Not since he won his first term in 2002 has Alamance County’s sheriff Terry Johnson faced an electoral opponent from within the ranks of his own Republican Party. But after two decades of the GOP’s unconditional support, it seems that a couple of Johnson’s fellow Republicans will be gunning for his position when it appears on the ballot in 2026.
Over the past couple of weeks, two potential contenders have revealed their plans to challenge the incumbent sheriff when the Republican Party holds its next set of primaries this coming March.
The latest of these prospective challengers is Billy Clayton, a retired state trooper and 40-year resident of Alamance County, who formally established a campaign committee on Monday in preparation to run for sheriff next year.
A Republican of some seven or eight years standing, Clayton insists he has “always been a conservative Christian” regardless of his political affiliation. The 58-year-old Roxboro native also boasts a sterling professional record with the N.C. Highway Patrol, where he ultimately rose to the rank of deputy commander – the agency’s second highest position – before he retired from his post after the better part of three decades.
Although technically not born or bred in Alamance County, Clayton has lived in this area since he was undergraduate at Elon College nearly four decades ago. Clayton went on to graduate from Elon in 1989 with a degree in Human Services and Psychology, and he subsequently earned an MBA from Pfieffer University. But it was his decades-long career with the Highway Patrol that Clayton believes has truly prepared him for the rigors of serving as the top lawman in Alamance County.
“I was the deputy commander for operations – the number two guy for the entire state,” Clayton went on to observe in a recent interview with The Alamance News. “I had an opportunity to build local, state, and federal collaborative teams to attack crime…We were also able to identify and leverage technology, which is key for law enforcement now.
“The next eight to 12 years will be especially challenging for Alamance County with respect to law enforcement,” the would-be contender for sheriff went on to predict. “Sheriff Johnson has done a wonderful job keeping us safe. But we need to turn the corner. What we do in the next few years, will either make or break us.”
Clayton and his wife Susan currently live in the Lakeview community at the northern outskirts of Burlington. The prospective candidate also has an adult son who has followed in his father’s footsteps and works as a law enforcement professional in another jurisdiction.
In addition to Clayton, next year’s race for sheriff has also attracted fellow Republican Dana Byrd Pasour, who made her public debut earlier this month when she approached Mebane’s city council during a designated public comment period. Pasour went on to file the paperwork to form her own campaign committee on Wednesday, August 13.
On Monday, Pasour took advantage of another public comment period in order to break the ice with the county’s board of commissioners. In this case, however, she used her allotted time to take the board’s chairman to task for his previous assertion that the county’s public comment policy prohibits speakers from individually criticizing commissioners and other county officials when they address the commissioners.
“We can call y’all out as individuals if we so please,” she went on to declare, “because y’all get your power from the consent of the governed.”
John Paisley, Jr., the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, was absent from the meeting where Pasour delivered her scathing rebuke of his rendering of the board’s policy. Among those who were present, however, was the county’s incumbent sheriff.
Johnson ultimately told The Alamance News that he welcomes the competition he seems likely to face in next year’s Republican primary. He added that he has every intention of throwing his own hat into the ring regardless of how many other challengers emerge from the GOP’s own rank and file before voters head to the polls.
“And if I lose, I’ll just go back home,” he went on to add.
Like his two prospective challengers, Johnson has also remained up-to-date on his campaign filings. His latest financial disclosure report, which reached the local elections office on July 31, shows that he took in a cumulative sum of $156,193 during the current election cycle, which began on January 1, 2023.
