TCB Nov. 10, 2022 — Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

Red wave underwhelms, incumbents rule local elections, GOP takes NC Supreme Court

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Election Day, again

Iwoke up early today so I could shuffle outside in the lingering darkness to see the blood-red moon.

It’s a terrible harbinger for Elec tion Day, if you believe in that sort of thing. But as we’ve seen, when an election looms close, people are willing to believe all sorts of outland ish things.

I’m writing this Tuesday morning, before I head out to the precincts to gather string, before I find a place to watch the returns, before the results come in and I am once again reminded of that eter nal truth in American politics: the bastards almost always win. Then, like always, I’ll sublimate my ego with reporting and writing and editing so we can get our coverage out in the world by midnight or so. I’ll weep, figuratively speaking, on my own time.

Elections don’t make me cry, not even in 2013, when I was fired on Election Day, nor in 2016, when I had to leave the Guilford GOP watch party at the Moose Lodge and sprint back to the office to tell our art direc tor, Jorge, that Trump would be the next president of the United States. He almost cried.

“How can that be?” he asked. The bastards, I told him. They almost always win.

Almost!

I was there when Yvonne Johnson became the first Black mayor of Greensboro in 2007, but I was also there in 2009 when she lost the seat to Bill Knight, a one-hit wonder in Greensboro politics who rode in on anti-Obama backlash and then more or less disappeared from public life.

The election of Barack Obama irre vocably broke a lot of white people in this country. They’ll never get over it.

I bubbled the bourbon bottle one too many times the night he was elected in 2008, so seismic was the development. We ushered Kay Hagan, a Democrat from Greensboro, into the US Senate that night, too, knocking out Elizabeth Dole, who never really lived here anyway.

I was at her election-night watch party when Thom Tillis took her by surprise in 2014. It was like a movie, balloons slowly sinking to the floor as people made for the exits early.

I’ve no idea what to expect tonight. I don’t believe the polls and I don’t believe the pundits and I put my faith only in the news I get from reporters and outlets I trust.

It’s better this way, more exciting from a reporter’s standpoint, and in the unknowing, there is still a little room for hope.

WEBMASTER Sam LeBlanc

Sorensen, Todd Turner

by Brian Clarey

The election of Barack Obama irrevocably broke a lot of white people in this country.

by MICHAELA RATLIFF

THURSDAY Nov. 10

Be a Santa to a Senior @ Various Locations and Times (GSO) Home Instead encourages Triad residents to spread the holiday cheer to older adults who may be alone this season and participate in Be a Santa to a Senior until Dec. 5. Visit a participating location where ornaments featuring the name and desired gift of a senior citizen will be on display. Find locations and more information at beasantatoasenior. com/loc/311 or call the local office at 336.294.0081.

FRIDAY Nov. 11

Stewart

p.m.

Nov. 10-16

SATURDAY Nov. 12

Triad GO FAR Community 5K & Fun Run @ Showplace (HP) 7:15 a.m.

Artists’ Reception @ Artworks Gallery (W-S) 1:30 p.m.

Stewart Coley will be at Real Kitchen & Bar performing a setlist of classic rock and contemporary country hits from the 80s and 90s as well as original songs and more. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.

The Wild Party @ Pam and David Sprinkle Theatre (GSO) 7:30 p.m.

Novant Health is hosting this 5K to celebrate health and wellness in the local communities. Children from more than 30 Triad schools have trained for eight weeks for this event, learning about positive character traits and healthy life choices in the process. Sign up to run or volunteer on the event page on Facebook.

SUNDAY Nov. 13

Story Time & Craft @ Distractions: An Art Entertainment Studio (HP) 12 p.m.

Artworks Gallery is hosting an artists’ reception to celebrate the two new exhibitions on display this month. “Into the Horizons” by Diane Nations is a collection of oil paintings and mixed media collages that explore symbolism and more found on the horizon, while Betti Pettinati Longi notti’s ““Mostly Mandalas: Imagery from Lea’s Garden” is a collection of mandalas inspired by Artworks artist Lea Lackey Zachmann’s garden. This exhibition is free and open to the public. Find more information at artworks-gallery.org

WEDNESDAY Nov. 16

Merry Merry Market @ Revolution Mill Events Center (GSO) 9 a.m.

