Yates-Lockamy in House District 46

The North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation (Jonathan Kappler, really) currently lists 14 NC House seats as "competitive." Five of those seats are already held by Democrats. The other nine are currently held by Republicans, though two of them are now technically "open seats" because the Republican incumbent had planned to go fishing next year.

I've already written about several of the Democrats running for those Republican-held seats:

Ron Wesson (two days ago), District 1

Joe Sam Queen (scroll down), District 119

Terence Everitt (scroll down -- with a primary opponent), District 35

Sydney Batch, District 37

Erica McAdoo (scroll down), District 63

Julie von Haefen, District 36


Three others of the 14 districts will have Democratic primaries (including District 35, where Terence Everitt is running), and I've a hill to climb yet researching those races, as some candidates don't have a web presence. The same deficiency goes for a couple of other Democrats without primaries who haven't yet made it onto Watauga Watch (District 46 and 51). Until today.

Barbara Yates-Lockamy

Democrat Barbara Yates-Lockamy, running against a Republican incumbent named Jones in District 46.

District 46 now carves out a crescent on the eastern side of Robeson County and dips south toward the coast along the South Carolina border to take in the western side of Columbus County. It cuts out Pembroke (and its university) and clearly jerks east to keep away from Lumberton. (Looks like the map-drawer had a sudden sneezing fit.) Columbus County has over a dozen little towns and hamlets, the largest of which is Whiteville. But otherwise -- with Lumberton eliminated -- district 46 is a district without a large metropolitan magnet.

Barbara Yates-Lockamy is since 2010 a member of the Columbus County Board of Education (currently serving as chair, and she's an honorary member of the All-State School Board) and is prominent throughout the region. She serves on the Board of Directors of the NC Caucus of Black School Board Members, and in 2013 she was elected to the Board of Directors of the North Carolina School Board Association. On the Columbus Board of Education she co-exists with an otherwise all-male, all-white board. 

She lives in the county seat of Whiteville. When she was vice chair of the Columbus County Board in 2017, she supported the consolidation of Columbus County Schools with the Whiteville City Schools: "approximately 75-percent of Columbus County and Whiteville City schools facilities are over 50 years old and a gradual decline in enrollment has emphasized the need to consolidate."

The Board of Education of Whiteville City Schools fought the consolidation hard. "Whiteville City Schools Superintendent Charles Garland says the merger would not save money and would reduce state funding. Last week, Garland told [a reporter for WWAY-TV] it would be a significant loss of state dollars coming in to a poor economic county."

The opponents of consolidation went to their Republican General Assembly members, who told them that consolidation was ultimately in the hands of the seven-member county Board of Commissioners, only one of which represents Whiteville in their seven-district plan. Whiteville is feeling put upon and under-represented, and Yates-Lockamy putatively represents Whiteville on the Columbus County School Board. The school consolidation vote probably hurts her -- maybe -- with some of her base. It's curious -- in all the local press coverage of consolidation, Yates-Lockamy is never quoted. She's either very silent or simply ignored.

So far, Yates-Lockamy has no campaign infrastructure -- no Facebook, no website, no other social media at all. Someone needs to help her out.

A Strong Democrat Running for NC House in Competitive District 1

The North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation lists House District 1 (Bertie, Washington, Chowan, Perquimans, Tyrrell, and Camden counties near the coast) as "competitive," and if Democrats take the NC House this year, they will ride in on their strength in competitive districts. House District 1 is 54% registered Democrat, though we know that doesn't necessarily mean victory, and Bertie County alone contains some 25% of the voting population in the district. This is an open seat, as its representative in the NC House, Republican Bob Steinburg, opted to run in Senate District 1 this year.

Democrat Ronald D. "Ron" Wesson is impressively qualified to win the seat. He's been elected and then reelected as a Bertie County commissioner, and he's served as both the chair of the board of commissioners and currently as vice-chair. He was born and raised in Bertie County, and he's married to a psychiatrist in private practice, Dr. Patricia W. Wesson. Ron completed his undergraduate work at UNC-Chapel Hill and his graduate studies at The Sloan School of Business, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then joined the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation where he served for more than 31 years, retiring as a senior vice-president and Global Leader. In 2004, Black Enterprise Magazine named Wesson one of the 50 most Influential Minorities in Business. Returning to Bertie County after retirement, he threw himself into community service, became chair of the Bertie County Chamber of Commerce, joined the Rotary Club, the Bertie County Community Foundation, and the Bertie County Schools Foundation. He moved into public service in 2012, running for and winning his seat on the county commission. He was actively recruited for this race by the Democratic House Caucus.

