Candidates for Congress, judge, district attorney and other offices lined up eight deep in three lines at the State Board of Elections, as the mid-term elections opened Monday with the beginning of a two-week period in which candidates may file for office.

First in line was Mike Nifong, the Durham district attorney, who faces what is likely to be a vigorous primary challenge from one of his former colleagues.

Nifong arrived an hour and half before before the noon filing period opened, giving him the right to pay his filing fee first.

“I wanted to make a statement that I’m in this position for the long haul,” Nifong said. “I wanted to get this over and get back and run my office."

Nifong, who was appointed to the post last summer when his boss Jim Hardin was appointed to a judicial seat, expects to face Freda Black in the Democratic primary on May 2.

Black is best known as the prosecutor in the murder trial of Durham novelist Mike Peterson and she quit the DA’s office after she was passed over for the DA’s job.

Other candidates filing at noon included Nancy Gordan, a Durham attorney running for District Court judge and Craig Weber, a retired Carteret meteorologist, who is running as a Democrat against Republican Congressman Walter Jones Jr. of Farmville in the 3rd Congressional District.

The filing period for federal, state and local offices will run until Tuesday, Feb. 28, at noon.

This political year is an unusual one. Every 12 years, North Carolina has mid-term elections where no governor or U.S. Senate races are on the ballot.