense missions. He earned the Gladys Noon Spellman Fellowship Award to attend the University of Maryland School of Public Policy where he earned a Master of Public Policy in International Security and Economic Policy. Following his service in the Air Force, Wooten got his law degree at Wake Forest and now specializes in intellectual property law for Womble Bond Dickinson.

Who the hell am I to tell the candidate to do anything? Just a far-from-innocent bystander who'd like to see the guy win. Coming across as an effective personality in social media is just part of the even bigger push Wooten's going to need in 2020, because the suburbs are still ground zero for flipping political loyalties. Some 85.2% of Alamance households have a computer, and 73.5% are broadband subscribers.

Democrat J.D. Wooten Is Taking On a Tea Party Zero in NC Senate District 24

NC Senate District 24 was redrawn and now includes eastern Guilford County and all of Alamance County. In Alamance, the major urban centers are on the I-40 and 85 corridor, including Burlington and Graham. The portion of Guilford in the district includes the towns of Whitsett and McLeansville but only bits of Greensboro.

Incumbent Republican: Rick Gunn. Gunn, a realtor, was first elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, defeating a Democratic incumbent with just under 53% of the vote. In 2012, Gunn had a Libertarian opponent but no Democrat ran against him. In 2014, Gunn had no opponent whatsoever. In 2016, a Democrat running against Gunn couldn't get to 40% of the vote. In 2016, Gunn ranked 6th most
conservative senator overall in the Civitas rankings. Meanwhile, the League of Conservation Voters have consistently given him a big fat zero. Gunn is above all a loyal soldier for Senate Prez Phil Berger, supporting HB2, the demoralization of public education, the bullying of local municipalities, and the denial of health insurance to the poor through an expansion of Medicaid.

Democrat J.D. Wooten is an Air Force veteran, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights at Womble Bond Dickinson, and a first-time candidate for public office. At the Air Force Academy he

earned a degree in aeronautical engineering and a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant. “My time in the Air Force helped me learn firsthand the importance of service and fighting for what I believe in,”
J.D. said. “My toughest assignment, however, didn’t include a battlefield or cutting-edge technology. Instead, it came as an honor guardsman, where I had the privilege of providing military funeral honors for our nation’s servicemen and women. Helping lay to rest people who gave so much for our country was one of the most difficult but meaningful assignments of my life.”

J.D. Wooten

After a decade of service in the Air Force, Wooten got his law degree at Wake Forest. He's 32 years old and comes from a venerable line of North Carolinians. He says his family "left England to join the Jamestown Colony in 1607 and moved south years later to help establish the North Carolina colony." J.D. Wooten is actually John David Wooten IV. That deep history in the state has made the policies of the Republican majority in the NC General Assembly particularly galling:

“Republicans in Raleigh are chipping away at the values and institutions that made North Carolina the state my family has proudly called home for centuries. These politicians are trampling on individual rights, hurting sustainable economic development, and are underfunding our public schools, asking our teachers to do more with less. In short, they have left too many behind. Breaking the Republican majority is the key to bringing progress and prosperity back to North Carolina.”

“It would be my honor to take the fight for equality, economic development, and education to Raleigh on behalf of the people of District 24,” Wooten concluded.