Contact Information
Candidate Background
Candidacy
Undergraduate education: University of Maryland
Graduate education: Campbell University
Elaine Marshall was born in Lineboro, Md., and now resides in Buies Creek, N.C. She earned a bachelor's in textiles and clothing in 1968 from the University of Maryland and a law degree in 1981 from Campbell University.
She worked as a lawyer representing women who were victims of domestic violence. She was a state senator from 1993 to 1994 and became North Carolina's secretary of state in 1997.
Marshall has been married three times. Two of her husbands died of cancer. She has five step-children.
Profile
Elaine Marshall is a veteran state politician who has worked throughout her 2010 U.S. Senate campaign to cast herself as an outsider.
Marshall won the 2010 Democratic primary after complaining that party insiders in Washington were aiding her chief opponent, Cal Cunningham. She has since turned her attention to her November opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Richard Burr, questioning his ties to interest groups.
Marshall is largely a supporter of President Barack Obama, but she has staked out some contrary positions. She's been critical of Obama's expansion of the war in Afghanistan, saying it's not the right policy.
"Terrorists are lots of places," Marshall said. "They're in Somalia. They're in Yemen. And when we concentrate on Afghanistan, we've lost sight on some of that."
Marshall opposed offshore drilling before BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. She has complained that oil-industry regulators were often absent and carried cozy relationships with the companies they're tasked with watching. At the same time, she has accepted campaign donations from lobbyists she oversees as secretary of state.
Campaigns
Elaine Marshall won North Carolina's 2010 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. She faces incumbent Republican Sen. Richard Burr in the November general election.
Marshall was elected North Carolina's secretary of state in 1997, becoming the first woman elected to statewide executive office in North Carolina.
She served as a state senator from 1993 to 1994.
(Last updated by Mike Baker on September 2, 2010.)
