It's 505 and welcome in to a Thursday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Continuing our coverage this morning of a major political bombshell still unfolding here in North Carolina, Congressman Chuck Edwards, the Republican serving North Carolina's 11th congressional district out in western North Carolina, announcing yesterday that he was not going to be seeking reelection. He's not resigning his seat. He'll serve in that till the end of this year, but he will not be appearing on a ballot coming up here in November across the state of North Carolina.
To get continued reaction and bring us up to date on the latest this morning, Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, I would imagine, like myself, you probably didn't have a member of North Carolina's congressional delegation dropping out of the race when you started off this first week of August here across North Carolina.
Well, certainly not announcing dropping out of the race at 3.30 in the morning. Very, very strange occurrence. I'm not entirely surprised because we saw Chuck Edwards not only facing the criticism from Democrats, which would always happen in a race where you're a Republican incumbent running against a Democrat in a race the Democrats think they can win, but he was also starting to get criticism from members of his own party. And we know that Senator Ted Budd was one of the people who came out and told him that he ought to get out of this race. And so once that starts to happen, I think the possibility, at least, that a Republican member of Congress is going to decide to get out of the race becomes a little bit more likely.
I don't think that anyone was putting strong odds on Chuck Edwards getting out of the election, but certainly it was a possibility that was much greater than zero after we started. Started seeing the recent developments and starting to hear some of his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle calling for him to get out. One of the latest details that we're following this morning is a meeting that is going to be happening coming up next Monday evening. The executive committee of the North Carolina 11th Congressional District will be meeting with all of their executive committee members across the 16 counties that make up that 11th district out in western North Carolina. Mitch, where they will choose who will be their replacement.
Have you heard any names of individuals that seemingly may have are in the process potentially doing some research, trying to probably talk to donors and other political folks across the state and up in Washington, D.C. to see who exactly the replacement candidate could look like? I don't know how many of these people have actually started going through the process, but certainly there have been some names that have been floating to the top of potential candidates.
Some of them because they're already elected officials in that part of the state. Senator Tim Moffitt has been discussed. He's already talked to some members of the media, not saying that he's definitely in, but saying that he's thinking about it and he's assessing his prospects, talking to people.
So we know that he is. But you've also heard some other names of people who are already elected officials there. Senator Kevin Corbyn, Representative Jake Johnson, those are folks in that area. Also, some people who've run for the seat before, even if they haven't held office. Adam Smith is a name that's out there.
And for people who are of a libertarian economics bet, you always love to hear someone named Adam Smith running for office, the author of The Wealth of Nations. Not the same guy. He'd be a little too old. But those are some of the names that are out there. And you might hear some other people.
People who are maybe local elected officials in the Hendersonville. Asheville area in one of the larger communities, they might think, hey, you know, people know me in my neck of the woods. That's a good base of support to get in there. But it does seem like it's going to be sort of a very short timeframe to get this ironed out. If a decision is made at that meeting on Monday, August 10th, then the campaigning needs to be really quick and get resolved relatively quickly.
Well, let's talk about that timeline, Mitch, because that's probably even more interesting now than the story that has come and gone. This horrific ethics committee report that was released earlier this week as it related to Congressman Edwards. 36 hours later, posts on social media, as you noted, at 3.30 in the morning that he's dropping out. We have got a very short window here. Military and overseas ballots go out in early September.
Early voting for North Carolina begins on October the 15th. Election Day rolling around on November 3rd. These are very tight windows for anything to take place. And as you just mentioned, some of the names rising to the top are individuals that are already serving some level of elected office. Mitch, that makes complete and total sense.
You've got probably 60 days at this point to build any sort of name ID before voters begin the process of heading out and voting. It's a very short timeframe. It is a short timeframe. And remember that if you take someone who's in an elected office that's up on the ballot this year and put that person on the ballot, then you've got to fill that person's seat. Every member of the General Assembly is up for election this year.
