NC elected these 5 men as its newest members of Congress. Who are they?
North Carolina voters will soon have five new men representing them in Congress.
On Friday, the 119th session of Congress opens at noon, and new members will be sworn into office. But first they will have to choose a House speaker.
And choosing whether to select House Speaker Mike Johnson to serve a second term has proven to be contentious, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s endorsement Monday.
Some Republicans are waffling on whether Johnson should lead the chamber again, and with a slim majority, he can only lose one or two Republicans in the vote.
That means North Carolina Republicans will be watching closely what newly elected Reps. Addison McDowell, Mark Harris, Pat Harrigan, Brad Knott and Tim Moore do and where their loyalties within the party lie.
North Carolina is represented by 14 members in the U.S. House, which is made up of 435 people acting on behalf of the entire country.
But why are nearly half of North Carolina’s representatives new?
That’s partially because of redistricting.
In fall 2023, North Carolina’s state legislators announced they had redrawn the state’s congressional districts to favor Republicans.
The map led to the election of 10 Republicans and four Democrats in a state currently represented by seven members of each party, helping the GOP keep control of the House.
The new map caused Reps. Kathy Manning, Wiley Nickel and Jeff Jackson, all Democrats, not to even try to run for reelection. Manning hasn’t announced what she will do next. Nickel plans to challenge Sen. Thom Tillis in 2026, and Jackson was set to be sworn in as North Carolina’s attorney general on Wednesday.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from Lincoln County, chose to retire after serving 10 years in Congress, including a tumultuous stint in 2024 as the country’s first interim House speaker after his friend, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, was ousted by a faction of his own party from his leadership role.
Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican living in Waxhaw, chose to run against Jackson for attorney general and lost. Trump has since nominated Bishop to serve as deputy director for budget at the Office of Management and Budget.
McDowell, Harris, Harrigan, Knott and Moore come into a new Congress where Republicans hold the majority in both chambers and will soon have a Republican president. While many believe that means they can get more accomplished, it’s been Republican infighting that has caused gridlock in the last session and made it the least effective in history.
Republicans are hoping to turn that around.
Here’s what you need to know about these newest members.
6th District
Name: Addison McDowell
Age: 30
Hometown: Bermuda Run
Occupation: Former lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina
Political party: Republican
District: Davie, Davidson, Rowan and parts of Cabarrus, Guilford and Forsyth
Endorsed by Trump: Yes
Succeeding: Kathy Manning
Reason the seat was open: Redistricting.
McDowell, a Republican from Davidson County, said in his campaign that his younger brother’s death from a fentanyl overdose inspired his desire to serve in Congress.
McDowell wasn’t a household name in North Carolina, and his desire to run for Congress was unknown before he made a surprise announcement in December 2023, which coincided with an endorsement announcement from Trump.
McDowell ran against some big names, including former Rep. Mark Walker, High Point Mayor Jay Wagner and Bo Hines, a political newcomer who had Trump’s support when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022. But Trump’s support of McDowell proved too much to overcome.
In the 2024 Republican primary, McDowell led with 26% of the vote, and though Walker finished behind him at 24% and was able to ask for a runoff election, he instead took a job working on Trump’s campaign, clearing the field for McDowell’s victory.
No Democrats ran, meaning McDowell’s win in the primary secured his seat in Congress.
When McDowell announced he would run for office, he was working as a lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. He previously worked on Rep. Richard Hudson’s 2016 campaign, and with Sen. Ted Budd’s congressional office in 2017-2019 while Budd served in the U.S. House, representing the same area that McDowell will now serve.
Here are some of the campaign promises McDowell made during the election:
Securing the border
Protecting American jobs
Defending gun rights
Protecting pro-life rights
Protecting crypto from burdensome government regulations
Opposing the creation of central bank digital currencies
Opposing election federalization
Restricting absentee votes to be received by Election Day and with signature verification.
8th District
Name: Mark Harris
Age: 58
Hometown: Indian Trail
Occupation: Pastor
Political party: Republican
District: Anson, Montgomery, Richmond, Scotland, Stanly, Union and parts of Cabarrus, Mecklenburg and Robeson.
Endorsed by Trump: Yes
Succeeding: Dan Bishop
Reason the seat was open: Bishop unsuccessfully ran for attorney general.
Many see Harris’ election to Congress as his comeback story.
