{"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","campaigns":[{"contest":"district_court_judge_dist_008_seat_01","county":null,"county_count":0,"electiondate":"Tue, 03 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT","pgr":"general","state":"NC","title":"Nc District Court Judge District 08 Seat 01"}],"cf_filings":[],"firstname":"Pell","fullname":"Pell Carlton Cooper","lastname":"Cooper","middlename":"Carlton","office_history":[{"campaigns":[{"contest":"district_court_judge_dist_008_seat_01","contest_title":"Nc District Court Judge District 08 Seat 01","county":null,"county_count":0,"electiondate":"2026-11-03","office_county":null,"office_key":"district_court_judge","office_title":"District Court Judge","party":"DEM","pgr":"general","state":"NC"}],"county":null,"cycles":[{"general":{"contest":"district_court_judge_dist_008_seat_01","contest_title":"Nc District Court Judge District 08 Seat 01","county":null,"county_count":0,"electiondate":"2026-11-03","office_county":null,"office_key":"district_court_judge","office_title":"District Court Judge","party":"DEM","pgr":"general","state":"NC"},"party":"DEM","primary":null,"term":null,"year":2026}],"office_key":"district_court_judge","office_title":"District Court Judge","state":"NC","terms":[]}],"summary":"Pell Carlton Cooper is a Democratic judge on North Carolina\u2019s 7th Judicial District Court, serving since 1999 and active in law, business, and community affairs.","terms":[],"token":"6bf9c316b8582825"}