Riggs, Cubbage square off in Supreme Court Democratic primary
A sitting state Supreme Court justice faces a potentially tough challenger from her own party March 5th.
Justice Allison Riggs was appointed to the state's highest court by Gov. Roy Cooper in September 2023, filling the seat vacated by Democratic Justice Mike Morgan, who is running for governor. Just nine months before that, Cooper had appointed Riggs to the North Carolina Court of Appeals to fill a vacancy created when Republican Richard Dietz won a Supreme Court seat in the 2022 election.
Riggs is a noted civil rights attorney and litigator. But her time on the bench has been brief, and she has not had to run in an election before this year.
Her challenger is Lora Cubbage, a superior court judge from Guilford County. After working as an assistant attorney general, Cubbage won a district court seat in 2016. She was elected to her superior court seat in 2018. She has eight years' of experience on the bench and has won two local elections, though not a statewide contest.
The winner of the primary will face Republican judge Jefferson Griffin, currently on the state Court of Appeals, in November.
Republicans won every statewide judicial election in 2020, and again in 2022, enabling them to flip control of the court from 4-3 in favor of Democrats to 5-2 in favor of Republicans.
Democrats will have to put on a similarly dominant stretch of elections, over the course of years, if they hope to flip the court back. The state GOP is hoping to continue its streak of victories to enable a 6-1 majority.
Court of Appeals primary
An incumbent Republican on the state Court of Appeals is also facing a challenge from his own party.
Hunter Murphy won election to the appeals bench in 2016 and is up for re-election this year.
He's being challenged by Chris Freeman, a district judge in Rockingham County with ties to current state Supreme Court Justice Phil Berger, Jr.
Murphy was censured by the state Supreme Court in 2020 after an assistant was found to be harassing female clerks. The high court found Murphy had not stepped in to stop the behavior.