Harris was expected to be a member of the 116th Congress, but a political scandal led for him to call for his own election to be thrown out and a new election to be held.
That happened on a witness stand as he testified about potential election fraud by his campaign.
His own campaign aide, Leslie McCrae Dowless, was charged with illegal ballot handling, obstructing justice, perjury and solicitation to commit perjury. Dowless died before his case came to trial.
But Harris never faced charges.
He also declined to run again that cycle, after the State Board of Elections held a second vote. He cited two strokes and an upcoming surgery as his reasoning to sit it out.
But that was then, and this is now.
Harris announced in September 2023 that he would run, for the fourth time, for public office. Bishop, who won the 2019 race, chose not to seek reelection and Harris wanted to succeed him.
He blamed his past on a “manufactured scandal” and won with 30.4% of the primary vote.
And in a red district, Democrats had little chance in the general election. Harris won against Democrat Justin Dues, 59.6% to 40.4%.
Harris grew up in Winston-Salem and is the youngest of five children.
He attended Appalachian State University, where he studied political science. He earned a master’s of divinity degree and a doctor of ministry degree in Christian leadership from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served at churches in Charlotte, Clemmons and Georgia.
From 2011 to 2013 he worked as president of the North Carolina Baptist Convention and was instrumental in passing the 2012 marriage amendment, a partially overturned law that banned same-sex marriage and constitutionally protected prenuptial agreements in North Carolina.
Harris is married to his wife, Beth, and together they have three adult children.
Harris campaigned on the following issues:
- pro-life
- traditional families
- securing the border
- enforcing immigration laws
- providing local control and “maximum flexibility” in education.
10th District
Name: Pat Harrigan
Age: 37
Hometown: Hickory
Occupation: Firearms manufacturer, former Green Beret
Political party: Republican
District: Catawba, Iredell, Lincoln, Yadkin and parts of Forsyth.
Endorsed by Trump: Yes
Succeeding: Patrick McHenry
Reason the seat was open: McHenry is retiring after 20 years of service.
Harrigan owns a gun manufacturing business with his wife, Raquel “Rocky.”
He grew up on the West Coast, but his career in the Army brought him to North Carolina.
Harrigan attended West Point, where he studied nuclear engineering. By 23, he was deployed to Afghanistan and put in charge of around 350 people and $100 million in infrastructure.
He would later join the Special Forces and train in North Carolina.
He deployed back to Afghanistan as a Green Beret.
Harrigan said he decided to to run for Congress in 2022 after watching the country’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led the U.S. Department of State to blame both the administrations of Trump and President Joe Biden for failing to look at the worst-case scenarios of pulling out all troops from the region, according to CNN.
A suicide bomber killed 183 people at an international airport in Kabul where refugees were trying to escape the Taliban.
North Carolina law allows people running for Congress to run outside the districts they live in, and with McHenry about to enter his 10th term in office, Harrigan chose to run in the district to the south.
He lost to Jackson, a Charlotte Democrat who lived in the district.
Harrigan chose to run again in 2023, getting into the race early. This time the district was drawn for a Republican win, and many believed for Moore.
The campaign between Moore and Harrigan began with heated remarks, with Harrigan saying Moore carried a “legacy of corruption” within moments of Moore announcing his campaign.
But the two men ended their feud when McHenry announced in December 2023 he would not seek reelection. Harrigan switched districts and ran where he lived, this time successfully.
Harrigan and his wife have two children and attend Hickory Bible Church.
Harrigan campaigned on the following issues:
- curbing inflation
- cutting wasteful spending
- decreasing taxes
- lowering energy prices
- becoming energy independent
- securing the border
- reinvesting in the military
- protecting gun rights
- securing the election
- protecting unborn babies
- protecting parents’ rights
- defending women’s sports
- guarding religious freedoms
- standing up against politicians who favor casinos and gambling
13th District
.jpeg "image0 (5).jpeg")
Name: Brad Knott
Age: 38
Hometown: Raleigh
Occupation: Federal prosecutor
Political leaning: Republican
District: Caswell, Franklin, Harnett, Johnston, Lee, Person and parts of Granville and Wake.
Endorsed by Trump: Yes
Succeeding: Wiley Nickel
Reason the seat was open: Redistricting
This is another case where an endorsement from Trump helped secure a candidate’s win.
