Jan. 7. By Dave Yochum. Brian Sisson, a Cornelius resident and the husband of Town Commissioner Tricia Sisson, hopes to run for the North Carolina Senate seat held by Natasha Marcus of Davidson.

He has launched a petition drive to run as an independent for NC Senate District 41, the seat held by former Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte until he was defeated by Marcus in 2019.

BRIAN SISSON, TRICIA SISSON

Sisson is a former Huntersville Town Commissioner as well as an owner, with his wife, of The Range at Lake Norman on Bailey Road. The Sissons moved to Cornelius three years ago from Huntersville.

In an email, Tricia Sisson asked people to support her husband’s would-be campaign to  “give the voters in this district a real choice in the November election.”

Marcus, a Democrat who has a B.A. in Public Policy from Hamilton College and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law, worked at the Ada Jenkins Center before becoming a member of the NC Senate.

Sisson is a registered independent. As an unaffiliated candidate his name can’t appear on the ballot unless he provides the Board of Elections with 6,500 physical signatures of the registered voters in this district.

Local political observers said the BOE is stringent around the validity of signatures, so considerably more will be necessary.

If Sisson can obtain the necessary number of signatures by March 3, “you will have eight months to learn his platform and decide if you want to vote for him,” Tricia Sisson said in an email.

The email went on to say: “If you’re like me, you hold dear the right to vote and determine who the best person is to represent you in our government. Having only a single candidate running for office should never be a the only option.”