So if it is one of our current state senators or state representatives, you'd have to find a name to replace that person after they get put on the congressional ballot.
So you have to factor that in. To me, one of the more interesting things is, and you alluded to this already, is building some name recognition.
Now, let's put this in perspective. This is right now with the current congressional map in a normal year with no party having any particular advantage. This would be a Republican-leaning seat, but the closest of the Republican-leaning seats that are out there. You might say that District 1 could be in that position, but the way that it stacks up now, despite the fact that you have a Democratic incumbent, that one is slightly. More Republican now than this 11th district.
So it is one that Democrats in a good Democratic year should be able to have a good chance of winning. And they like their candidate, and Jamie Ager, and he's been outraising Chuck Edwards, I think, by about a nine to one margin.
Now, to put things in perspective, when Edwards first won this seat in 2022, this was after he won in a primary over Madison Cawthorne, very controversial character who had all kinds of problems. And Edwards, despite being not really known on the congressional front and not really known outside of his state Senate district, won by nine points. When he ran for re-election in 2024, he won by 14 points.
So, Chuck Edwards, despite his problems, would have probably had a Hotly contested and maybe even winnable race against Jamie Ager, depending on what else came out about the scandal that we've been talking about. But now you're going to have an unknown quantity in there, someone who is not known to the entire congressional district. And so that person does need to build up some name recognition and deal with the fact that there's almost. no money in a campaign unless they get some money from Edwards. And Edwards was already nine to one behind Ager.
So if it ends up that you have a candidate who's going to need a lot of support, if the Republican Party needs to throw a lot of money into that race, that's money that's not going to go into races like the first district or like races in other parts of the country, the handful of races that can flip one way or the other. If North Carolina, if Republicans have to pump money into this race to keep this district in Republicans' hands, that's going to hurt them elsewhere. Mitch, you can imagine from a political standpoint the Democrat Party salivating over what they've seen unfold over the last couple of days. You talked about the race up in North Carolina's first congressional district. We've already got a Democrat in that seat in Don Davis.
A rematch of the election we saw back in 2024 between Davis and Lori Buckout, the Republican challenger in that contest, seen as the real toss-up race here in North Carolina. We've seen a lot of money and a lot of resources flowing into that race. But over the last couple of months, as you've just noted, Edwards' fundraising totals have not been impressive by any stretch of the imagination. Jamie Agar, a farmer out in western North Carolina, has fundraised very well. And we've seen even some national groups over the last couple of months that have shifted this race pretty significantly.
What was back in May a likely Republican seat is now a toss-up, at least according to a couple of these surveys.
Now Democrats are looking at the possibility of holding Congressional District 1 with Don Davis. And flipping a Republican seat here in North Carolina, I would imagine that puts them in a position where they probably think they can end up controlling the United States House when all the dust settles in early November. Yeah, they certainly think that they were already looking to take control of the House, given the type of election year this is. The fact that you have a new Republican, not necessarily new, but newly returned Republican in the White House. It historically would bode ill for his party in the midterm election.
So good news for Democrats there, the political winds shifting in their favor. They looked at the new congressional map and said, okay, well, maybe we could hold on to Don Davis in the first district, even though that district has become more Republican. They started to look at this 11th district even before anything came out about any type of problems for Chuck Edwards and the potential censure for him. But then they've also talked about Greg Murphy in the 3rd district, although we haven't really heard as much about that since that district has become less Republican now to make the first district more Republican. And I thought one of the more interesting developments.
Developments was that shortly after Chuck Edwards' announcement that he wasn't going to run again, we saw a release from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that they're trying to put more resources into unseating Richard Hudson, whose name really hadn't even been on the radar as someone that they might want to try to attack to win.
Now, of course, in every race where there's a Republican and a Democrat, the Both sides are going to say they're going to try to win. But realistically, there are only a handful of races across the country that both parties think they can flip. And if The Democrats now think that they could potentially flip Richard Hudson's seat. That suggests to me that they think that. They've got a pretty good shot with Davis.