He owns an impressive pickup truck.

He says on his website, "Any success that I have had in business and in life, can be directly traced to the investment that others have made in me. I have always been encouraged to look beyond one’s self and seek to support others in ways that I have been supported. My Mother once said to me…'Son, God has blessed you with enough sense to do pretty much anything you set your mind to do. You will find that there are a lot of much smarter people out there, but never let anyone out work you to achieve your goals.' I have endeavored to live by this advice, and if given the opportunity, I look forward to working hard for the citizens of North Carolina’s 1st House District."

There's a Republican primary on the other side between Candace "CV" Hunter, a TV personality, and Chowan County Commissioner Eddy Goodwin. I'd put money on Hunter in the primary. She's blond and a big ole Christian conservative. You know how Republicans are about that stuff.

An Exciting Democratic Primary Shaping Up in NC Senate District 16

North Carolina Senate District 16 was one of those redrawn districts ordered by the courts, and it's essentially a newly created district and an open seat in western Wake County (city of Cary) and considered "strong Democratic," according to the ratings of the NC Free Enterprise Foundation.

Two highly qualified Democrats have filed for the primary election on May 8th:

Wiley Nickel

Democrat Wiley Nickel, a former Obama staffer and an attorney, was first out of the gate, announcing back in May 2017. He has both a website and a Facebook page. Nickel describes himself as a progressive Democrat and "believes it’s time to focus on strengthening our public schools, creating high paying jobs, expanding access to affordable healthcare and protecting our environment. Wiley will lead the fight to protect a woman’s right to choose, push for stronger gun control laws and implement independent redistricting reform that takes the power to draw new legislative districts out of the hands of politicians." He graduated from Tulane with a degree in political science in 1998 and joined Vice President Al Gore's advance team and traveled with him to events during the presidential campaign of 2000. Following that campaign he earned his law degree from Pepperdine University in California. He joined the Obama campaign in 2008 and spent three years as part of President Obama's national advance team. He left the Obama administration in 2011 and started his own law firm in Cary, specializing in criminal defense. He's married with two children. Running for the NC Senate, he has his focus on ending the Republican supermajority that has thwarted Governor Roy Cooper at every turn and which has passed extreme laws which have been overturned in the courts (at every turn). The dictatorship of Senate President Phil Berger must be stopped! Nickel has been endorsed by 2016 Senate candidate Deborah Ross.

Luis Toledo and his family

Democrat Luis Toledo, the son of an Hispanic immigrant, has an inspiring story of upward mobility at a time that Hispanic immigrants have become a target of presidential prejudice and Republican hostility. Luis Toledo has both a website and a Facebook page. "He was raised by a single-mother, never met his father, and is the first in his family to graduate from college where he earned degrees in business administration, cybersecurity, and public administration." He has worked in both the federal government (Department of State) and North Carolina government (as an assistant state auditor). He was born in Houston, Tex., where his mother struggled and depended on food stamps and the social safety net to keep her head only slightly above water. She picked up "their few belongings" and moved the family, ending up in the small western rural town of Marion, where Luis attended the public schools and graduated from high school. He did well in school, opting to take college-level classes at the local community college while still in McDowell High School. He also worked two part time jobs. After the attacks of 9/11, Luis joined the military and spent four years on active duty in the Air Force. After earning a graduate degree in public administration, he joined the Obama Administration as a Presidential Management Fellow and worked in the State Department under Secretary Hillary Clinton. In 2011, Luis and his family moved back to North Carolina, and he took a job working for State Auditor Beth Wood. "In January 2017, Luis joined the North Carolina Justice Center – a statewide nonprofit dedicated to economic and social justice and eliminating poverty across the state. As a public policy analyst, Luis conducts non-partisan research on the state and federal budget and assesses the role of public investments in our communities. His work informs major public debates and helps shape policy for the benefit of all North Carolinians."

Few Democratic primaries in North Carolina in 2018 encapsulate the progressive talent pouring into elective politics like this primary race in Wake County!

