Sales executive Ken Brown says he’ll enter the Republican Primary for North Carolina’s 118th House District, setting up a challenge to incumbent Rep. Mark Pless. 

A relative newcomer to electoral politics but a familiar figure in conservative circles, Brown will campaign on a platform of “servant leadership,” with an emphasis on collaboration, transparency and deference to local governments. 

To the Editor:

The Smoky Mountain News has done a great disservice to the American people with the headline “America’s Worst Idea” (SMN, Feb. 28 edition). 

To the Editor:

I was judged rather harshly for a letter, by no less than six people in three newspapers, for doubting the average American voter's capacity to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from falsehoods.

WNC Sierra Club Political Co-Chair Ken Brame will discuss what is at stake for the environment in this fall’s election. He will advise voters on how to make an environmental difference at the WNC Sierra Club meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 2. 

Voting is going to look a bit different in North Carolina this year thanks to new partisan observers who will be eyeing voters as they cast ballots when in-person early voting kicks off in October. The new observers are touted as a way to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.

To the Editor:

On the anniversary of 9/11 you posted an opinion piece titled "GOP becoming a fascist party." Do you ever check the context of quotes used in the opinion pieces you publish or are you so eager to publish anti GOP and Trump comments that facts don't matter? Or is it just a simple matter of laziness? 

As North Carolina prepares for federal, state and local elections in 2024, emerging trends in partisan registration that began in late 2017 have proven persistent, with likely electoral consequences for both major parties. 

It’s no secret that North Carolina is growing, but as its population grows, the composition of its electorate is changing as well.

Early voting has started. In North Carolina and across the nation there are many close races that will likely be decided by just a few percentage points. That means the swing voters — those who don’t vote a straight party ticket but instead vote for the candidate based on their qualifications or perhaps even their personality — could very well be the difference in those tight races.

Two years ago, The Smoky Mountain News took a look  at statistical data on the party affiliation of registered voters across the state and in the seven westernmost counties, from Jan. 1, 2016 through Jan. 1, 2020. It was great news for Republicans, and the exact opposite for Democrats.