Bertie
Camden
Currituck
Dare
Gates
Hertford
Northampton
Perquimans
Pasquotank
Tyrell
Bertie Camden Currituck Dare Gates Hertford Northampton Perquimans Pasquotank Tyrell
DISTRICT ONE is worth fighting for
Invest in our schools:
Education should not be an afterthought.
It should be a priority. North Carolina ranks in the bottom of the nation for teacher pay and per pupil spending. And as more responsibility for education continues shifting to the states, you need a legislator who will fight for investment in our teachers and students.
Public funds should go to public schools.
In Senate District 1, millions of your tax dollars are following students to private schools that are not held to the same standards via the school voucher system.
Pay our teachers. Fund our schools.
work for working families:
We are experiencing a cost of living emergency. When groceries cost more, working people feel it first. When healthcare costs rise, working people feel it first. Working people are affected by everything, because they are the ones holding everything together.
When a community has affordable homes and better jobs, doctors, teachers, and young people can live there long term.
When childcare doesn’t cost the same as a mortgage, more parents can work, and entire communities can move forward.
Not Raleigh’s Voice - Yours:
Working to protect and preserve what makes this region so special means listening to watermen, local business owners, farmers, teachers, and service workers.
This campaign is about putting working people first. It’s about widening the circle of who gets a seat at the table in our district. Decisions in Raleigh should be made with real input from here at home.
I’m not running to answer to other politicians in Raleigh.
I’m running to answer to you.
advocate for fair maps:
You should choose your politicians, not the other way around. Poll after poll shows about 84% of NC voters oppose gerrymandering. And yet, in North Carolina, the Republican majority keeps drawing maps that choose their voters instead.
Voters in NC deserve fair voting maps, and by electing Judge Anita Earls, we will move one step closer to making that happen.
Every vote should count the same, no matter where you live or how you vote.
Hi, neighbor.
I’m Melissa Zehner.
I am a mom, a wife, and an advocate.
Growing up in rural Farmville, Virginia, I learned early what it means to be a part of a community, how much service matters, and why showing up for your neighbors is important.
My grandfather was a North Carolina native and a tobacco farmer. When I was 6 months old, my parents brought me to the Outer Banks for the first time, and I spent time here every summer following that one. My mother was a teacher - my father a small business owner - we could have taken our vacation anywhere. This was the only place my father ever wanted to be - this place was the dream. And now, my husband Michael and I, are raising our family here and this place is home.
After graduating from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, I worked in Minor League Baseball and restaurant management. Following starting a family, childcare priced me out of my full-time career and I became a stay-at-home-mom.
I AM RUNNING FOR SENATE BECAUSE I WANT TO FIGHT FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION FUNDING, SUPPORT LEGISLATION THAT HELPS WORKING FAMILIES, AND ADVOCATE FOR THE FAIR VOTING MAPS YOU DESERVE.