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Democratic Congressman G.K. Butterfield will not run in 2022

In this file photo, U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C. is seen during a voting rally for democratic candidate Kathy Manning at Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., Friday, Oct. 19, 2018.
Gerry Broome
/
AP
In this file photo, U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C. is seen during a voting rally for democratic candidate Kathy Manning at Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., Friday, Oct. 19, 2018.

Longtime Democratic Congressman G.K. Butterfield will not run for re-election in 2022, WUNC has confirmed.

The 74-year-old U.S. House member is in his ninth term, serving a large geographic swath of northeastern North Carolina that includes Greenville, Rocky Mount, Wilson, Goldsboro and Henderson.

Since winning a special election in 2004, Butterfield has been a reliable progressive vote, supporting healthcare, environmental causes and civil rights. In his eight re-election bids he has often coasted to victory with overwhelming electoral margins.

His current district, drawn to favor a minority candidate, has been reconfigured by the Legislature and is now considered the most competitive of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats.

Butterfield is a former associate justice on the State Supreme Court and a civil rights attorney who previously served as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Butterfield is one of just five people of color to represent North Carolina in Congress since Reconstruction.

Jeff Tiberii covers politics for WUNC. Before that, he served as the station's Greensboro Bureau Chief.
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