North Carolina House Candidates

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As the filing deadline has passed, the official list of candidates for the 2016 House of Representatives Elections in North Carolina is as follows (incumbents marked):

District 1:

G. K. Butterfield (incumbent)
C. L. Cooke

Safe D district with a safe D incumbent. Cooke is a nobody; I doubt he'll get much above 20%.

District 2:

Adam Coker
Renee Ellmers (incumbent)
Frank Roche
Jim Duncan
Kay Daly
Tim D'Annuzio

Ellmers is basically one of only two incumbents this cycle with an actual chance of losing; she has four primary contenders from the right and she's pretty unpopular even in her own district. Each of her challengers seems to have a decent campaign infrastructure, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Roche, Duncan, or D'Annuzio won, especially considering there will probably be a number of tea party/pro-life groups backing them. Daly, on the other hand, has the best advertisement. She seems to imply that she's willing to assassinate Ellmers, but, you know, whatever. Any R is safe in the GE.

District 3:

David Hurst
Walter B. Jones (incumbent)
Taylor Griffin
Phil Law

Another interesting race, in which independent-streaky Jones is up in his primary against more traditional Republican Taylor Griffin and the irrelevant Phil Law (though he does have a cool campaign bus). Griffin challenged and nearly defeated Jones in 2014, having been backed by Sarah Palin, a number of GOP establishment figures, and even a few Tea Party activists looking for voting consistency (Jones can be rebellious sometimes). Not quite sure who'll win here, but it won't be Hurst.

District 4:

David Price (incumbent)
Sue Googe
Teiji Kimball

Googe will probably beat Kimball in the GOP primary considering the latter is fairly controversial and pretty weird, but it honestly doesn't matter, because Price is safe.

District 5:

Josh Brannon
Virginia Foxx (incumbent)
Pattie Curran

Foxx isn't going anywhere. Pattie Curran is one of those "electile dysfunction" protest sign people.

District 6:

Bruce Davis
Jim Roberts
Pete Glidewell
Mark Walker (incumbent)
Chris Hardin

Safe for Walker.

District 7:

J. Wesley Casteen
David Rouzer (incumbent)
Mark D. Otto

I'm pretty pissed here, because J. Wesley Casteen was the Libertarian candidate in NC-07 last year and nobody cares about him. I'm not even sure "Mark D. Otto" exists but I hope he wins, tbh.

District 8:

Thomas Mills
Richard Hudson (incumbent)

Safe Hudson

District 9:

Christian Cano
Robert Pittenger (incumbent)
George Rouco

Safe Pittenger

District 10:

Andy Millard
Patrick McHenry (incumbent)
Albert L. Wiley

Safe McHenry

District 11:

Rick Bryson
Tom Hill
Mark Meadows (incumbent)

Safe Meadows

District 12:

Alma Adams (incumbent)
Gardenia Henley
Juan Antonio Marin
Leon Threatt
Ryan Duffie

Safe Adams

District 13:

Ron Sanyal
John P. McNeil
George Holding (incumbent)

Safe Holding

So basically, all of the incumbents are pretty much guaranteed their reelection except for Ellmers and Jones, both of whom face sizeable primary challenges. They each have a good chance of keeping their seats, but you never know.

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Fun facts:

- 1,963 total candidates running in North Carolina in 2016.
- 705 Republicans, 693 Democrats, and 23 Libertarians are running in total (the rest are nonpartisan).

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Strong move for Thomas Mills to run in CD8. Not that I expect him to win, but props to him for following through with it. I'm looking forward to his blog posts on the race.

I had no idea who this guy is, but he seems awesome. Enthusiastically endorsed.

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Nice write-up. What odds do you give Elmers in the primary. I'm wondering if the unconfirmed rumors of her affair with McCarthy will hurt her.

Roche alone received more than 40% in 2014, and considering that Ellmers' popularity has done nothing but decrease since then, there's a good chance he could do even better next year. However, the inclusion of three other primary challengers will probably spoil Roche's chances to an extent, depending on how well each of them do. If no candidate receives 40% of the vote or more, there will be a runoff between the top two contenders, and I would rate one between Roche and Ellmers as a toss-up. However, if the far-right candidates split the anti-Ellmers vote between them and Roche drops below 40%, there's a good chance that Ellmers will hang on. Lean Ellmers, I'd say.

In NC-03, Taylor Griffin will no longer be obstructed by Al Novinec, but Phil Law might serve the same role that Novinec did last year. However, as with Ellmers, Jones hasn't seen that much good news as of late, and considering Griffin only lost by a few points in 2014, he might have a better chance this time. Lean Griffin, but only ever so slightly.

All other incumbents look safe, but I kinda got lazy around District 6 yesterday so I'm going to go through those again.

I would check with Miles to make sure all that^ is true because Miles actually knows things.

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I'll probably do a district-by-district analysis now just for the heck of it.

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I privately contacted Mr. Cooke last night using the name "George Mondale" and he gave the following response:

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It seems like some sort of news article, but I can't find it anywhere online (including on lpnc.org). No idea where it came from.

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I live in Holding's district now.

I am probably rooting for Jones to survive and Ellmers and Rouzer to lose.

To Otto or Casteen? Either way, Rouzer is completely safe.

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Well C. L. Cooke added me back on Google Plus, but he said he already has a website designer

Better luck next time, me.