UNCG School of Theatre presents The Wild Party, the tale of party ani mals and lovers Queenie and Burrs. During a party, Queenie’s wandering eye leads to an argument and a gun being fired, but who’s been shot? Purchase tickets at vpa.uncg.edu or call the UNCG Theatre box office at 336.334.4392.

Join Distractions for story time and crafts during this event perfect for children ages 3 to 6. Pre-registration is required and can be done at dis tractionsartstudio.com

Get the full events calendar by signing up for the Weekender, straight to your inbox every Thursday.

pico.link/triadcitybeat

Get some early holiday shopping done during this market featuring items from local artisans and small businesses. Purchase tickets at merrymerrymarketgso.com.

Coley @ Real Kitchen & Bar (HP) 7

Election results in federal, state and local races for Guilford and Forsyth Counties

by Sayaka Matsuoka, Brian Clarey, James Douglas

While Democrats released a sigh of relief at the failed materialization of a “red wave” at the federal level, several Republicans took notable seats in the state legislature in North Carolina and swept judicial races. Here’s a look at the election results for the federal, state and local races in the Triad.

FEDERAL RACES

The North Carolina Senate race between Democrat Cherie Beasley, for mer NC Supreme Court chief justice, and GOP Rep. Ted Budd for the open seat vacated by Sen. Richard Burr was too close to call until almost midnight, when Budd was up by three points with 98.8 percent of NC counties reporting.

With the Senate balance at an even 50-50 coming into the election, the seat was an opportunity for Dems to turn one blue or for Reps to keep their edge. And the difference between the candidates was stark. Beasley was the first Black woman to serve as chief justice in NC; Budd owns a gun shop in Rural Hall, got a full-throat ed endorsement from Donald Trump and voted to overturn the 2022 election.

At press time, the Senate stood at 48 Democrats and 47 Republicans, with races in Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin too close to call.

* * *

Rep. Kathy Manning didn’t come to her own watch party until she knew she had it in the bag.

She waited until “every ballot was counted,” she told her assembled staffers and supporters at Bain & Elm event space on Tuesday night at 10:16 p.m., almost three hours after the polls closed and more than two hours after she took a commanding lead in early returns.

In the end the Democrat won re-election in the 6th Congressional District by more than 8.5 points over Republican challenger Christian Casselli, a margin of more than 20,000 votes. Libertarian candidate Thomas Watercott received 1 percent of the votes cast.

After thanking her husband, Greensboro businessman Randall Kaplan, and her campaign and Congressional staffers, Manning felt obligated to thank the North Carolina Supreme Court, which struck down in February a set of partisan, gerry mandered maps put forth by the state GOP leadership that would have obliviated the 6th District, which now covers most of Greensboro and Winston-Salem and the area between.

“Our Republican-controlled General Assembly tried so desperately to kill this district,” she said. “But those justices in their wisdom threw out those outrageously partisan maps.”

She then outlined her accomplishments in the last two terms, including the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Postal Restoration Act and her new bill, the Right to Contraception Act.

Rep. Kathy Manning won her re-election bid to the 6th Congressional District on Tuesday night. She won with 53.8 percent of the vote.

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

At the same exact time, 100 miles west, in Boone, Rep. Virginia Foxx issued her declara tion of victory in the 5th Congressional District by a hefty margin: more than 26 points against Democrat challenger Kyle Parrish, a margin of more than 70,000 votes.

Foxx, who voted to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, said this in her state ment:

“It’s time to bring common sense back to Washington. Americans spoke today and en dorsed a different direc tion for our country. It’s past time to get inflation under control, to restore sanity in our schools, to address the growing immigration crisis at our borders, and end the Biden administration’s reckless experiments with socialism.”

Both races were part of a national dogfight for the House majority, which stood 222-213 in favor of Democrats before this election.

