Longtime Rep. Melvin Watt’s nomination to serve in President Barack Obama’s administration would spark a crowded race for his heavily Democratic district in North Carolina. On Wednesday, Obama officially nominate the 11-term Democrat to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency. If confirmed, Watt's subsequent resignation will create an opportunity that local and state politicians have been seeking for decades to ascend the state's political ladder. “These guys for years had ceilings on the local level and the federal level, and all of a sudden there are no ceilings,” said Morgan Jackson, a Democratic consultant with North Carolina’s Nexus Strategies and a former Watt staffer. Jackson added that the open mayoral seat in Charlotte (Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, a Democrat, was nominated to serve as Transportation secretary last week) could create two simultaneously open positions that state politicians have been eyeing for years. (more…)
