NC House Democrats Adcock, Hunt aim to switch to Senate

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A pair of North Carolina House Democrats announced on Monday they would seek seats in the state Senate in 2022.

Rep. Gale Adcock of Cary, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, said she’ll run for a seat in western Wake County where current Sen. Wiley Nickel lives. But Nickel already has said he’s running for Congress next year.

Adcock, the deputy Democratic leader, is a former Cary council member who was first elected to the House in 2014.

Second-term Rep. Rachel Hunt of Charlotte also announced that she is running for a Senate district in southeastern Mecklenburg County. The senator living in that district, Sen. Jeff Jackson, is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. Hunt is the daughter of former four-term Gov. Jim Hunt.

Hunt and Adcock announced their decisions less than two weeks after the Republican-controlled legislature approved new legislative district boundaries for the next decade, based on 2020 census figures.

A House Republican, Rep. Bobby Hanig of Currituck County, already announced this month that he would run for a Senate seat covering 10 northeastern counties. First-term Democratic Sen. Ernestine Bazemore of Bertie County lives in that district.