With wins by Dems Don Davis, Deborah Ross, Valerie Foushee, Alma Adams, Wiley Nickel and Jeff Jackson, and Republicans Greg Murphy, David Rouzer, Dan Bishop, Richard Hudson and Chuck Edwards, the NC Congressional Delegation will stand at seven from each party.

The House itself, at press time, favored Republicans 197-174 of the 435 seats therein.

JUDICIAL RACES

t was a good night for Republicans in the judicial races across the state. In Guilford and Forsyth counties, all six seats that were open were won by GOP candidates.

The NC Supreme Court is the state’s highest court with one chief justice and six associate justices who review cases from the NC Court of Appeals, NC Business Court and cases involving the death penalty.

The NC Court of Appeals is the state’s intermediate appellate court and it re views cases first decided in District and Superior Courts. Currently 15 judges sit on rotating panels of three. All judges serve eight-year terms.

For the NC Supreme Court Associate Justice – Seat 3, Richard Dietz beat Lucy Inman by 5.2 percentage points, while for the NC Supreme Court Associate Justice – Seat 5 vacancy, challenger Trey Allen beat incumbent Democrat Sam Ervin by 4.8 percent.

In the NC Court of Appeals, Republicans Julee Tate Flood, Donna Stroud, John Tyson and Michael Stading all won election to Seats 8-11, with all candidates winning by at least 5 percent.

The sweep means that Republicans now have a 5-2 majority on the State Supreme Court. The seats carry eight-year terms which means that without

unplanned retirements, Republicans will keep the upper hand for the next four years.

According to report ing by WUNC, outside groups spent big money on the judicial races in North Carolina, with many ads focusing on crime and abortion.

STATE SENATE AND STATE HOUSE

For state Senate, Democratic incumbents representing Guilford County Mi chael Garrett (D-27) and Gladys Robinson (D-28) easily won re-election, with Garrett garnering 54.4 percent of the vote and Robinson sweeping Paul Schumacher with 72.9 percent of the vote.

For state House, incumbents won every single seat in Guilford County, with Democrats Ashton Clemmons (D-57), Amos Quick (D-58), Cecil Brockman (D-60) and Pricey Harrison (D-61) winning their seats and Republicans Jon Hardister (D-59) and John Faircloth (D-62) reclaiming theirs. The closest race was Faircloth’s, who won re-election against Democrat Brandon Gray by less than 5 percentage points.

Forsyth incumbents also won easily including Democrat Paul Lowe of state Sen ate District 32, Republican Jeff Zenger of House District 74 and Democrat Amber Baker of House District 72. All won with more than 52 percent of the vote.

GUILFORD COUNTY RACES

n the downballot races at the county level, incumbents and former politicians once again came out victorious.

In the races for Guilford County commission, Democratic incumbents Kay Cashion (At-large), Carlvena Foster (District 1) and Frankie Jones (District 7) all won their seats while incumbent Republican Alan Perdue (District 2) easily won his seat, as well.

Republican Pat Tillman, who beat Democrat Derek Mobley by 3.3 percent, will be a fresh face on county commission but will likely be recognized by constituents due to his former stint on the Guilford County school board.

In the Guilford County School Board races, the parties were split with two Democrats and two Republicans picking up seats in contested races. For the open at-large seat, Democrat Alan Sherouse beat Republican Demetria Carter by about 10 percentage points, while Democratic incumbent Khem Irby beat Republican Tim Andrew by close to 5 points in District 6. Republican newcomer Crissy Pratt (District 2) and incumbent Linda Welborn (District 4) also won their races. Deena Hayes, a Democrat, won the seat for District 8, which was uncontested.

Lastly, another familiar face won reelection in the Guilford County sheriff’s

Guilford County Commissioner Frankie Jones greets attendees at an election night watch party on Tuesday evening. Jones won re-election with 79.5 percent of the vote. PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

race as incumbent Democrat Danny Rogers fought off Republican Phil Byrd, bringing in a little more than 11 percent of the vote.

FORSYTH COUNTY RACES

Forysth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough stood on the dais at Sir Win ston on Tuesday evening and addressed his supporters who gathered around him, thanking them for their support; Kimbrough had just won his second term.

