As opening days go, it was a pretty quiet one.
Monday, Dec. 2 was the opening day for candidates to file to run in the Nov. 3, 2020 election, which seems a little early and might be one explanation for the low candidate turnout on opening day. Also, it probably didn’t help that this was the first workday after the Thanksgiving holiday.
The reason for the early filing is that the primary is Tuesday, March 3, and when you consider overseas and military ballots for that primary have to be mailed in January, that pushes the filing back to Dec. 2 through Dec. 20, 2019 for the 2020 election.
In past years on opening day of a presidential election year, there have been candidates lined up down the hall waiting to file. Tuesday, according to Guilford County Director of Elections Charlie Collicutt, it was slow but steady.
A warning for voters: Some of the state House and Senate districts in Guilford County have changed since the 2018 election, so even if you generally keep up with political issues, you might not be in the district you think you are.
This is presidential election year, which means a long ballot. But to keep the list to manageable level, here are the candidates who filed Monday for the Guilford County state House and Senate seats.
NC Senate District 24 Republican Sen. Rick Gunn announced he would not be running for reelection and two candidates filed to run for his seat – Democrat J.D. Wooten and Republican Amy S. Galey.
NC Senate District 27 Democratic Sen. Michael Garrett filed to run for reelection and Republican Sebastian King also filed to run for the District 27 Senate seat.
NC Senate District 28 Democratic Sen. Gladys Robinson filed to run for reelection.
NC House District 57 Democratic Rep. Ashton Clemmons filed to run for reelection.
NC House District 58 Democratic Rep. Amos Quick filed to run for reelection.
NC House District 59 Republican Rep. Jon Hardister filed to run for reelection and Democrat Nicole Quick also filed to run for the District 59 House seat.
NC House District 60 Democratic Rep. Cecil Brockman filed to run for reelection.
NC House District 61 Democratic Rep. Pricey Harrison filed to run for reelection.
NC House District 62 Republican Rep. John Faircloth filed to run for reelection.
