The 2020 Guilford County District 4 commissioners race got some life on Monday, Dec. 2, when former Democratic Guilford County Commissioner Kirk Perkins filed to regain the seat he lost in 2012.
Perkins has run both in District 4 and as an at-large candidate in an attempt to get back on the board and he’s hoping that this 2020 effort will accomplish just that.
The District 4 seat is currently held by Republican Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Alan Branson, who won the seat in the 2012 election by defeating Perkins. The nine-member Board of Commissioners has been ruled by a slim 5-to-4 Republican majority for the last seven years, and, if a Democratic challenger takes out a Republican commissioner, it would completely change the nature of the board.
Perkins, a Guilford College graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice administration, has worked as a prison guard and in real estate as well as served for eight years as a commissioner.
When Perkins ran in 2016, he said District 4 is an interesting place to campaign because the layout of the sweeping eastern district isn’t conducive to door to door visits, as are some of the more compact county districts that contain more dense neighborhoods. He pointed out that District 4 is the only district that touches three of the county’s four borders.
“It is by far the largest district in the county,” Perkins noted at that time.