They've got a pretty good in the first, pretty good shot with Eger in the 11th. And now they're trying to expand on that. And that suggests to me that they think that things are going very well in their favor. That may not be true. And it may be a case where they're just sort of putting that out there just to see what happens.
But that's different from them saying, oh, no, we're going to have to really put more resources into keeping seats that we already have in North Carolina. And, you know, that's one of the things that comes with the way that Republicans have drawn the congressional election map. They basically made three districts that Democrats are never going to lose under any circumstances. And then 11 districts, some of which are in the position that Republicans could almost never lose them. But there are several Republican seats that Republicans have probably a natural inborn five, six point lead.
But in a really good Democrat. Democratic year, they could be within reach. And that's what Democrats are looking at here. Yeah, and for those that have followed state politics over the last 20 years, similar situation unfolding with the Democrat Party as it related to redrawing General Assembly maps leading into the 2010 election cycle there, Mitch, same problem. Spread these districts just a little bit too thin, a really good year for Republicans.
And lo and behold, 15 years plus later, it has been a Republican majority since that period of time. I'll note for our audience, this remains a very dynamic situation. We are continuing to cover it and will continue to cover all the details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the insight and the analysis. This morning, Mitch Coke from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
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It's 5:24. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, as everything was unfolding this week in Congressional District 11 out in Western North Carolina.
Well, there's a lot of activity in Congressional District 1 as the Republican Speaker of the United States House in Mike Johnson, the Republican there from Louisiana, was in the first congressional district on the campaign trail for Lori Buckout, the Republican nominee running to unseat Democrat incumbent Don Davis of North Carolina's first congressional district. During a campaign stop in Greenville, where they also met with farmers and business leaders from the eastern part of the state, Johnson called the upcoming midterm election a midterm unlike any others. The House Speaker said in part, she, referring to Buckout, is one of our star recruits to run for Congress this fall, and she is going to flip a blue. Seat to Red. North Carolina's first congressional district is an essential part of a strategy to ensure that the Republicans maintain the majority in Congress.
The House race in North Carolina's first district is one of the top three most watched races in America, according to the House Speaker. With Johnson saying that there are about 18 to 20 of those seats that are going to decide the fate of the majority in the United States House and thus the future of the Republic. Buckout is a retired Army colonel, combat commander, and business owner, and has also served in the Trump administration as the acting Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy from March to September of 2025. Lori Buckout said at the event. This district has been suffering for quite some time.
My opponent actually called it a forgotten district, forgetting that he has already been in for two terms.
So I think he's one of those that is doing some of the forgetting. I don't believe in that. I see so much good that needs to happen in this district. We need to bring jobs. We need to lift the district up economically.
We need to support our farmers with some serious legislation that will enable family farms to continue to grow and we will enable them to pass it on to their children. We also need to build the jobs that are going to have individuals wanting to come back to Eastern North Carolina and stay here. As a parent myself, I know that is what I want my kids to do. I want them to come back to a place that's going to support them, where they have a job, where they have good schools, and where they have some places where they can raise families to be great Americans and continue the legacy of Eastern North Carolina. Buck out one horizon.
a five-way Republican primary in March with 39.5% of the vote and will face Davis in a rematch of an election that we covered in 2024 with Davis winning that race 49.5% of the vote compared to Bucout's 47.8, which was a margin of just over 6,000 votes between the two individuals. According to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Davis has called socialism, Davis has called socialism a step towards communism, which he referred to as a utopia or a perfect society. Mike Johnson, speaking at the event in Greenville this week, said it's no exaggeration to say that in a midterm election on the 250th anniversary of the greatest nation in the history of the world, we are in an open contest about whether or not we're going to maintain this incredible constitutional republic that has made us the greatest nation in the history of the world. Are we going to tear down that? Foundation and go down this dark, dangerous, deadly road to communism.
