“The Hotly Contested Race to be North Carolina’s Least-Powerful Elected Official”

Hal Weatherman looked relaxed, if a bit tired, as he ambled up the steps of High Point University’s Callicutt Auditorium on a chilly January evening. The candidate for lieutenant governor wore blue jeans with a navy blazer. His face was stubbled. He had been on the road for three nights. 

In Roxboro, he had given a speech at a rally for Mark Robinson, the current lieutenant governor and likely Republican nominee for governor. Then he went on to Davie, Forsyth, and Surry counties. In Mt. Airy, he posed for a photo in the barber shop made iconic by Andy Griffith. “Every Governor of NC since 1980 has posed for a picture with Russell or Bill in this very chair,” he noted on X.