North Carolina House Candidates

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As the filing deadline has passed, the official list of candidates for the 2016 House of Representatives Elections in North Carolina is as follows (incumbents marked):

District 1:

G. K. Butterfield (incumbent)
C. L. Cooke

Safe D district with a safe D incumbent. Cooke is a nobody; I doubt he'll get much above 20%.

District 2:

Adam Coker
Renee Ellmers (incumbent)
Frank Roche
Jim Duncan
Kay Daly
Tim D'Annuzio

Ellmers is basically one of only two incumbents this cycle with an actual chance of losing; she has four primary contenders from the right and she's pretty unpopular even in her own district. Each of her challengers seems to have a decent campaign infrastructure, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Roche, Duncan, or D'Annuzio won, especially considering there will probably be a number of tea party/pro-life groups backing them. Daly, on the other hand, has the best advertisement. She seems to imply that she's willing to assassinate Ellmers, but, you know, whatever. Any R is safe in the GE.

District 3:

David Hurst
Walter B. Jones (incumbent)
Taylor Griffin
Phil Law

Another interesting race, in which independent-streaky Jones is up in his primary against more traditional Republican Taylor Griffin and the irrelevant Phil Law (though he does have a cool campaign bus). Griffin challenged and nearly defeated Jones in 2014, having been backed by Sarah Palin, a number of GOP establishment figures, and even a few Tea Party activists looking for voting consistency (Jones can be rebellious sometimes). Not quite sure who'll win here, but it won't be Hurst.

District 4:

David Price (incumbent)
Sue Googe
Teiji Kimball

Googe will probably beat Kimball in the GOP primary considering the latter is fairly controversial and pretty weird, but it honestly doesn't matter, because Price is safe.

District 5:

Josh Brannon
Virginia Foxx (incumbent)
Pattie Curran

Foxx isn't going anywhere. Pattie Curran is one of those "electile dysfunction" protest sign people.

District 6:

Bruce Davis
Jim Roberts
Pete Glidewell
Mark Walker (incumbent)
Chris Hardin

Safe for Walker.

District 7:

J. Wesley Casteen
David Rouzer (incumbent)
Mark D. Otto

I'm pretty pissed here, because J. Wesley Casteen was the Libertarian candidate in NC-07 last year and nobody cares about him. I'm not even sure "Mark D. Otto" exists but I hope he wins, tbh.

District 8:

Thomas Mills
Richard Hudson (incumbent)

Safe Hudson

District 9:

Christian Cano
Robert Pittenger (incumbent)
George Rouco

Safe Pittenger

District 10:

Andy Millard
Patrick McHenry (incumbent)
Albert L. Wiley

Safe McHenry

District 11:

Rick Bryson
Tom Hill
Mark Meadows (incumbent)

Safe Meadows

District 12:

Alma Adams (incumbent)
Gardenia Henley
Juan Antonio Marin
Leon Threatt
Ryan Duffie

Safe Adams

District 13:

Ron Sanyal
John P. McNeil
George Holding (incumbent)

Safe Holding

So basically, all of the incumbents are pretty much guaranteed their reelection except for Ellmers and Jones, both of whom face sizeable primary challenges. They each have a good chance of keeping their seats, but you never know.

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Fun facts:

- 1,963 total candidates running in North Carolina in 2016.
- 705 Republicans, 693 Democrats, and 23 Libertarians are running in total (the rest are nonpartisan).

[Miles]

Strong move for Thomas Mills to run in CD8. Not that I expect him to win, but props to him for following through with it. I'm looking forward to his blog posts on the race.

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Strong move for Thomas Mills to run in CD8. Not that I expect him to win, but props to him for following through with it. I'm looking forward to his blog posts on the race.

I had no idea who this guy is, but he seems awesome. Enthusiastically endorsed.

[Miles]

He runs a good state blog, and is the left-leaning contributor there. He's often more personal than the Republican, John Wynne, who tends to be more matter-of-fact. This is probably the most powerful piece he's written and I'd recommend it.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Nice write-up. What odds do you give Elmers in the primary. I'm wondering if the unconfirmed rumors of her affair with McCarthy will hurt her.

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Nice write-up. What odds do you give Elmers in the primary. I'm wondering if the unconfirmed rumors of her affair with McCarthy will hurt her.

Roche alone received more than 40% in 2014, and considering that Ellmers' popularity has done nothing but decrease since then, there's a good chance he could do even better next year. However, the inclusion of three other primary challengers will probably spoil Roche's chances to an extent, depending on how well each of them do. If no candidate receives 40% of the vote or more, there will be a runoff between the top two contenders, and I would rate one between Roche and Ellmers as a toss-up. However, if the far-right candidates split the anti-Ellmers vote between them and Roche drops below 40%, there's a good chance that Ellmers will hang on. Lean Ellmers, I'd say.

