Senator Lisa Barnes Contact information

Lisa Stone Barnes was born on July 16, 1966, in Nash County, North Carolina. She graduated from Southern Nash High School and Peace College. She married Johnny Carson Barnes at Middlesex Church of God on December 12, 1987. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from North Carolina State University in 1988 and completed the legal assistant program at Meredith College.

Barnes ran for the 4th district seat on the Nash County board of commissioners in 2012, challenging incumbent Republican Danny Tyson. Central to the race was a proposed Sanderson Farms poultry processing plant, which Tyson supported. Barnes, having previously cited environmental concerns about the project during her tenure on the county planning board, opposed it. She went on to win the primary and defeated Bert Daniel in the general election, becoming the county’s youngest commissioner.

In 2018, Barnes defeated former state representative Glen Bradley for the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 7th state house district. That November, she succeeded in unseating incumbent Democratic representative Bobbie Richardson, whose district was heavily redrawn in response to a federal lawsuit alleging racial gerrymandering by the state legislature. Barnes was sworn into office by North Carolina Supreme Court associate justice Paul Martin Newby.

A year into her term, Barnes announced her intention to run for the 11th district state senate seat being vacated by the retiring Rick Horner in 2020. After defeating Johnston County commissioner Patrick Harris and retired Air Force colonel Dennis Nielsen in the March primary by a wide margin, she faced the Democratic nominee, former senator Allen Wellons in November.

Lisa Barnes, a Nash County native, is currently serving her first term in the North Carolina Senate representing Nash and part of Johnston County. She is a member of the Agriculture, Health, Education and Agriculture Appropriations Standing Committees and was recently appointed to the Justus-Warren Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Task Force.