Republican Paul Smith ... oh, yeah, there's a Republican also filed to run for this seat, and maybe it's the curse of the last name, its commonness, or a sign of how strongly Democratic this district is going to be, but I can't find him anywhere ... no website, no Facebook page, no web presence at all.

Conor Lamb in the Home Stretch

According to Jonathan Martin, conservative groups have spent $10 million in the 18th Congressional District of Pennsylvania to defeat this man, Democrat Conor Lamb. They're totally freaked that Lamb could win the district in a special election on Tuesday. Trump carried the same district in 2016 by 20 points, and a Dimmycrap wasn't supposed to hunt here.

I've written about Lamb a couple of times before, here and here.

It's not just the crowd appeal of Conor Lamb, though he obviously has that. It's the "Trump effect" -- the growing wave of revulsion over the behavior of a buffoon. If Lamb wins on Tuesday, Joe Biden predicted a whole new wave of Republican retirements from Congress, as the reality of the Trump effect sinks in a little deeper.

You bet we'll be watching election returns Tuesday night.

Three Democrats Vying To Run Against Mark Meadows in the NC-11th District

Reading the thoughts of Congressman Mark Meadows this morning on how gun control is not the answer and how schools just need more armed police, I'm seriously looking at the possible antidote for this fool in November. Three Democrats have filed in the 11th Congressional District for the right to take on Meadows, and one of them will come out on top on May 8th.

So ... more or less in the order they got into this race:

Scott Donaldson

Democrat Phillip Price of McDowell County announced last year in July. He has a website and a Facebook page. He's a business entrepreneur and owns a company that salvages lumber from demolitions and tear-downs and repurposes it for new construction projects. Kyle Perrotti did a lengthy profile of Price in The Mountaineer and noted that the candidate pushes two primary memes about himself -- that he's a very dedicated Christian (“People have asked if religion will affect my policies, and I say, 'yes they will,' ”) and that he's willing to compromise ("He differs from hardline progressives in his desire to compromise"). Oy vey! I might be able to gulp hard and take the declaration of religiosity as a sincere effort to find The Light, but I balk at the second. Reminds me too much of the early Barack Obama, who compromised away what could have been an effective health-care fix, whose willingness always to compromise looked like weakness to the Republicans (and some Democrats), who made a sport of running him over and then backing up and running him over again. Interestingly, Price was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016. Sanders was (and still is) neither Christian nor a compromiser. So ... go figure.

Scott Donaldson

Democrat Scott Donaldson is a urological surgeon in Hendersonville. He has a website and a Facebook page. He's been a regular on Hendersonville's WTZQ-FM as a "radio storyteller," "with warm, compassionate and witty accounts of patients he’s treated and people he’s met." He put some of those stories together with photographs into a small book, "Urological Surgery and Lite Haulin: Relections of a Small Town Surgeon." We're talking folksiness, not a bad thing in the 11th District. As a physician he takes a stand on expanding healthcare: "Obamacare was a step in the right direction, but there are still coverage gaps and Republicans in Congress have done everything in their power to try to undermine the law, leaving many Americans vulnerable. I promise to fight for legislation that will expand coverage for all Americans and make sure that no one has to incur mountains of debt or is denied medical coverage because of inability to pay." And he provides a clear contrast to Mark Meadows on another issue: "I own guns, a lot of them. But I know we need common sense solutions to prevent tragedies. We must limit access to guns for people with mental illness, place limits on high capacity magazines, and ban civilian ownership of weapons that were clearly designed for military purposes. Universal background checks and mandatory wait times are also a no-brainer."

Steve Woodsmall

Democrat Steve Woodsmall is an Air Force veteran (he retired at the rank of Major) who is now teaching leadership and management at Brevard College. He has a website and a Facebook page. Becky Johnson profiled him in The Mountaineer. Like a lot of Democratic insurgents running in 2018, Woodsmall said he never aspired to be a politician but couldn't remain silent "given the country's trajectory." “Silence constitutes acceptance. We were always taught in the Air Force if you aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem, and we’ve got a big problem right now,” Woodsmall said. He prefers the term "progressive" as a self-descriptor. Woodsmall also has Republican Meadows' stance on gun safety on his mind this morning. From his Facebook page: "The vast majority of Americans support gun safety regulations. But politicians like Mark Meadows, who have received THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of dollars from the NRA, won't even support common sense gun regulation that would save innocent lives because the NRA is against it." Woodsmall has his own book: "It Beats Eatin' Lizards: Lessons Learned in Life and Leadership." He has extensive platform positions on his website, and they are indeed progressive.


