GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) – Although many incumbents in elections across the Piedmont Triad will return to office for another term without even having to sweat a campaign, some of the Triad’s longest-serving leaders will have work to do if they want another four years in office.
Candidate filing ended on Friday, and, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene on the congressional map approved last week by the courts, the races are pretty much set, with some very crowded fields in the U.S. Senate and congressional races and several incumbents in the General Assembly virtually guaranteed a return to office.
Write-in candidates have some time to get into their names onto the ballot for Nov. 8, but we know the lineups for the primary election on May 17. And we know some folks who have been serving for several years have opposition.
Two of the region’s biggest names – Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page – are among them.
Vaughan, mayor of Greensboro since being elected in 2013 and a member of the City Council before that, has said this will be her last campaign, and she faces a sitting member of the council, District 3 representative Justin Outling, in the nonpartisan race.
Outling long ago had announced his plans, but two others have joined the race: developer Eric Robert, who once sued the city for saying it misled him about a grant, and Mark Cummings, a former judge who resigned in 2020 after an ethics investigation.
All incumbents on City Council face challengers, and former council member Zack Matheny and longtime council critic Bill Mashburn are competing to replace Outling in District 3.
All of this was supposed to be decided last fall, but because of the delayed 2020 census results, new districts for the City Council could not be drawn in time. After briefly considering having a divided election – at-large races last year, district races this year – the Council aligned with the 2022 election calendar.
Page, first elected sheriff in 1998 and one of the most vocal and powerful Republican voices in the region, won’t be on the ballot until November, when he will face Democrat Tyrone Scales, a long-time police officer and detective in his hometown of Eden.
Another longtime sheriff, Republican Terry Johnson, who has served Alamance County since 2002, also faces opposition, form Democrat Kelly T. White of Burlington, the deputy chief of the Winston-Salem State University campus police.
Three other sheriffs across the...
