{"campaigns":[{"candidatename":"Pell Cooper","chatgptsummary":null,"notes":null,"party":"DEM","person":{"biography":"## Current office and 2026 campaign\nPell Carlton Cooper is a Democratic candidate for North Carolina District Court Judge, District 8, Seat 1, serving Edgecombe, Nash, and Wilson counties, on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot [5]. He has served as a judge of what is now the 8th Judicial District Court since 1999; Wikipedia's biography (last substantively updated around his 2014 re-election) refers to the same Nash/Edgecombe/Wilson seat as the 7th Judicial District Court, reflecting North Carolina's judicial district renumbering since then [4][5].\n\n## Background and education\nCooper was born in 1959 in Nashville, North Carolina, to Beverly Thorne Batchelor Cooper, a teacher, and Roy Asberry Cooper II, an attorney and Democratic Party operative. He is the brother of former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1984, spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1982, and received his Juris Doctor from UNC School of Law in 1988 [4].\n\n## Career\nCooper joined the district court bench in 1999 and was re-elected in 2014, serving Nash, Edgecombe, and Wilson counties [4]. He presented the Nashville Chamber of Commerce's Distinguished Citizen Award in 2013 and was a guest speaker at the chamber's 2019 awards reception [4].\n\n## Business interests and wealth source\nCooper and his brother Roy Cooper established Will Clark Properties LLC, a real-estate investment company, on land purchased from their father in 1996. The company's 40-acre farm in Nash County has been leased to Strata Solar, a Durham-based solar-energy company; management of the farm was later handed to Cooper's wife, Meredith Garriss [4].\n\n## Sources\n- [4] [Pell Cooper - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pell_Cooper)\n- [5] North Carolina State Board of Elections, 2026 Candidate Filing list (District Court Judge District 08 Seat 01), accessed 2026-07-20","firstname":"Pell","lastname":"Cooper","middlename":"Carlton","suffix":null,"token":"6bf9c316b8582825"},"token":"OKvrdKApnKw_rFQ9"}],"choices":null,"description":null,"district":null,"districtgroup":null,"districtgroupname":null,"districtname":null,"job_type":null,"o.office":"district_court_judge","office":"district_court_judge","officedescription":"In North Carolina, a district court judge presides over the high-volume lower trial court \u2014 misdemeanors, smaller civil cases, and most family and juvenile matters (custody, support, domestic violence, abuse/neglect). Many litigants appear without lawyers.","officequalities":"- Judge of a high-volume district court \u2014 misdemeanors, smaller civil cases, and family and juvenile matters, often with unrepresented parties.\n- Judicial temperament: the willingness to listen, deliberate, and apply the law dispassionately to people whose lives are deeply affected by the outcome.\n- Impartiality and ethics under the North Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct, including recusal when conflicts arise.\n- Working knowledge of family, juvenile, and criminal procedure and the precedent that controls.\n- Efficient management of a heavy docket while honoring due process.\n- Accessibility and clarity for the many who appear without counsel.","officeterm":4,"officetitle":"District Court Judge","partisan":1,"pgr":"general","quantity":1,"referendum":null,"source":null,"title":"Nc District Court Judge District 08 Seat 01"}