{"campaigns":[{"candidatename":"Anita Earls","chatgptsummary":null,"notes":null,"party":"DEM","person":{"biography":"## Current office and 2026 campaign\nAnita Earls is the Democratic incumbent Associate Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Seat 1, seeking re-election in the November 3, 2026 general election [1]. She has served on the court since January 3, 2019, after defeating Republican incumbent Justice Barbara Jackson in a three-candidate 2018 election (49.56% to 34.07%, with Christopher Anglin drawing 16.37%) [1]. Earls announced her campaign for re-election on October 22, 2024 [1]. On January 6, 2026, she disclosed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in late 2025, describing it as early-stage with a positive prognosis, and said she would continue her re-election campaign [1].\n\n## Background and education\nEarls was born Anita Sue Brooks on February 20, 1960, in Seattle, Washington, and was adopted; her parents had relocated to Washington state because Missouri banned interracial marriage at the time [1]. She graduated from Williams College, where she majored in political economy and philosophy, and later earned her J.D. from Yale Law School [1].\n\n## Career\nEarls began her legal career in 1988 at the Charlotte civil-rights firm Ferguson, Stein, Watt, Wallas, Adkins & Gresham, practicing civil rights litigation [1]. In 1998, President Bill Clinton appointed her Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice [1]. She later directed the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights' voting rights project (2000-2003) and the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights' advocacy work (2003-2007) [1]. In 2007 she founded the Southern Coalition for Social Justice in Durham, serving as its founding executive director until stepping down in 2017 to run for the Supreme Court [1]. She has also taught at Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Maryland [1]. While at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Earls served as lead plaintiffs' attorney in North Carolina v. Covington, in which the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in 2017 that 28 of North Carolina's state house and senate districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders [1].\n\n## Office history\nEarls has served as Associate Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court since January 3, 2019, succeeding Barbara Jackson [1]. On June 9, 2020, Governor Roy Cooper appointed her co-chair of North Carolina's Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, convened after the murder of George Floyd [1].\n\n## Documented disputes and controversies\nOn August 29, 2023, Earls filed a federal lawsuit (Earls v. North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, No. 23-cv-00734) alleging that the state's judicial ethics commission opened an investigation into her that improperly targeted her First Amendment-protected criticism of a lack of diversity on the state's courts, stemming from a Law360 interview in which she discussed potential \"implicit biases\" among colleagues and the disbanding of a commission examining racial and gender inequality in the judiciary [1]. In a 2019 campaign speech, Chief Justice Paul Newby, who appoints six of the Commission's fourteen members, referred to Earls by saying \"In 2018, the Left put $1.5 million to get their 'AOC' person on the court\" [1].\n\n## Sources\n[1] [Anita Earls - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Earls), accessed 2026-07-20","firstname":"Anita","lastname":"Earls","middlename":"Sue","suffix":null,"token":"d532f94fd55c2adf"},"token":"eGb3DXE9MR"},{"candidatename":"Sarah Stevens","chatgptsummary":null,"notes":null,"party":"REP","person":{"biography":"## Current office and 2026 campaign\nSarah Suzanne Stevens is a Republican candidate for North Carolina Supreme Court, Seat 1, on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot [1]. She resigned her seat in the North Carolina House of Representatives on June 16, 2026, to focus on her Supreme Court campaign [1].\n\n## Background and education\nStevens was born February 15, 1960, in Mount Airy, North Carolina [1]. She holds a B.S. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a J.D. from Campbell University [1].\n\n## Career\nStevens is a North Carolina lawyer [1]. She represented the 90th House district, covering Surry and Wilkes counties, in the North Carolina House of Representatives from January 1, 2009, until her resignation in June 2026, and served as Speaker pro tempore of the House from January 2017 to January 2025 [1]. Over her legislative tenure she chaired the House Judiciary committee in multiple sessions (Judiciary III in 2015-2016, Judiciary in 2019-2020, and Judiciary II in 2021-2022 and 2023-2024) and also served on the Appropriations, Rules Calendar and Operations, Redistricting, and Regulatory Reform committees, among others [1]. In 2015 she received the Champion for Children Award from Children's Hope Alliance and Benchmarks for her work on foster-care issues [1].\n\n## Office history\nStevens was first elected to the North Carolina House in 2008, defeating incumbent Democrat Jim Harrell with 50.58% of the vote, and was re-elected in every subsequent cycle through 2024, most recently defeating Ken Badgett 77.90% to 22.10% [1]. She was elected Speaker pro tempore in 2017, succeeding Paul Stam, and held that post until January 2025, when she was succeeded by Mitchell Setzer [1].\n\n## Sources\n[1] [Sarah Stevens (politician) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Stevens_(politician)), accessed 2026-07-20","firstname":"Sarah","lastname":"Stevens","middlename":"Suzanne","suffix":null,"token":"faf954f661c3beb5"},"token":"4n2BwkpA6U"}],"choices":null,"description":null,"district":null,"districtgroup":null,"districtgroupname":null,"districtname":null,"job_type":null,"o.office":"supreme_court","office":"supreme_court","officedescription":"An appellate judge (North Carolina Court of Appeals or Supreme Court) reviews decisions of the trial courts for legal error, sitting in panels and deciding cases on the briefs, record, and argument rather than holding trials. The Supreme Court is the state's court of last resort.","officequalities":"- Review of trial-court decisions for legal error, deciding cases on the record, briefs, and oral argument rather than by trial.\n- Deep command of substantive and procedural law and of controlling precedent, since appellate rulings bind the courts below.\n- Judicial temperament and impartiality under the North Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct, including recusal when conflicts arise.\n- Clear, reasoned legal writing \u2014 appellate opinions are the law other courts follow.\n- Collegiality: appellate judges decide in panels and must persuade and be persuaded.\n- Integrity and independence from political or financial influence.","officeterm":8,"officetitle":"Supreme Court Justice","partisan":1,"pgr":"general","quantity":1,"referendum":null,"source":null,"title":"Nc Supreme Court Associate Justice Seat 01"}