Eric Mansfield Enters US Senate Race

Fayetteville medical doctor Eric Mansfield has announced his bid for the US Senate seat occupied currently by Sen. Thom Tillis, just one day after Cal Cunningham also announced.

Mansfield was elected to the NC Senate (District 21) in 2010 and served just one term. Before that term ended he opted to run for lieutenant governor in 2012, but lost the primary to Linda Coleman that year. I voted for Mansfield in that primary (and Coleman went on to lose to Dan Forest).

In a YouTube video announcing his candidacy, Mansfield talks about a near-death experience he had in 2018 when his heart stopped while he was driving home from a workout. His car crashed but he survived intact, and he says he was given a second chance.

To recap others in this Democratic Senate primary: Trevor Fuller is a Mecklenburg County Commissioner, and Erica D. Smith is currently in the NC Senate. No doubt others will also be announcing runs on the Democratic side, with Tillis looking increasingly vulnerable.

Erica D. Smith Declares Candidacy for the US Senate

Erica D. Smith is the second declared Democratic candidate for the Thom Tillis seat in the US Senate. Trevor Fuller was first.

Erica Smith was first elected to the NC Senate in 2014 from the sprawling 3rd District -- now including Beaufort, Martin, Bertie, Northampton, Warren, and Vance counties. She earned her B.S. in mechanical engineering from North Carolina A & T University in 1994 and her M.A. in religious studies from Howard University School of Divinity in 2000. She worked for Boeing as a senior specialist engineer from 1993 to 1997, for the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office as a patent examiner from 1998 to 2003, and as a high school math, physics, and chemistry teacher.

Back last August, Colin Campbell gave Smith a shout-out in the News and Observer as one of a group of highly talented minority legislators in Raleigh who look ready for bigger things: "An engineer, educator and ordained minister, Smith chairs the Legislative Black Caucus and has been effective in helping the state’s economically challenged northeastern corner. She recently fought for a summer science, math and technology program that was targeted for budget cuts, and it’s now expanding into more counties."

She announced her candidacy yesterday on Twitter.

Neither Fuller nor Smith are much known outside their bailiwicks, and they look like long shots. However, lightning's been known to strike even at lower elevations.

Trevor Fuller of Mecklenburg Declares His Candidacy for US Senate

Didn't see that one coming.

Trevor Fuller is a Democrat on the Mecklenburg County Commission in his fourth term, and a wild card. The Charlotte Observer this morning called him Sen. Thom Tillis's first "serious" opponent. Also "somewhat unlikely" because he's "only moderately popular in Mecklenburg."

Not at all popular, possibly, with fellow Meck commissioner and fellow Democrat Pat Cotham. Fuller helped engineer her removal as chair of the board of commissioners back in 2013. Trevor Fuller took her place as chair and lasted until 2016, when Pat Cotham engineered Fuller's removal. ("Turnabouts are fair" was the playground rule I grew up with too.) Fuller has continued as an elected at-large commissioner but not as chair of the board.

Fuller's supplanting of Cotham in 2013 largely happened as fallout from Cotham's firing of then county manager, Harry Jones.

When she led the charge to fire Jones in May, she upset people—especially Democrats and the black community. She didn’t let Jones speak that night. She didn’t let him gather his things. That upset those people more. They never let it go.  (Michael Graff)

Cotham, for her part, never backed down. So her revenge against Fuller in his 2016 ouster as commission board chair might have felt like vindication. Fuller called it "treachery."

Fuller has two Twitter accounts. One hasn't been posted to since 2016, and the other's posts stop in May of 2018. His Facebook page is a little more up to date. He last posted there on November 7th, 2018, following his reelection to the Mecklenburg Commission for his fourth term.

Getting a fix on his record, his issues, his guiding light is not easy, though the Charlotte Observer said this morning that "he would check a few important boxes for statewide voters, including a strong record on progressive issues, such as being the driving force behind Mecklenburg’s universal pre-K initiative."

Perhaps Fuller's announcement will spur some stronger candidates to get off the couch.