Did Patrick Cannon’s past alter Tuesday’s primary?

There were five other names on Charlotte’s Democratic mayoral ballot Tuesday, but as far as David Howard is concerned, there might as well have been a sixth – Patrick Cannon. “I was running against six people, and the former mayor was one of them for sure,” Howard said Wednesday. Cannon, elected mayor in 2013, resigned five months later in a corruption scandal that later sent him to federal prison for nearly four years. For Howard and others, Cannon’s looming shadow hung over Tuesday’s Democratic primary, especially among African American voters. It was one way to explain an election...