Election 2026
• Check CityView’s 2026 Voter Guide for more details on voting, candidates, and ballot measures.
• Early in-person voting runs through October 31. If you're not registered to vote, you can do same-day registration during early voting. How and when you can vote.
• 16 people are running for three at-large seats on the Cumberland County Board of Education. Read our interviews with the candidates.
• Read CityView’s interviews with four candidates for the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners: Charles Evans, Veronica Jones, Ron Ross, and Greg West.
• Voters will consider three amendments to the state Constitution when they cast their ballots.
Ulysses Womack’s voting odyssey began at 6:45 a.m. on Thursday when he parked outside the Kiwanis Recreation Center in Honeycutt Park, one of Cumberland County’s seven early voting sites. When the early voting got underway at 8 a.m., Womack was first in line.
“I wanted to make sure I got in here. I didn’t want any problems,” he said.
Womack, 71, finished by 8:16 a.m., the first time he took part in early voting. In the past, he voted on Election Day but tried early voting after it was discussed in his church, he said.
“I’m glad I did,” Womack said.
Voting early to avoid problems with their ballots was one of several themes CityView found talking with voters on Thursday. Other themes: Some want change in the nation’s power structure; others want to maintain what one called “the status quo.”
Democrats are hoping for a wave election to take control of Congress away from Republicans and provide a check on President Donald Trump. Polling shows Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper consistently running ahead of Republican Michael Whatley in North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, suggesting that Cooper will flip the open seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
In the N.C. General Assembly, Democrats are striving to break the GOP’s supermajority in theSenate and near-supermajority in the House, so that Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s veto stamp has real power.
Whatever the voters’ motives, the first day of in-person early voting saw more of them casting ballots in Cumberland County than in 2022, the previous midterm non-presidential election. That’s according to data published on Facebook by county Board of Elections members Linda Devore and Irene Grimes.
On Thursday, 4,965 people voted early versus 3,242 on the first early voting day in the 2022 general election. That’s up 53%. Early voting across the state was also off to a robust start, according to NC Newsline.
“Huge day of early voting in Cumberland County!” Devore wrote.
As in past years, the Cliffdale Recreation Center early voting site was the most popular, with 1,181 ballots cast. Voters there on Thursday morning said they had to wait more than an hour to cast a ballot.
Voters stood in a line that started in a gym, ran along a hall, snaked around itself in the lobby, and then spilled outside down a sidewalk and around a corner. At one point, when it wasn’t quite so long, CityView counted about 100 people.
Will Voters’ Cars Be Towed?
The Cliffdale center parking lot was frequently full on Thursday, with a line of waiting cars spilling into the street. Some voters parked next door at the U.S. Post Office. The Postal Service wants this stopped, Interim Elections Director Vicki Hilburn said Thursday.
“Now, they have given us like 24 hours to correct the issue,” she said. “So we are having signs made for ‘no voter parking’ over there on that side of the road, so our voters don’t get towed.”
Alita Knight of Fayetteville said standing in the line was worthwhile, especially since her ancestors fought for voting rights during the Civil Rights Movement.
“They worked hard to make sure I could be here one day to do this,” she said. “I think about that, you know. I think okay, ‘Let me get out there and do this.’ It’s not just for me.”
What Voters Want
Jeffery Smith of Fayetteville said he voted for Trump in 2024, but he is dissatisfied with the president’s performance. He stood in line for more than an hour to vote for Cooper in the Senate race.
“I want change. I’m craving change,” Smith said, citing high gasoline prices and the ongoing Iran war. “I’m a die-hard Republican. I believe in their policies. But I don’t support the policies and the things that he’s implemented, the way he’s executing things within the country.”
Smith usually votes on Election Day, he said. He considered voting by mail this year, but has concerns about whether the Postal Service would deliver his ballot on time. He early voted instead, he said, to ensure his ballot would be counted.
At the Kiwanis center, Fonda Suddreth of Hope Mills also voted for Cooper, along with her husband, Jarvis. She said it’s exciting to her to vote on the first day of early voting.
“We need change,” she said. “So I’m excited to go ahead and voice my opinion, get my voice heard, and it’s a blessing to be able to vote as an African American.”
“I’m tired of the way things are being done in America,” Jarvis Suddreth said. “And if we don’t vote to make changes, then we have nothing to complain about.”
At the East Regional Library in Vander, a voter who asked to go by his middle name, Chase, said he voted on the first day of early voting “because I kind of got a busy schedule, and what if something happens on Election Day, and I can’t make it out?”
It’s happened before, he said, and he won’t let it happen again—“Voting is too important.”
Chase picked Whatley for Senate. “I’m Republican, and I lived through eight years of the former governor, so I have my issues with him,” he said. Chase cited mandates for people to wear facemasks during coronavirus and Cooper’s record on crime, which he described as “soft.”
The rise of the Democratic Socialists of America with the Democratic Party also troubled Chase.
“They’re communists, is what they are,” he said. “I’m not gonna have it,” he said. “So I’ll walk on nails, broken glass, through Hell—make sure they don’t get elected.”
Martin Sutherlin of Stedman voted early to avoid crowds on Election Day, he said. At the East Regional Library Thursday afternoon voters got in and out quickly.
Sutherlin said he knows many of Cumberland County’s judges from a job he held in the court system, “so I just wanted to make sure the right ones got reelected.”
For the U.S. Senate and House, he picked Whatley and Republican Rep. David Rouzer, “to be honest, hoping to keep the status quo,” he said. “Keep the power in the Republican Party.”
Early Voting Locations in Cumberland County
Early voting continues through October 31, with the exception of October 25. Weekday hours are 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Saturday hours are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sunday voting will be 2–5 p.m. on October 18.
The early voting sites are:
- Cliffdale Recreation Center, 6404 Cliffdale Road.
- East Regional Library, 4809 Clinton Road.
- Smith Recreation Center, 1520 Slater Ave.
- Kiwanis Recreation Center, 352 Devers St.
- J.D. Pone Recreation Center, 2964 School Road.
- Stoney Point Recreation Center, 7411 Rockfish Road.
- College Lakes Recreation Center, 4945 Rosehill Road.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
