2019 Special Election
The Mayor of Greenville
A mayor and more.
Start there. Greenville, NC is a small city, North Carolina’s 11th largest. With fewer than 100,000 people making it is just a touch smaller than South Bend, Indiana. Renamed Greeneville after the Revolutionary War General Nathaniel Greene (from Rhode Island, no less). A coastal plain. Tidewater. Tobacco country. Battered by hurricanes. East Carolina University. A university and a region which feels perpetually slighted by North Carolina’s major public and private universities and greater engines of commerce.. 60% white, more than 30% African American. A quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.
The Congressional District is more prosperous. Median household income of $50,000 rather than $30,000. 75% white and 20% African American. The district stretches east to the Outer Banks. The sense of deprivation remains, It has continued for centuries. You have to love it. The three earliest Members of Congress for the Third District are simply identified as “:Anti-Administration.”
The Congressional Special Election will be September 10. Allen Thomas https://www.allenthomascongress.com/ is the Democratic nominee. He is not a candidate of resentment. More like a candidate of aspirations. He won his primary, getting 50.2% of the vote. Well above the 30% minimum needed for the winner with a plurality to avoid a run off.
A former student body president at East Carolina, Allen Thomas went away from home, at little. Got an MBA at UNC at Chapel Hill. He made some money in business, in technology. He co-founded IQMax Health Care Technologies – the first platform for doctors to manage their workflow, linking themselves to multiple facilities through smart technology.
Allen Thomas became a business-oriented good government guy. Served on the beverage control commission, advised the state Council for Economic Development, chaired Greenville’s Planning Organization. He ran for mayor.
Allen Thomas recalls his experience as mayor as productive. Creating an office of economic development. Creating jobs through public-private partnerships. Creating commercial corridors. Revitalizing the city center and the waterfront. A business-oriented, good government guy.
He resigned to take a regional development job – head of Quad East. This alliance of cities and counties in eastern North Carolina was intended to create more opportunities for economic growth. It was Allen Thomas’ only serious bump in the road.
Beth Wood, the State Auditor and a Democrat issued an audit. She said the Executive Director did not provide sufficient oversight of Quad East’s financial statements. That increased the risk of fraud. The executive director did not provide all documents in a timely manner. Nor did he inform the auditor of his plan to leave his position.
Sabotage for Alan Thomas’ campaign? He wasn’t referred to by name. The auditor insists she would have produced the audit much earlier had the documents been available. She has also insists no money was missing and no laws were broken.
If it was sabotage, it did not work. Issued shortly before the primary Allen Thomas still won.
Alan Thomas had explained he knew, when he took the position, the organization would be challenging. He pointed to successes under his leadership. New businesses had located at the authority’s site near the authority-controlled airport. New investments amounted to $72 million.
He may not have planned to leave the position. He decided to leave upon the death of the current Member of Congress. Representative Walter Jones had been ill for a very long time. To have told the auditor he was planning to run for Congress when and if Walter Jones died would have been ghoulish.
Jones will be a tough act to follow. An iconoclastic Republican, he opposed the Iraq War after initially being for it. He voted against Republican proposals during the Obama administration and was stripped of his committee memberships for his troubles. He called for scrutiny of President Trump, for him to release his tax returns. The Republican establishment may be glad he’s gone. That’s a little ghoulish too.
The Republican establishment wants a Republican representing North Carolina’s Third District. Republicans carry it by twenty or thirty points. They might prefer a business oriented Democrat to Walter Jones if they had that choice.
The Republicans do have a choice. State Rep and urologist Greg Murphy who got 22.5% of the vote in the Republican primary. Pediatrician Joan Perry who got 15.4% of the vote in the Republican primary. The run off is on July 9. Allen Thomas may not have an opponent yet, but he has a had start.
Help the Republican establishment get a business oriented Democrat. September 10 is not far away. Help Allen Thomas https://www.allenthomascongress.com/ capitalize on his head start. Help him win this special election. Help him create a Blue Wave for 2020.
Remember these southern Democrats running for office in 2019:
John Bel Edwards Reelection as Governor of Louisiana
Jim Hood Current AG, running for Governor of Mississippi
Jennifer Riley Collins Running for Attorney General
Andy Beshear Current AG, running for Governor of Kentucky
Remember this southern Democrat running for reelection in 2020
Doug Jones Reelection as Senator from Alabama
Remember these southern Democratic Members of Congress running for reelection in 2020. Members of Congress who had very close races in the south in 2018 and Candidates for Congress in Special Elections in 2019.
Joe Cunningham Reelection to SC 01
Elaine Luria Reelection to VA 02
Lucy McBath Reelection to GA 06
Dan McCready Special Election for NC 09
Debbie Mucarcel-Powell Reelection to FL 26
Allen Thomas Special Election for NC 03
THE SOUTH IS CHANGING. BE PART OF THAT CHANGE. HELP IT HAPPEN.
