Proving that anything can happen in an election, Sherrie Young won the Democratic primary for North Carolina House District 59.
A lot of people get fired up and go down to the Board of Elections office and file to run for office. Often only then do they find out how time consuming and expensive it is to run a campaign and how difficult it is to raise money.
Some spend no more than the filing fee and hope that on Election Day people will like their name or that their opponent drops out or makes a huge mistake.
From all appearances Young was such a candidate. Young had no campaign website, not even a Facebook page. If there was any information about her other than the fact that she filed to fun in NC House District 59 Democratic primary, it was incredibly hard to find.
There were no yard signs and no visible sign of any effort to convince people that she was the best candidate in the race. Voters in District 59 reported they saw no evidence that Young was campaigning.
Her opponent, Eddie Aday, didn’t do a whole lot either, but he did have a website and appeared to actually be running a campaign. However, it also appeared that Aday was running against Republican District 59 NC state House Rep. Jon Hardister, who had no primary opponent.
But Aday won’t get the opportunity to run against Hardister, who is the House majority whip, because he was soundly defeated by Young.
Young finished with 75 percent of the vote to 25 percent for Aday. In political races over 20 points is considered a landslide.
Voters in North Carolina prefer to vote for women, so one theory going around is that many voters went to the polls knowing virtually nothing about either candidate and they overwhelmingly voted for the woman on the ballot.
The big question is, will Young stick with her noncampaign campaign in November since it worked in May? Only time will tell.
