Two more last-minute filings came in this morning.

Former House Speaker Richard Morgan filed as a Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, and former Raleigh City Councilman John Odom has filed as a Republican candidate for insurance commissioner.

Morgan faces Tryon resident Joe Johnson in the Republican primary and either Superintendent June Atkinson or N.C. Association of Educators president Eddie Davis; Odom faces assistant insurance commissioner Wayne Goodwin in the general election.

Morgan's wife, Cindy, is running for state senator.

State Democrats are holding their cards close.

Asked for the Senate races they are most interested in, the North Carolina Democratic Party declined to put Dome in touch with its experts.

Spokeswoman Kerra Bolton wrote that the "biggest surprise" is District 22, where Moore County Commissioner Cindy Morgan is running as a Republican. In the primary, she faces Sen. Harris Blake, a commercial real estate agent from Pinehurst now in his third term.

Her husband, Richard Morgan, a Republican, was considered a turncoat by many in the GOP for a 2002 deal that made him co-speaker with Jim Black.

She said the party also expects the race for state Sen. Walter Dalton's seat in District 46 will "prove to be the most competitive."

"There may be opportunities out there to pick up seats," she writes. "But as a matter of strategy, I will not illuminate what those are."