People don't understand that Marxist philosophy is where communism comes from. Don Davis, the current representative holding that seat in comments to WITN News, rejected the accusation that he favored Marxism or socialism. With Davis telling the news outlet, I believe in capitalism. I love this country, and I believe we make the most progress by working together. My commitment has been to work with Speaker Johnson to strengthen our military by passing the National Defense Authorization Act, advance the farm bill, and prevent government shutdowns because that's the kind of common sense leadership that the people of eastern North Carolina deserve.
Davis also sought to draw attention back to local issues and bipartisan solutions in Congress, saying in part, Speaker Johnson is always welcome in Eastern North Carolina. I hope his visit helps build federal support for funding at the ECU Health Beaufort Hospital and the Washington Regional Medical Center, funding North Carolina Highway 12, providing critical assistance for our tobacco farmers, advancing the Major Richard Starr Act for our combat injured veterans, and strengthening efforts to lower costs for hardworking families across Eastern North Carolina. Both candidates raised about one over a million dollars in their quarter two FEC filings. Buckout has about $1.8 million cash on hand, according to campaign finance reports. Speaker Johnson, pretty bluntly, expressing his complete confidence that Buckout will unseat Davis in November, saying, I've Believe we're going to defy history and win the majority now.
It's only happened twice in 90 years. I'm convinced, as most people are, that this is a midterm unlike any other. And I think we have so many factors in our favor that are going to ensure that the Republicans hold and grow our majority. You can read more from this event taking place. When it turns out, what has been to be a very hectic political week here in North Carolina as House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Republican from Louisiana, up in northeastern North Carolina, taking place at an event, a campaign stop in Greenville.
Those details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline: Speaker Johnson says Buck Out will flip NC1 in midterm, unlike any other. It's 5:38. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM. WBT, I'm Nick Craig.
A good Thursday morning to you. Until the middle of November, we are not expecting any more action out of the North Carolina General Assembly. It has been a busy two weeks in Raleigh, the Senate last week, the House this week. To bring us up to date on the latest this morning, Andrew Pomerance, CarolinaJournal.com joins us on the news hour. Andrew, an interesting Tuesday in Raleigh, you had kind of two events going on at the same time.
A bunch of individuals that were not in favor of a piece of legislation that would have essentially, for all intents and purposes, outlawed hemp and any THC products being sold currently in North Carolina. A press conference littered with law enforcement from a variety of different agencies being in support of that bill, talking about some of the dangers of this very unregulated market in the state. You have been down in Raleigh this week. Walks through what the mood and the atmosphere was like Tuesday morning. Hey, Nick.
Yeah, happy Thursday morning here. And after, like you mentioned, a crazy week down here in Raleigh, you know, a lot going on as the House tries to finish up business before they adjourn for now months, like you mentioned, all the way through Election Day. And so a number of legislative topics were on the table. And this hemp ban is something that has gotten a lot of attention in recent weeks. The conference report was agreed on back in July, and the Senate actually brought took up a vote on that conference report before even they adjourned in the first place.
They did it before that July 4th break. Right after they passed the budget, they passed this conference report, passed with overwhelming majority in the Senate after a good back and forth. Was some confusion on the Senate side. They were confused on why the House had not taken up a similar vote before the budget passed. And it turns out there was concern on the Republican side of the House about support.
As of Tuesday afternoon, we heard about two dozen or so elected officials maintain concerns about this bill. And as this became more and more uh contentious and and something that Saw could see potential movement. Organizers, like you mentioned, on both sides for and against this issue really started to ramp up lobbying efforts. And so, mid-last week, we saw a letter sent to legislators by the law enforcement communities, all nine organizations across the state, something that rarely happens when all of them come together on an issue. And they pleaded with the lawmakers to vote in favor of this piece of legislation.
