Cheri Lynn Beasley (born February 14, 1966) is an American attorney and jurist who served as the chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 2019 to 2020; she was appointed an associate justice in 2012. Beasley had previously served on the North Carolina Court of Appeals and as a district court judge in Cumberland County, North Carolina. Beasley was the Democratic nominee in the 2022 United States Senate election in North Carolina. She lost to Republican nominee Ted Budd. Education Beasley earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics at Douglass College of Rutgers University–New Brunswick in 1988 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1991. She also earned a Master of Laws from Duke University School of Law in 2018. Judicial career Beasley spent her first years after law school as an assistant public defender in Cumberland County, North Carolina. She was first appointed to the bench as a state district court judge by Governor Jim Hunt in 1999, and then elected in a 2002 election. She was reelected without opposition in 2006. She served as a Judge in District 12 (Cumberland County) until her election to the Court of Appeals. Appellate court In 2008, Beasley was elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, defeating incumbent Douglas McCullough by a 15-point margin. In that election, she became the first Black woman to win election to statewide office in North Carolina without first being appointed by a governor. In December 2012, after four years on the Court of Appeals, Beasley was appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court by Governor Beverly Perdue, filling the vacancy created by Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson's retirement. She was elected to a full eight-year term in 2014. On February 12, 2019, Governor Roy Cooper appointed Beasley to the position of chief justice after Mark Martin retired, making her the first African-American woman to serve as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Beasley ran for a full term as chief justice in the 2020 election, losing by 401 votes to Associate Justice Paul Martin Newby. After leaving office, she joined McGuireWoods as a partner in the law firm's Raleigh office. 2022 U.S. Senate campaign In February 2021, various media outlets reported that Beasley was considering running in the 2022 U.S. Senate election in North Carolina. The News & Observer reported in March 2021 that