April Montgomery has qualified to run as an unaffiliated candidate in North Carolina’s 51’s state House District, which covers all of Lee and part of Moore County.
The State Board of Elections certified 2,826 signatures, almost 600 more than she needed to make the ballot.
“We’re very pleased with the result,” Montgomery said. “The process got us in front of voters and we got to hear their concerns. People desperately want a choice beyond the two parties and we’re going to give them one.”
Montgomery will face Republican Charles Taylor, a member of the Sanford City Council since 2007, in November. Democrat Tashera Nichols McDuffie filed for the race in December, but later withdrew. The district has slightly more unaffiliated voters than Republican voters, according to a press release from Montgomery’s campaign..
“We’re going to make this a competitive race,” Montgomery said, “Voters don’t want politics as usual. When I go to the legislature, I will only be beholden to the people, a representative who’s independent in name and in action.”
Montgomery is a small business owner with economic development experience in Lee County. She is chief development officer at EIP Storage, a Chapel Hill-based energy storage company, and she co-owns a small redevelopment firm that specializes in restoring historic commercial buildings with her husband David. Their work has included the transformation of Sanford’s long-vacant Lutterloh building into market-rate housing. Over the past two decades, she has launched and grown multiple small businesses, including REAP NC, a sustainability consultancy she founded and later sold to a national environmental firm in 2019.
Montgomery has lived in Lee County for 22 years. She served as chair of the Sanford Area Growth Alliance and the Lee County Environmental Advisory Board, as well as the Lee County Parks and Recreation Commission Advisory Board and as a member of the Lee County Arts Council Board.