They said, you know, this is something that they needed to enforce these bans to take dangerous products away from children and really start to regulate what they call an unintended recreational marijuana market in North Carolina. And so, on the other end of that, later that week, we saw the business community come out and really send a similar letter to representatives in the House and say this would wipe us out. And they cited $3.2 billion annually in about 16,000 jobs that would disappear overnight. if the House passed this bill.
So back and forth all week and into Tuesday where we saw those two groups show up to Raleigh and I think draw the attention of a lot of lawmakers. Yeah, and it was a late night on Tuesday, late caucus meeting, and things were still relatively up in the air as we transitioned into Wednesday morning. The House was supposed to gavel in, and they, in fact, did early on Wednesday morning. And the question remained, Andrew, would we see any movement on this legislation as House Speaker Destiny Hall led the chamber through all of its business? He got to the end and said, all right, no other business.
The hemp bill did not even come up for discussion on the floor of the North Carolina House. Pretty interesting situation there. Yeah, I spoke with lawmakers, Republican lawmakers after caucus yesterday as they were walking out of caucus, and they said they were unable to come to an agreement on how to handle this bill in caucus. They had many members stand up and give impassioned speeches on both sides of this issue. And so without an agreement, Speaker Hall felt that he did not have the votes if he did call the question here.
And so instead, he told reporters Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday night, really, right, after session that they were going to put together a small working group of legislators to take another look at this issue, come forward with some new legislation that would be both sides could agree on and bring that back for a vote before the end of the year after the November elections, right?
So those two weeks that are becoming increasingly busy, full of priorities on both sides of the aisle. Legislators are going to come back and try to take another bite at this apple before the end of the year. But as for now, the THC supporters, those who showed up in favor or against this legislation can take a win away from this whole situation. Yeah, and at least won't have anything to worry about immediately, at least in the next couple of months, as we will not see any action and any movement in Raleigh up until after the November midterm election. One of the things, however, that the North Carolina House did move on this week was a major elections bill that we've been talking about for a couple of weeks.
We saw a lot of changes to that in the North Carolina Senate last week. What ended up going on there? Yeah, Nick, this was the election bill that at one point was over 40 pages long and had a number of provisions that rose concerns over from both Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate. And when it passed the House back in June, the Senate was uncommitted. To taking up this piece of legislation before the end of the year, something that Senator Berger said we'll have to take a look at and see whether they were gonna take it up and in which manner they were going to.
And so when they returned last week for their last sets of votes, they passed this package of voter laws that were a reduced version of what the House had passed back in June, but had some of those larger still priorities in those bills, including a lot of the audits. Of elections by the state auditor, some of the tightening on party affiliation, but had some additional changes like shortening voting early voting days for primaries and secondary elections, right?
So, not for your generals, but for your primaries. And as that bill kind of moved forward, it became clear that the House had interest in just taking it up as the Senate had passed it, and that's what they did. A little bit of back and uh forth debate on the floor, but not so much pushback there. But those bills passed with slim majorities off the House floor and now head to the governor's desk. Yeah, those do head to the governor's desk.
And important to note as we'll continue to remind our audience, the changes that we've been talking about in these two pieces of legislation, House Bill 958 and House Bill 834, were not set to go into effect for the midterm elections that we'll see coming up here in just a couple of months. Early voting beginning October the 15th, Election Day coming up November the 3rd. No changes expected for this upcoming election. Million dollar question, Andrew. Have we heard anything from the government?
Governor, is he going to be in favor of this legislation that, as you know, to pass with those relatively slim margins? Yeah, late Tuesday night, the governor came out and said he plans, he intends to veto this legislation. It's something that he did not support. He cited a number of provisions within the package that he was adamantly against. He had spoken out about this similar legislation a number of times in this past weekend at the Democratic Unity dinner, spoke out again about this piece of legislation.