There's a lot of talent in the Democratic primary in the 11th Congressional District. If I lived there and could vote for one of these men, I'd be hard pressed at the moment to make a choice. But if I lived there and could vote, I'd enjoy getting to know all of them better and to probe their electability. Anything could happen in a Blue Wave!

NC House Speaker Tim Moore Has a New Scandal

The headline above is not the only point of what follows. A Democrat filed against Speaker of the House Tim Moore in the NC House District 111. That Democrat so far is all but invisible. Too bad, with such a spectacle of insider corruption erupting on the incumbent.

First, the Newest Accusation Against Tim Moore
Tim Moore's apparent and alleged use of his official position to further his own financial gain is all over the morning papers in Raleigh. It doesn't look good. Moore, of course, is blaming the media and "liberals" out to get him. Here's a summary of the new scandal (hattip Thomas Mills):

Tim Moore as college student.
The Daily Tar Heel

The complaint has to do with property in Siler City that Moore and some business partners bought in 2013. According to the AP, “The complaint accuses Moore of improperly intervening with [the Dept. of Environmental Quality] DEQ so a limited liability company he co-owned could avoid fines related to underground fuel storage tanks where the former Townsend poultry plant stood.” Moore and his partners bought the property for $85,000 in 2013 and sold it three years later for $550,000. All of this during the administration of Pat McCrory, and his DEQ chief --  Donald van der Vaart, "who is now under consideration for a top environmental post in the Trump administration. He frequently said while leading DEQ that he wanted the department to be more 'customer-friendly' to businesses it interacted with."

If this complaint against Moore turns out to have merit, wrong-doing by high DEQ officials under van der Vaart would have included deliberately sending misleading emails to create a falsified papertrail to cover their tracks of special dealing for Tim Moore. That's clear in the long NandO piece this morning.

Second, This Is Not Tim Moore's First Rodeo
In August 2015, it came to light that Tim Moore had been appointed Cleveland County Attorney by a Board of Commissioners led by Tim Moore's own cousin, a partial sinecure worth $25,000 per annum --  $25k, whether he did a lick of actual work or not. Because as Speaker of the House, Tim Moore would have to be in Raleigh for sometimes months on end, so any legal business for Cleveland County would have to be handled by other lawyers paid their fair market rate. You know what a sinecure is, right?

But presumably Cleveland County could reap the benefits in hard cash, as indeed they did when Moore funneled millions in support and grants to projects in his home county. Moore became an accomplished pork-barreller.

Late in 2015, WBTV investigative reporter Nick Ochsner outed Moore for flagrantly ignoring campaign finance reporting rules, and by January of 2016 Ochsner was hot on Moore's trail for paying campaign rent to himself. ("Speaker Tim Moore: Big Spender But Not So Great at Reporting It")

Tim Moore is naturally interested in Tim Moore above everything else, but sometimes unnaturally (or unethically) he acts on that impulse, and uses his official position as leverage. He went to Raleigh as a kind of po' boy, but look at him now. Thomas Mills quotes a person from Cleveland County who said, “Tim left for Raleigh driving a beat up Honda and he’s come back driving a Maserati.”

Now May We See the Democrat, Please?
Days ago I saw that one David Brinkley, a Democrat, had filed on the last day of filing, February 28, to oppose Tim Moore in November. Immediately Googling, I found pages of memorials to NBC newscaster David Brinkley, dead in 2003, and one link to "Who Filed in Cleveland County" in the Shelby Star, which gave me this, sum total: "A Democratic candidate has also filed to run for the N.C. House of Representatives District 111 seat. David C. Brinkley will face incumbent Republican and Speaker of the House Tim Moore during the November election."

