It took place last night. Shout-outs to everybody involved in putting this together. At its peak, we had well over 60 attendees at this Zoom meeting, plus the technical staff who made it work. It was very-well run, co-hosted by NCC D Chair Kat Caudle and Wilmington D Chair Cassandra Marshall.
Four candidates are vying for the nomination. In alphabetical order: Shay Frisby, Dr. Bryan Haimes, Ray Siegfried, and Jonathan Tate. Each made an initial presentation, and then answered questions for close to 2 1/2 hours.
I wish Matt Meyer had been there, because he might well have changed his tune about how special elections should be run. The questions were almost uniformly good, and the answers cumulatively provided genuine insight into what each candidate would bring to the table. What you will have going into the selection of candidates on, or about, December 9 is an electorate well-informed about the candidates.
I admittedly have a strong favorite in this race, but I would encourage anybody who attended last night to share their thoughts on how the candidates did. BTW, several members of the Senate Democratic Caucus attended as guests.
I don’t much envy Kat and Cassandra. Because there are 11, count ’em, 11 announced candidates vying for the SD 1 seat currently held by Sarah McBride. So many candidates that they will hold two candidate forums, each with a different set of candidates.
There is one important question to which we’ve not received any answers: Will the vote be one ballot, most votes wins? Or will it be a series of ballots with those receiving the fewest votes dropping off? I believe that the nominee ultimately must receive over 50% of the votes. Otherwise, in the case of SD 5 (Kyle Evans Gay), someone could be the nominee having received less than 30%, making them more vulnerable to a Republican challenge in a district that, up until 2020, had a Republican senator in Cathy Cloutier.
In SD 1 (Sarah McBride), someone could win with less than 15% support. That doesn’t strike me as democratic or Democratic. Here’s hoping that the process is clarified in a way that will ensure Party unity during these Special Elections. In other words: Majority rules.