In NC-03, Taylor Griffin will no longer be obstructed by Al Novinec, but Phil Law might serve the same role that Novinec did last year. However, as with Ellmers, Jones hasn't seen that much good news as of late, and considering Griffin only lost by a few points in 2014, he might have a better chance this time. Lean Griffin, but only ever so slightly.

All other incumbents look safe, but I kinda got lazy around District 6 yesterday so I'm going to go through those again.

I would check with Miles to make sure all that^ is true because Miles actually knows things.

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I'll probably do a district-by-district analysis now just for the heck of it.

[Miles]

Most of the non-Walker NC-06 candidates look like Some Dudes.

From what I can tell, Democrats would be best with James Roberts. He seems to have a decent military/business record for a first-time candidate. He's also from Surry County - any Democrat who could get extra votes out of there would be be preferable.

The other Republican looks to be running to Walker's right. Walker himself was the insurgent candidate in the primary last time, and crushed Berger, so I'm skeptical. You also had several challenges to the more moderate-ish Coble that went nowhere in past cycles; his entrenchment and general badassness were helpful, but still.

[136or142]

Most of the non-Walker NC-06 candidates look like Some Dudes.

From what I can tell, Democrats would be best with James Roberts. He seems to have a decent military/business record for a first-time candidate. He's also from Surry County - any Democrat who could get extra votes out of there would be be preferable.

The other Republican looks to be running to Walker's right. Walker himself was the insurgent candidate in the primary last time, and crushed Berger, so I'm skeptical. You also had several challenges to the more moderate-ish Coble that went nowhere in past cycles; his entrenchment and general badassness were helpful, but still.

All three of the Democrats are businessmen who served in the military.

James Roberts is probably the weakest of the three.  He is running partly as a one issue candidate as he is physically challenged as a result of surgery (possibly malpractice, but I don't think that was ever determined.)  His primary issue is calling for mandatory investigations into medical problems that come from surgery in the same was the all air plane crashes are investigated (he's calling for a National Medical Safety Board similar to the National Transportation Safety Board.)  The rest of his issue positions are similar to Bernie Sanders' which is probably too left wing for this district.

Also, I don't want to dishonor his military service, but he served 26 years and only obtained the rank of the non commissioned officer position of Sargeant First Class.

Bruce Davis is probably the strongest candidate. In addition to owning with his wife a child care center,  he was on the Guilford County Commission (population of around 500,000) from 2002-2014 when he  retired from it to run for this district and lost with 44% of the vote in the Democratic Primary against a high profile lawyer, Laura Fjord.  He was since appointed as the Chair of the High Point Visitors and Convention Bureau.  He served in the military for nearly four years.

Pete Glidewell is also a possibly strong candidate.  In addition to being a Vietnam Veteran, he is the owner and principal of a small and medium business management consulting firm, and before that held executive positions in a number of textile manufacturing and sales firms, including C.E.O of one firm, and Vice President of Sales and Marketing in another firm.  He was also elected chair of the Alamance County Democratic Party in 2013.

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I privately contacted Mr. Cooke last night using the name "George Mondale" and he gave the following response:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It seems like some sort of news article, but I can't find it anywhere online (including on lpnc.org). No idea where it came from.

[Mr. Reactionary]

The other Republican looks to be running to Walker's right. Walker himself was the insurgent candidate in the primary last time, and crushed Berger, so I'm skeptical. You also had several challenges to the more moderate-ish Coble that went nowhere in past cycles; his entrenchment and general badassness were helpful, but still.

Yeah, Walker won by running an annoying number of ads about Mexicans this and Mexicans that, which resonated with a lot of the factory workers around here. Apparently though he "sold out" by voting for Boehner for Speaker. I wish Walker would get knocked off. As a baptist I find it very troubling when baptist preachers run for public office, because they almost always suck.

[SATW]

Supporting Griffin, but not as strongly as I did last time.
Supporting Ellmers because screw the crazies.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I live in Holding's district now.

I am probably rooting for Jones to survive and Ellmers and Rouzer to lose.

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I live in Holding's district now.

I am probably rooting for Jones to survive and Ellmers and Rouzer to lose.

To Otto or Casteen? Either way, Rouzer is completely safe.

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Well C. L. Cooke added me back on Google Plus, but he said he already has a website designer

Better luck next time, me.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I live in Holding's district now.

I am probably rooting for Jones to survive and Ellmers and Rouzer to lose.

To Otto or Casteen? Either way, Rouzer is completely safe.

Unfortunately.

I miss McIntyre now.