A Study in Electoral Misfires: Guilford County GOP's Greensboro Endorsement Debacle

If you wanted a case study in how local political operatism can go awry, you need look no further than Greensboro, North Carolina this election season. The Guilford County Republican Party encountered significant difficulties with an endorsement strategy that proved counterproductive once exposed.

That’s the takeaway from a bizarre and embarrassing series of missteps by the Guilford County GOP in the lead-up to Greensboro’s City Council primary elections on October 7, 2025.

The Original Plan: A Classic ‘Bullet Voting’ Gambit

The Guilford County GOP distributed a sample ballot to its voters. On the surface, it was a standard get-out-the-vote tool. But a closer look revealed a curious instruction.

The GOP hoped to concentrate all their voting power behind just two hand-picked candidates: Richard Beard and Carla Franklin.

In the City Council At-Large race, where voters are allowed to choose three candidates from a field of ten, the GOP’s ballot explicitly told voters to pick only two. The idea seems to have been to ensure that their chosen slate doesn’t get lost in the noise and that Republican voters don’t “waste” their third vote on an opposition candidate.

They endorsed Richard Beard, who changed his registration from Republican to unaffiliated. Beard continued to vote in Republican primaries. And Carla Franklin, a former Democrat, who is now registered as unaffiliated.

The GOP’s sample ballot completely omitted Dr. LaToya B. Gathers, a registered Republican who seems to have not been picked for backing.

The strategery wasn’t a mistake. It was a calculated “bullet voting” pitch;

In a crowded field where voters typically spread their votes across three choices, Guilford County’s GOP tried to convince a disciplined bloc (like their party’s base) to concentrate all their firepower on just two candidates, they can dramatically increase those two candidates’ vote totals.

The two candidates anointed for this strategy were Richard Beard and Carla Franklin.

Bullet voting only works when it’s relatively secret. Once exposed, it can mobilize opposition voters and embarrass the endorsed candidates.

A Strategic Retreat to “None”;

Once these details came to light, the backlash hit. The story was no longer about the candidates but about the bungled strategy and perhaps the profound embarrassment of endorsing candidates who may not have been interested in the endorsements.

They yanked their overt support from Beard and Franklin, perhaps hoping the issue would die and Republican voters would simply figure it out for themselves while the rest of the mostly left leaning electorate, remained unaware.

https://guilford.nc.gop/composite_sample_ballot_primary

Richard Beard changed his registration from Republican to unaffiliated. A source close to the situation suggests a simple motive; Beard likely did not want to be known as the “Republican endorsee.” In a diverse, politically mixed city like Greensboro, a partisan label in a non-partisan race can be a liability. To win citywide, you need independents and moderate Democrats, and Beard’s camp seemed to know that the GOP’s stamp of approval could scare them off.

The party played a game of electoral chess with pieces that might not have wanted to wear its team’s colors.

Greensboro is not friendly territory for overtly partisan Republican campaigns. The city has leaned increasingly blue over the past two decades, driven by its diverse population, large African American community (comprising over 40% of residents), and the presence of multiple universities including North Carolina A&T State University and UNC Greensboro. While Guilford County as a whole maintains pockets of Republican strength in suburban and rural areas, the City of Greensboro proper has consistently voted Democratic in presidential and statewide races. Biden won the city by comfortable margins and Democrats dominate municipal offices.

Winning candidates need to build coalitions across party lines, appeal to moderate and independent voters and avoid the perception of being beholden to partisan interests. The Guilford County GOP apparently understood this reality when they selected two unaffiliated candidates to endorse, theoretically tainting Beard and Franklin with the very partisan label they’d worked to avoid. In trying to be clever, the party may have handed its chosen candidates a liability.

By pulling all endorsements, they appear to have hoped to;

Stop or prevent a negative news cycle.

Avoid a messy internal fight over the snub of Dr. Gathers.

Wash their hands of the Beard and Franklin endorsements, which looks like disadvantages as the candidates themselves may have been ambivalent about the party’s support.

Other Guilford County’s GOP endorsements for district primary races;

Guilford County’s GOP endorsements for Mayor;