Incumbent Spencer Merriweather and Tim Emry are running in the Democratic primary for district attorney of North Carolina’s 26th Prosecutorial District in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 17, 2022. No candidates filed to run in the Republican primary.
Gov. Roy Cooper (D) appointed Merriweather as district attorney in November 2017. Merriweather ran for a full term in 2018, won the Democratic primary 78-22, and was unopposed in the general election. From 2007 to 2017, he was an assistant district attorney in Mecklenburg County. Merriweather is the county’s first Black district attorney.
Merriweather said that under his leadership, the district attorney’s office had “focused on the most serious and violent offenses in an effort to support victims, obtain justice, and create safer streets and communities” and that he had “implemented new strategies to confront violent crime … creating special units that prioritize the prosecution of gun crimes, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence.” The Charlotte Observer’s Michael Gordon wrote, “Asked what distinguishes him from Emry, Merriweather describes himself as a proven reformer who remains committed to the law, a safer community and building on what he describes as ‘a career of experience serving victims.'”
