NC-03: If I had a dime for every person who filed for Congress …
I’d be $2.60 richer!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the deadline for filing for the Third Congressional District seat in the US House has come and gone. And boy have you folks in that district got a crowd to sift through.
We’ve got 17 Republicans, 6 Democrats, 2 Libertarians, 1 Constitution Partier –— and a partridge in a pear tree. Literally, something for everybody.
This beats the filing total for the 13th congressional district seat in 2016 that gave us that political dynamo known as Ted Budd. That field was loaded with local elected officials, and a gaggle of state legislators too. WHO honestly thought we’d now be looking at congressman Ted Budd?
This district leans Republican, but the Democrats in DC these days are not conceding anything. They’ve stolen a few GOP seats around the country, and are working on stealing the Ninth District seat in this state.
Let’s touch on the filers who showed up on this, the final day:
Francis DeLuca of Cary (R) is recently retired as the boss at Raleigh’s Civitas Institute and a former Marine.
Eric Rouse (R) of Kinston is a Lenoir County commissioner.
Michael Payment (R) is a Currituck County commissioner (and close political ally of state senator Bob Steinburg and state Rep. Bobby Hanig).
Kevin Patrick Baiko (R) of Moyock is (apparently) a doctor advocating the idea of medical marijuana. (Don’t dismiss that idea out of hand. It has a surprisingly significant amount of support in this congressional district.)
We’re still scratching our heads over Gregory Humphrey (D) of Beulaville in Duplin County. (If anyone out there knows more, shoot us a note.)
Donald Ray Cox (R) of Belhaven is a founding member of “The Super Grit Cowboy Band.”
Former Marine Tim Harris (L) of New Bern was the Libertarian nominee against state senator Norman Sanderson in 2018. He’ll be slugging it out this year for the Libertarian nomination for NC-03 against fellow Libertarian Shannon Bray of Apex.
The fun is only getting started, folks.
Voters in the Ninth District — over to the south and east — will be starting their very own version of THIS on Monday.
What amazes me is how many of these folks that do not live in ENC. I know Francis Deluca for instance is a well known name in the conservative ranks, however I do not believe folks in ENC will buy a Raleigh area name. ENC already feels it is Raleigh’s redheaded step child, in fact we in ENC consider ourselves a separate state. I do not see any ENC outsiders standing a chance. Personally my mind is already made up… Michael Speciale all the way, the only true constitutional conservative on the ballot, if Speciale isn’t on the ballot in the general then my vote goes to the Constitution party candidate Greg Holt, I would consider Michele Nix, but for me she blew it with the ousting of Hasan Harnett she did absolutely nothing and let the establishment flunkies have the GOP back which is why I am Unaffiliated now.
There are actually three from Wake County who have filed for the 3rd district seat – Graham Boyd, Jeff Moore, and Francis deLuca. Some would add a fourth, Phil Law, but he managed to move his voter registration back to Onslow County in time. Moore and deLuca, as well as Law, have past associations with the 3rd district. Moore grew up in Carteret County, while deLuca and Law spent time in the Marines at Camp LeJeune in Onslow County.
But like you, I prefer someone who has better roots in the 3rd and is a solid conservative, and we are agreed that Michael Speciale is that candidate.
Michael Speciale is Trusted and knows the area of Coastal Counties! Chairman of Conservative Causes in NC House of Representative! Great Representative for us!
You seems like a very smart man with your cboices. #NeverNix why vote for someone that turned her back on conservatives when she has a chance to stand up and do what was right. The goal is to drain the swamp in Washington not repopulate it
Harnett lost me the day he got up at the 3rd CD convention and blamed his troubles on “racism.” As bad as Hayes is, he’s still better than that clown was. I’ll never vote for anyone who whines about “racists.”
But I was sitting beside Republican Legislators on the convention floor before Harnett was even elected before any votes were taken and they were talking about how they could get their caucus money out of the party on the chance he was elected. No I do not think they had racist reasons for saying this but they were and it is accurate they were conspiring against conservatism/graddroots that day and trying to keep the establishment side of the party in power no matter what is took and then they passed legislation later that summer to do just that be able to remove their caucus money from the party
With Hayes, we have a joke of a chairman who is nothing but a figurehead for an unqualified and incompetent executive director who is in effect running the party. That is the worst of all worlds. But instead of looking to the past, we need to look to the future, where Womack is qualified and has the ability to actually function as chairman instead of being a figurehead for someone else..
