Tuesday is the primary day for local elections.
North Carolina moved its primary up several weeks this year with the 2020 presidential race in the balance. The idea is to have Tar Heel votes matter more by giving an opinion on Republicans and Democrats running for offices now rather than wait until several states have already shown clear leaders in the polls.
The candidate filings through the Surry County Board of Elections show a dozen local races up for grabs this year, but only five of them are included in the primary because of a lack of competition.
For example, Rep. Sarah Stevens (R), Mount Airy, is running for reelection for the 90th District seat for the House of Representatives. She has a Democratic challenger in Beth Shaw of Elkin, but she faces no GOP opponent; therefore her seat is not part of the primary this spring.
County Commissioner Van Tucker, representing the East District, is running unopposed for his second full term.
Two school board members are running unopposed as well: Clark Goings, vice chairman of the Surry County Board of Education, and Dr. Richard Brinegar, chairman of the Elkin Board of Education.
William Wagoner, a former Elkin school board member, decided to come out of retirement to run again and is unopposed for the East District seat.
For the Mount Airy Board of Education, two seats expire this year, but neither are on the primary ballot.
Current District A board member Phil Thacker is running for reelection. He is unopposed by the Democrat Party. On the other side, Randy Floyd is the sole Republican challenger, so neither one has to take part in the primary.
District D is an unusual position in that this is the first time that school board elections have a partisan format, and current board member Wendy Carriker is unaffiliated.
Right now, neither a Democrat nor a Republican filed to run against the longtime board member and former chair. However, she found out a week and a half ago that she needed 275 signatures of registered city voters by the primary date in order to be included on the fall ballot and has been working to collect those signatures.
That leaves five contested board of education seats in Tuesday’s primary:
• Three Republicans have filed for the slot being vacated by Mike Marion, who announced in December he wouldn’t seek re-election. They are Jayme Reeves Brant, Don Moore and Terrell Stephens.
• Another school board member resigned last year shortly after the county commissioners voted to make school board elections partisan.
When Kate Appler stepped down, the school board accepted applications from prospective board members and chose Teresa Leiva, a Mount Airy High School alumnae, to fill the remainder of the term.
Leiva is now running for election against fellow Republican Thomas Horton for the District C seat.
• For the county school board, current District 1 (Mount Airy) representative Brian Moser announced he would not seek reelection.
Two Republicans filed for that position: Dale Badgett and Leigh Poindexter.
• The most crowded field for any local race is at register of deeds where incumbent Carolyn Comer announced she is retiring at the end of her term after decades in the deeds office.
Lloyd Terry, a former captain in the Surry County Sheriff’s Office, is the sole Democrat on the ticket and is not part of the primary.
On the Republican side, however, there are three people in the running: former city commissioner Todd Harris, current deeds office employee Jerry White and bail bondsman Scott Elvis.
• The final spot up for grabs is the Mount Airy District seat on the Surry County Board of Commissioners.
Four years ago, then-Commissioner Jimmy Miller faced four challengers in the Republican primary. Larry Johnson came in first place, and Bill Goins was second.
Miller decided to resign early and allow the commissioners to appoint Johnson to step into the seat early since the county board was in the middle of working on the annual budget.
Goins did well enough in that showing that he came back in 2018 and defeated Larry Phillips for the other Mount Airy District seat.
Now Johnson faces a challenger in Steven Odum.
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Between the start of early voting on Feb. 13 through Thursday, Feb. 27, the county Board of Elections office tallied 4,097 votes cast, according to daily counts from Michella Huff, county director of elections.
From Feb. 13-21 the daily total was generally in the 280s to 290s, except for Feb. 20 when bad weather kept turnout to just 152.
As the primary date has neared, the number of people going to early voting increased. On Monday the count was 314, then on Tuesday it rose to 368. Wednesday saw the count top 400 for the first time at 413. Then Thursday went higher still at 455 and Friday 716.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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