In December 2023, Knott announced his run to succeed Nickel. He faced off in the Republican primary against Kelly Daughtry, an attorney from Johnston County and the daughter of former Rep. Leo Daughtry. Daughtry led in the primary, but Knott requested a runoff.
And when Trump supplied Knott with an endorsement that included attacks against his GOP opponent, Daughtry pulled out of the race, declaring Trump left her without a path forward.
Knott is one of six children, and part of a set of quadruplets.
He considers himself a lifelong Eastern North Carolina resident with family ties to Wilson, Wendell, Raleigh, Knightdale and Zebulon.
He attended Baylor University and studied law at Wake Forest University and served as a federal prosecutor. He clerked under Paul Newby, now the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
After graduation he worked briefly under Gov. Pat McCrory and in civil practice.
But his dream was to be a federal prosecutor. That opportunity presented itself in 2016, when he was hired in a temporary position that he turned into a career.
But Knott said watching the Biden administration make changes to immigration and seeing how that affected his own work led to his run for Congress.
Knott lives in Raleigh with his wife, Joanna, and their two daughters. His brother, Tucker, another of the set of quadruplets, serves as Budd’s chief of staff.
Issues Knott campaigned on:
- Secure the border
- Support Israel
- Support law enforcement
- Ban abortion
- Protect faith-based crisis pregnancy centers.
- Support school choice
- Protect free speech
- Protect gun rights
- Cut spending
- End birthright citizenship
14th District
Name: Tim Moore
Age: 54
Hometown: Kings Mountain
Occupation: Attorney, North Carolina House speaker
Political leaning: Republican
District: Burke, Cleveland, Gaston, Rutherford and parts of Mecklenburg and Polk.
Endorsed by Trump: Yes
Succeeding: Jeff Jackson
Reason the seat was open: Redistricting; Jackson’s successful run for attorney general.
Moore just finished the longest stint as House speaker in North Carolina history at 10 years.
And in that time, he credits himself with banning sanctuary cities, balancing the state budget yearly and enacting the biggest personal income tax cut in the state’s history, according to his campaign website.
Moore has been working in politics since high school. He began as an intern for a state senator before attending UNC-Chapel Hill and Oklahoma City University School of Law.
Moore owns his own law firm that he opened in 2009, but began working in private practice in 1995.
In 1997, Moore became chair of the Cleveland County Republican Party and was appointed to the UNC Board of Governors.
In 2003, he took his oath of office in the North Carolina House. But it wasn’t until 2010 that Republicans took control of both chambers.
At that point, Sen. Thom Tillis, who was then serving as House speaker, named Moore chair of the Rules committee, putting him in a high-ranking position of leadership.
During this time, Republicans took the state further right, passing abortion and voting restrictions and blocking Medicaid expansion.
Voters promoted Tillis to the U.S. Senate, and Moore took the reins as House speaker in 2015.
During his time as speaker, Moore co-sponsored North Carolina’s controversial House Bill 2, a now repealed piece of legislation that required people to use bathrooms in schools and other government buildings that matched the gender on their birth certificates. The bill made national news, cost North Carolina economically and led to many performers refusing to set foot in the state.
As Moore geared up to run for Congress, he was sued for breaking up the marriage of a state employee by having an affair with her. The lawsuit by the employee’s former husband was later “resolved” and her husband, who ran for the state legislature, referred to receiving a “settlement check” in a message to voters.
The bad press didn’t deter Moore from running for Congress. With Harrigan shifting to McHenry’s district, and no other opponents putting up a true fight against Moore, he was able to win the race without problems.
Moore is divorced and has two grown children.
Moore campaigned on these issues:
- Securing the border
- Cutting taxes
- Lessening regulations on fossil fuels
- Lowering the federal corporate income tax rate to zero.
- Restarting the Remain in Mexico policy
- Fighting inflation
Returning members of the U.S. House from NC
- Alma Adams, a Charlotte Democrat, 12th district
- Don Davis, a Snow Hill Democrat, 1st district
- Chuck Edwards, a Flat Rock Republican, 11th district
- Valerie Foushee, a Hillsborough Democrat, 4th district
- Virginia Foxx, a Banner Elk Republican, 5th district
- Richard Hudson, a Southern Pines Republican, 9th district
Greg Murphy, a Greenville Republican, 3rd district
- Deborah Ross, a Raleigh Democrat, 2nd district
- David Rouzer, a Wilmington Republican, 7th district
