Brad Evert Hessel

Brad Evert Hessel is the Libertarian Party candidate for the North Carolina State Senate, District 18, on the November 3, 2026 general‑election ballot. The state Senate is the upper chamber of the North Carolina General Assembly; senators draft, debate, and vote on state laws, approve the state budget, and represent the interests of their district’s constituents. Hessel will seek to fill the seat currently held by Democrat Terence Everitt.

Hessel was born in New York, New York, and attended Sleepy Hollow High School before enrolling at Phillips Exeter Academy. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in 1975 ¹¹¹. His professional background spans management consulting, simulation design and development, game and magazine publishing, technical writing and training, software pricing schema design, and corporate web‑architecture design ¹.

Beyond his private‑sector work, Hessel has been active in a range of civic and political organizations. He has served on the Raleigh North Citizens Advisory Council, the Beth Meyer Social Action Committee, and the Wake County Libertarian Party ¹. Additional affiliations listed on his iVoterGuide profile include the Capital Area Soccer League (as a high‑school subdivision coordinator and coach) and the Libertarian Party of North Carolina, where he has held the role of Executive Director ¹¹.

Hessel previously ran for the same Senate seat in 2024, receiving 3.2 % of the vote (3,906 votes) in a three‑way race won by the Democratic incumbent ¹. He also sought the seat in 2016 and 2018, according to his iVoterGuide filing ¹¹. In the 2026 cycle, the Libertarian primary was cancelled, allowing Hessel to advance automatically to the general election ¹.

During the 2024‑2025 campaign season, Hessel announced an endorsement from the North Carolina Forward Party ¹⁰ and spoke at the “More Voices More Choices” rally, urging counties and municipalities to adopt instant‑runoff (ranked‑choice) voting for local elections ¹⁰. His platform emphasizes expanding electoral choice, protecting civil liberties, and limiting the deployment of North Carolina National Guard troops overseas without a formal congressional declaration of war ¹¹.

Financial disclosures filed with Transparency USA show Hessel’s 2024 campaign raised $1,090 and spent $1,143, with expenditures including a canvassing service, web hosting, and payment‑processing fees ²⁰. While no campaign‑issued email address or phone number appears in the publicly available sources, his campaign website provides further information and contact options ¹⁰.

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