Photo: Lorie Shaull / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
(The Center Square) – Laurie Buckhout’s bid to be the first Republican in 71 U.S. House elections – dating to the 1882 cycle – to win the northeastern-most congressional district in North Carolina was boosted at a campaign stop Tuesday by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The Louisiana Republican leader said the former Army colonel challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Don Davis is pivotal to even more history.
“I believe we’re going to defy history and win the majority now,” Johnson said in Greenville. “It’s only happened twice in 90 years that a sitting president has picked up seats for his party in that first two-year cycle, and I think we have so many factors in our favor that are going to ensure that Republicans hold and grow our majority.”
Republicans’ 220-215 edge won in November 2024 is today 218-212 with one independent formerly Republican caucusing with his former party, and four vacancies.
This is the state’s sixth consecutive cycle without the same map used in back-to-back congressional elections.
The 1st Congressional District is one of two redrawn last fall by state lawmakers in Republican majorities at the General Assembly. Their reasoning was direct – to pick up another seat in the chamber. Differentiations because of court orders have been in each map used for four of the last five congressional elections – 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022. The Legislature’s draw in 2024 was the other.
“Everyone’s watching this race around the country because they know that there’s about 18 to 20 seats in the House that will decide the future of the republic,” Johnson said.
North Carolina’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives is 10 Republicans and four Democrats. What has been a safe – meaning, a double-digit percentage win dating to 2010 – district in the mountains is in jeopardy following an ethics report on Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards released Monday.
“We need to lift the district up economically,” Buckhout said. “We need to support our farmers with some serious legislation that will enable family farms to continue to go. That will enable them to pass it on to their children, and we need to build the jobs that are going to have children wanting to come back to eastern North Carolina and stay here and grow.”
Republicans have never done well in the northeastern part of the state. The Grand Old Party lawmakers in Raleigh used their strength in a neighboring district to enact change.
Beaufort, Hyde, Dare, Craven, Pamlico and Carteret counties changed from the 3rd to the 1st Congressional District; Wilson, Wayne, Greene and Lenoir counties change from the 1st to the 3rd.
The only district of 14 with closer than 13% difference in 2024 was a win by Davis over Buckhout by 1.7%.
Johnson’s stump with Buckhout on Tuesday, interestingly enough, was in the 3rd Congressional District represented by Republican Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy. Johnson explained going to Nino’s Cuchina Italiana worked for a busy day – six stops – of campaigning, and sure enough local TV stations from Raleigh (outside the district) to the coast and print media presence delivered the message.
Absentee ballots go into the mail Sept. 4 – or four weeks from this coming Friday. North Carolinians will choose a U.S. senator, all 14 members of the U.S. House, and all 170 members of the General Assembly.
