A resident of Shelby, Ted Alexander is currently serving his second term in the North Carolina Senate, being first elected in 2018, and represents District 44, comprised of Lincoln, Cleveland and a portion of Gaston County. He is the current Regional Director of the Western Office of Preservation North Carolina. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UNC-Charlotte in 1982 and a master’s degree in Historic Preservation Planning from Cornell University in 1985. He has extensive background in both downtown revitalization and historic preservation, working in both Virginia and North Carolina. He served for nearly 14 years as executive director of Uptown Shelby Association, Inc. He subsequently ran and was elected as mayor of Shelby from 2003-2011. He is probably best remembered for his efforts in the realm of economic and community development, homelessness prevention, and crime prevention. After 8 years Alexander term-limited himself. He then served as chairman of the Cleveland County GOP and then Chairman of the N.C. 10th Congressional GOP District Committee, serving on the state’s central committee. In 2014, he entered amongst a field of eight candidates and ran a statewide campaign in the NC GOP primary for US Senate, losing to Thom Tillis, North Carolina’s current sitting U.S. senator.
Alexander currently serves as chairman of the Senate’s State and Local Government Committee and the General Government and Operations Budget Committee. He is a member of the Senate Appropriations; Finance; Pensions and Retirement; Commerce and Insurance; and Appropriations Sub Committee for Education Committees.
His wife Patti is a retired school nurse and a past chairperson of the Women Republicans of Cleveland County (WeROCC) and a long-time volunteer for the Cleveland County Pregnancy Resource Center in Shelby. They have two grown children. He is a member of Elizabeth Baptist Church in Shelby.