Otherwise, no information on who David Brinkley is and what he does and what he's done in the past or what he thinks about important stuff today, and a "Hey, vote for me" campaign presence. Nothing like that at all. No website, no Twitter account, no nuttin'. (I did find his Facebook page eventually, after the following detours into an otherwise meager biography:

David Brinkley was founder of Brinkley Financial Group in Kings Mountain, a town in Cleveland County. Brinkley earned a Batchelor of Science in Education at Western Carolina, tried teaching and soon discovered he couldn't make a living for a growing family on a teacher's salary, so he entered the financial services industry with the Big Boys, spent a couple of years learning, and then came back to Cleveland County and founded Diversified Business Concepts, which became Brinkley Financial in 2006 -- David C. Brinkley Founder and President. It's an investment counseling and financial management company, and he appears to have done well.

Brinkley and his wife Marie are deeply embedded in the community. They're generous donors to local causes, especially educational enhancement and local high school athletics. He is actively involved in Central United Methodist Church of Kings Mountain serving as chairman of the Endowment Fund and Finance Committee. He is also a member of the Administrative Council for Central United Methodist Church, serves on the Advisory Board of the Life Enrichment Center, and is a charter member and president of the Kings Mountain Touchdown Club. He served on the Board of Trustees at Gardner-Webb University.

On his Facebook page watch the video of his first public speaking appearance on the street outside the Board of Elections on filing day, to a small crowd of supporters. I got a very different impression of him, and a welcome one. He's far from a politician, but he seems genuine and honest. He's got some political fire in him: "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired," he declared to applause. He came to Cleveland County, he said, as a coach and teacher in 1971 to do what he loved, but the poor salary made him take a leap into the business world, and now the thing he's sickest and tiredest of is the way we continue to treat our school teachers and drive them out of teaching. And

treat our law enforcement officers and other public servants who enrich the general society while barely scraping by themselves. Increase their pay now is David Brinkley's number one issue.

David Brinkley on filing day,
wearing the purple

But he also wore purple for the occasion. "Neither blue nor red," as he pointed to his sweater vest. He wanted people to notice that. Meaning, he's no partisan Democrat, and won't fight like a partisan: "I won't get in the gutter," sez he, by which we assume he harbors a negative stereotype of campaigners and therefore probably won't be talked into attacking Tim Moore's record of self-dealing. Doesn't want to go negative. But that way -- the purple way -- takes you under the bus that just rolled over your torso.

Brinkley should make an issue of the corruption of power. Voters don't like public corruption, and given an option of an upstanding pillar of the community like David Brinkley, they might just decide to notice the truth for once about an elected official who's so clearly in it for himself while all sorts of other people drown.

A Democrat's winning this race -- maybe it's impossible. Maybe even if Brinkley drew sharp comparisons between himself and Moore, maybe it wouldn't move the needle. But maybe it would. I'd advise, in my capacity as Senior Campaign Advisor, that Brinkley raise the money to make Tim Moore's self-enrichment a campaign theme to all the voters in the 111th House District.

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.

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.

Cheraton Love, Candidate for NC Senate District 29

After redistricting, NC Senate District 29 is the entirety of Davidson and Montgomery counties. The major urban centers in Davidson are Lexington and Thomasville. Montgomery County is very rural, dominated by the Uwharrie National Forest.

District 29 is an open seat after incumbent Republican Cathy Dunn opted not to seek reelection. Two Republicans are running in the May primary to replace her: Sam Watford, already a Republican member of the NC House, and Eddie Gallimore, a perennial candidate and the former president of the Davidson County Tea Party who ran unsuccessfully for the senate in 2012, 2014, and 2016. Watford

Cheraton and Brad with their three girls

served three terms on the Davidson County Commission before being elected to the NC House in 2014. He ran unopposed for reelection in 2016. Watford would appear to have this. It would be a gift to the Democratic challenger if Gallimore somehow won the primary.

Democrat Cheraton Love has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Wake Forest University and is the Dean of first-year students at Winston-Salem State University and also teaches biology there. This is her first run for public office. Cheraton has been the president of the PTA at Thomasville Primary School, and she serves on the board of two nonprofits, Davidson County Community Action and Arts Davidson County. Cheraton and her husband Brad and their three daughters, Zoe, Lily, and Rosie, live in Thomasville.

Her campaign website puts education first as an issue, followed closely by expanding healthcare to all and a more nebulous "establish a sustainable workforce." She is well educated and well qualified to make some better choices for North Carolina and to end the one-man dictatorship of Senate President Phil Berger.