Senator Paul Newton Contact information

Paul Robert Newton was born on June 2, 1960, in North Carolina, U.S. He is a dedicated family man and a member of the Republican Party. He is currently serving as the Majority Leader of the North Carolina Senate, a position he assumed on January 1, 2023. Before this, he was preceded by Kathy Harrington.

Newton has been a member of the North Carolina Senate since January 1, 2017, and was preceded by Fletcher L. Hartsell Jr. He represented the 36th district from 2017 to 2023 and has been representing the 34th district since 2023.

Before his political career, Newton was an executive at the utility company Duke Energy. As a member of the state Senate’s energy committee, Newton opposed natural gas production limitations in North Carolina. In 2021, amid nationwide Republican efforts to restrict voting following the 2020 presidential election, Newton proposed legislation that would prevent counties from counting valid mail-in absentee ballots postmarked before or on election day unless they were received by the polling places by 5 p.m. on election day. Newton argued that it was “suspicious” for valid absentee ballots to be counted after election day.

In the 2020 elections, 11,000 ballots arrived in the three-day grace period after election day and were counted; under Newton’s proposal, they would have been thrown out. In 2021, as co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Newton sponsored a proposal to reduce the state income tax rate from 5.25% to 4.99%.

In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in North Carolina, Newton was one of five Republican state senators asked Governor Roy Cooper to allow the Coca-Cola 600, a NASCAR race, to be run at Charlotte Motor Speedway, although without a crowd of fans. The following year, Newton sponsored a “liability shield” bill to provide a limited form of immunity to businesses, government agency or nonprofit against lawsuits arising from COVID-19 transmission on their premises.

In November 2022, Newton was elected by his colleagues to become Senate Majority Leader for the 2023-2024 session. He is currently running for re-election to the North Carolina State Senate to represent District 34. His current term ends on January 1, 2025.

Newton was born in Smithfield, North Carolina, and grew up in Eden, North Carolina. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and his law degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in ‘82 and ‘85. He graduated from Harvard Advanced Management program in 2008.