So something that was expected to be vetoed, he confirmed Tuesday night that that indeed was his plan to veto this legislation, urging Democrats and Independents in the House to stand firm in their initial votes to not allow a veto override to occur here. Important to note, right, at this point with the House and Senate not returning until after the election, this bill and this veto override will not see a vote. Until potentially November 8th or November 16th, the week of. And so I think this is now an issue that gets thrown past the election. It's something that we'll have to look at for elections coming up.
Like you mentioned, it won't be effect this November. But we'll continue to see, I think, that laundry list, like I mentioned, of legislative priorities continue to grow for those post-election sessions, which you know better than most, Nick, can really be a weird moment, politically unstable with lame ducks coming back to Raleigh to whip votes and potential for some votes that maybe would not happen before an election.
So I think a lot of eyes will begin to turn to that November voting session. And until then, we'll continue to hear kind of what the House thinks it will become a priority. Yeah, well, great point there, Andrew. And there are a couple of relatively high-profile Democrats. Most of them are now independents changing their party affiliation over the last couple of months, but also some high-profile Republicans.
Republicans that lost their primary races as well. Of course, we talked in great detail about the primary race that Senator Phil Berger lost back in the month of March as well.
So, very accurate assessment there that a couple of weeks after the election, when voter fatigue is kind of said and done, the results are in the process of being certified, things can get a little weird. And of course, we are going to continue to watch Senate Bill 50. That is the constitutional carry legislation that we've been discussing for the better part of a year now over on CarolinaJournal.com. Presumably, something like that could come up for a vote as well. That is the veto override that we've been saying for months now has a chance, has the best chance that to happen during that period.
You know, there are the two no Republican votes both lost their Republican primaries this year or said they were not going to run again. And so those two no votes are out of the picture potentially after the election if they choose to stay home or more willing to take a walk. And on top of that, we have a growing concern about the Republican majority. And, you know, if a non-supermajority occurs, if we begin to look more like a 50-50 majority split in the House, I think you'll see Republicans look to do a lot, things that they won't be able to do with that tighter majority going forward in a very quick and expedited process. No question about that.
We will continue to track that as we approach November. For the time being, we will not see any movement out of the North Carolina General Assembly until after Election Day. We appreciate the update this morning. Andrew Pomerantz joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Big color, bigger savings.
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Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. We are going to be watching a fascinating process unfold coming up Monday evening across portions of western North Carolina. Recapping, obviously, the big political news breaking over the last 24 hours or so. Congressman Chuck Edwards, the Republican representing North Carolina's 11th congressional district, has decided to drop out of the race after a very damning House Ethics Committee report was released early or early Monday afternoon. And under North Carolina law, it is a political party that will get to select the replacement nominee when a candidate withdraws in this process so close to the election.
According to the details here, the 11th District GOP Executive Committee is set to meet in Buncombe County on Monday. That is August the 10th. 6:30. Members of the 11th District Executive Committee from 16 different counties that make up that district will all likely convene in Bunkham County to hear from a variety of different candidates that are going to throw their hat into that race and determine as an executive committee who they want their candidate to be. That individual, as we were talking earlier with Mitch Coke from the John Locke Foundation, will have a relatively short time frame, a relatively short window there to get everything squared away ahead of early voting beginning in mid-October.
Election Day taking place coming up on Tuesday, November the 3rd. A very short time window, not only for fundraising, but for an individual out in the western half of the state to build up some pretty significant name ID to go up against Jamie Agar, the Democrat candidate running in Congressional District 11 out in Western North Carolina, who has had some very successful fundraising numbers up to this point. We are going to continue to watch that fallout here for the remainder of the week. And likely, as we are together early Tuesday morning next week, we will know who the candidate is that will be running in that seat and try and hold the Republican, the current seat that Republicans hold there in Western North Carolina. Busy couple of days.
We'll be keeping you up to date over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. And as always, each and every weekday morning, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. That's going to do it for a Thursday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT.