“Just as a plane leaves the ground every day, it doesn’t do that by itself,” he said. “There are people on the ground who give it gas, repair it and support it…. I couldn’t do this job without my people on the ground.”

As of 11 p.m. on Tuesday evening with 100 percent of precincts report ing, Kimbrough, a Democrat, won with 65.9 percent of the vote against Republican Ernie Leyba.

Down the street at the Kimp ton hotel, Democrat Trevonia Brown-Gaither gathered with family and supporters for a watch party. Brown-Gaither won the District 1 school board seat during the prima ries, and had no opposition in the general election on Tuesday. She graciously offered visitors to partake in the huge spread of food while they watched election returns on the huge flatscreen and hit refresh on their phones.

A block away, in the white high rise across from the courthouse, Democratic dis trict attorney candidate Denise Hartsfield watched results with her many support ers in the ballroom, down the hall from Thai Harmony. Numerous Winston-Salem political players, attorneys, supporters, friends and family mingled while the results came in.

A chorus of cheers arose at the front of the room as newly re-elected Sheriff Kim brough arrived from his own election party and walked towards Hartsfield, meeting at the center of the room with a hug. It was a close race but Hartsfield ultimately lost to incumbent Republican Jim O’Neill who took 51.3 percent of the vote.

Further down the ballot in the county commission race, Democrats won big with all but one of the open seats taken by a member of their party. For the at-large seat, former school board member Dan Besse beat Republican Terri Mrazek with 54.9 percent of the vote while Tonya McDaniel and Shai Woodbury won the two seats for District A. Republican Don Martin was the sole member of the GOP who won re-election to the board; he did not have a challenger on Tuesday evening.

In the school board race, the seats were split.

Five Democrats — Deanna Kaplan, Sabrina Coone-Godfrey, Richard Watts, Alex Bohannon and Trevonia Brown-Gaither — took the seats in the at-large and District 1 races while Republicans Leah Crowley, Susan Miller, Robert Barr and Steve Wood swept the four open seats in District 2.

Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough hangs out with Denise Hartsfield on Tuesday night. Kimbrough won re-election but Hartsfield lost to incumbent District Attorney Jim O’Neill.

PHOTO BY JERRY COOPER

Democrat Trevonia Brown-Gaither posses with her husband Reginald at an election party. Brown-Gaither won the school board District 1 seat on Tuesday.

PHOTO BY JERRY COOPER

Scenes from Election Night 2022

by Carolyn de Berry and Jerry Cooper

OPINION

EDITORIAL Jen Sorensen

jensorensen.com

Big things for TCB in 2023

We’re writing this on Monday, before the dust settles from what we can only assume was a bizarre and exciting election. We’ve got plenty of report ing on the results in this week’s edition, so we’re using this space not to opine on the results but to talk about some exciting develop ments at Triad City Beat, and give a glimpse into what the next year will bring.

First off, we announced last week our grant from the NC Local News Fund, which will enable us to hire another reporter for a new beat we’ve created to help us fulfill our mission.

The new City Beat reporter will cover every city council meeting in Greensboro and Winston-Salem, reporting on the decisions that get made there and the people who are affected by them. Because it’s funded by nonprofit dollars, all of these stories will be available free of charge to any other news outlet who wants to publish them (with attribution, natch).

We’ve already begun interviewing for this position, and we’re hoping to have someone installed before the end of the year.

If you’re thinking about applying for the job, do it now.

There’s more.

TCB has been accepted in the sixth cohort of the Knight Foun dation Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program. This is a yearlong program of perfor mance-based change, by the end

of which we should be consider ably closer to our goal.

That goal remains the same: Free, fair and honest reporting; relevant and inclusive cultural coverage; hard-hitting opinion — as much of it as we can afford to produce.

This nonprofit revenue stream is a new thing for us. Until very re cently, all of our income came from print display advertising. But we’re learning how nonprofit dollars can help fund our news operation, and how readers can play a role in our success.