To expand on my Bio. I was born in Jacksonville, grew up in Jacksonville, graduated from Jacksonville Senior High School (go Cardinals). Since graduating from UNCW I have lived in Jacksonville for extended periods several times. And yes I did about 20 years in the USMC based out of New River Air Station and Camp Lejeune while deploying around the world.
This does not include all of the time spent in the 3rd district meeting people and promoting good conservative policy.
My wife and I recently retired and plan on moving back east. I do still own property in Jacksonville.
Thanks for the opportunity to fill in missing details on the above post.
http://www.coldelucaforcongress.com
@fxdeluca
It was very curious to me that Sandy Smith of Pitt County never filed. She showed up at the district executive committee meeting with an entourage of campaign volunteers, had hired a campaign consultant out of Florida, was the only candidate who had [printed campaign literature to distribute, brought a videographer to record her speech, and had a campaign Facebook page. Yet she never filed according to the list sent out by NCGOP.
Did someone entice her out of the race with promises or threats? Or did she have a sudden change of heart for some reason? Her Pitt County roots would have been a problem for other Pitt based candidates, while her conservative views might have been a problem by dividing the conservative vote to others. Her sudden departure from the race after all of that preparation seems very very strange to me.
Looks like she is running for the US Senate in 2020.
If that is the case, those around Tillis may have enticed her to switch races. With the crappy new 30% threshold to avoid a runoff, they want to get as many people in the race as possible, figuring an incumbent with money can get 30%. When Woodhouse and Hayes and Stark pulled that sneaky underhanded move to push the legislature to drop the threshold it should have been called the “Tillis Renomination Act”.
Of course, the other question is which State House district she lives in. If it is the same one as Murphy, that could also provide the basis of a deal, and Murphy would be the one who would feel most threatened by her candidacy.
Smith running for the Senate benefits both Murphy and Tillis. Murphy wants less competition from his home county. Tillis wants a lot of competitors so he can cruise back in with 30%.
There is at least one common denominator, politically, between Murphy and Tillis, and there may be others. The known common denominator is radio man Henry Hinton, who is Greg Murphy’s political godfather, and is also a huge fan-boy of Thom Tillis, whom he avidly supports.
Holy crap. We are really getting into tin-foil hat territory here. More people in a race like this lowers the threshold (%) people have to get to in order to make the runoff. Sandy and her husband run a solar panel business. She didn’t like to talk about that because it would have been a kiss of death. Smith was in over her head. You could tell by reading her website. Someone probably just talked some sense into her and helped her avoid major embarrassment.
Solar panel business? You mean she was a Solyndra Republican? So all of her talk of being a conservative was a load of hoey? She would have been competing with Murphy and Sheppard, both of whom vote with Big Solar in the legislature, for the wacko environmentalist vote?
That is just another example of why you need to really do your homework on candidates. Many who claim to be conservative are NOT. Every Republican likes to throw around the term “conservative” these days, even Thom Tillis. Walter Jones opposed the taxpayer ripoff subsidies to Big Solar and Big Wind, and we need a new congressman who will follow in his footsteps.
Maybe the Big Solar special interests suggested they had another candidate they were backing.
A solar panel business??!! Self supporting or subsidized with tax payer money? If it is the latter that closes my book on Mrs Smith.
The Constitution Party has a decision to make after the primary in this district and in the 9th. If the GOP nominates an establishment moderate, I would expect the Constitution Party to stay in, with all guns firing. However, if the GOP nominates a solid conservative like Speciale or deLuca in the 3rd of Bishop or Rushing in the 9th, and the Constitution Party is serious about their conservatism, they will stand down and withdraw from the race. They do not need to divide the conservative vote when another conservative has a much. much greater chance of winning. If they should stay in and cause a progressive to win one of these seats, I don’t think the Constitution Party would get much trust from conservatives going forward.