Where did John Rhodes’ friends go? The Facebook page for the John Rhodes U.S. Senate campaign has 386 likes, but he received just nine votes in the election.
A former Republican turned constitutional conservative—that term might get him points in a high school history class, but it’s just code for tea partier—Rhodes was the only official write-in U.S. Senate candidate. As a Republican, Rhodes represented northern Mecklenburg County in the N.C. House from 2002 to 2006, when Tillis defeated him in the GOP primary. Rhodes then switched his voter registration to unaffiliated. Although he reportedly said in March that he didn’t plan to run for public office, he decided to tackle Tillis for the Senate race. Rhodes positioned himself to the right, yes, the right, of Tillis, calling him a “statist”—someone who believes in centralized government. As if that were the worst of Tillis’ sins.
Here are some of the planks of Rhodes’ platform: Eliminate the Department of Education, outlaw abortion, get out of the United Nations, discontinue Obamacare, dissolve the Export-Import Bank and protect the Second Amendment from “gun grabbers.”
Oddly, Rhodes’ bio says he lives in Huntersville, in suburban Mecklenburg County. Yet according to the N.C. Board of Elections, none of Rhodes’ nine votes came from his home county, but from Brunswick County. Did voters spell his name wrong? Is the board of elections incorrect? Or did Rhodes really not vote for himself?
As for miscellaneous write-ins, they received 5,220 votes.