Know that you’re helping us out just by reading our stories, talking about them and sharing online. If you like what we do, consider sign ing up for our free newsletters — three a week, plus a couple sponsored ones that help us pay the bills, along with our own promotions — through the pop-up window on our site or at this direct link: pico.link/triadcitybeat.

We’ve also created the First Amendment Society for readers who want to contribute in a more direct way to our operations: $7, $17 or $27 a month gets you a members-only newsletter, free tick et giveaways, free entry to all our events and whatever else we can think of to reward our donors with. Fair warning: We’ve got a member ship drive coming up. Look for it in your email boxes soon.

In short: Big things are afoot at TCB. We appreciate you coming along for the ride.

John Cole

Courtesy of NC Policy Watch

The City Beat reporter will cover every city council meeting in Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

Alton Brown’s stage show promises to ‘Holidify’ Greensboro

by James Douglas

Fall. Leaves on their autumnal sojourn to the ground accumulate in yards and breezeways. The welcome return of mild sunny days that make the oppressive heat of a summer in the South east seem like a bad dream. The less random chilly nights that make you reunite with that favorite coat or sweater, even though it’s still not needed, not yet. With all that nostalgia steamrolling us towards the holi days, it’s only natural that food is given a special distinction in the annals of fall activities. So much so that Alton Brown is traveling the country with a variety stage show celebrating the culmination of fall — the Holidays. His multi-city “Beyond the Eats - The Holiday Variant” kicks off at Greensboro’s Tanger Center on Nov. 16.

“It’s a very nostalgic time,” Brown says in an interview. “It’s also a time where you know food and culture all align very spectacularly.”

Brown has been cooking for TV audiences for decades. Best known for his award-winning show “Good Eats,” Brown combines accessible recipes with scientific know-how and humor. Serving as host of numerous cooking shows, Brown has also authored many books on the subject and has been hosting stage shows since 2013. His live shows contain a healthy mix of variety, incorporating live music and audience participation into large and inventive cooking demonstrations.

“The demos that we do are very large and very impractical,” Brown says. “For instance, in our last two ‘Beyond the Eats,’ we built a popcorn popper that was a rocket ship 13 feet tall that had concentric circles of interior air poppers that popped into a central manifold that then was blown out onto the audience with a compressor.”

In another spectacle, Brown describes an 8-foot-tall Easy Bake Oven that was “powered by 70,000-watt rock and roll lights.”

He declines to describe in detail what awaits the audience in this year’s show but offers some hints.

“The one that we have in this show is equally preposterous, but even I think more brilliant,” he says. “It’s very large, sucks up massive amounts of electricity, and cooks one of my favorite foods en masse in a very short period of time. I am not going to say what it is.”

Asked about his favorite part of touring, Brown doesn’t hesitate.

“The audiences,” he says. “We do a lot of audience interaction. We have a lot of volunteers on stage and they really kind of determine a lot of how any given show is going to go and how the audience reacts to us.”

Sure enough, in past shows volunteers are seen interacting with Brown on stage in many of the larger-than-life demonstrations.

“We’re also going to spin these giant wheels, like game wheels, volun teers can spin them to build the sauce that we are going to put onto this particular food,” Brown says.

With the holidays approaching (and a holiday show), Brown is more than happy to extoll his go-to recipes and remark on the ones that he still tweaks. He describes a pecan pie whose latest version combined a Rye whisky and bitters into the recipe, much like an Old Fashioned cocktail.

“Three of us sat down to taste it and we ate the whole freaking pie and I mean it’s that good,” Brown says with a laugh. “I still stand by my standby, my standing rib roast, which is one of our most popular holiday recipes as well as several iterations of our roast turkey, which people tend to turn to. The standing rib roast is the only tradition that I actually cook every single year. I cook one standing rib roast a year, and I cook it up Christmas Day and it’s freaking amazing, which is probably why I only do one.”

“Alton Brown Live! Beyond the Eats - The Holiday Variant” will open its multi-city tour at the Tanger Center in Greensboro on Nov. 16. Tickets available at altonbrownlive.com.

SHOT IN

BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

East Lindsay Street, Greensboro

Election workers collect completed ballots at the Guilford County Courthouse on Election Night in Greensboro.