Eastern NC challenger gets boost from national GOP, as Democrat walks tightrope on Harris
The National Republican Congressional Committee has named Laurie Buckhout as one of its “Young Guns.”
The announcement may mean extra attention on a swing district in Eastern North Carolina, and comes as Buckhout’s opponent, Rep. Don Davis, has joined in criticism of his party’s likely presidential nominee.
Buckhout, 62, of Edenton, is a retired Army colonel who created Corvus Consulting, a business specializing in electronic warfare and cyberspace operations. She sold the business for $43 million only seven years after launching it.
Now she is vying for a chance to represent, in Congress, her community and the surrounding 21 counties in North Carolina’s northeast.
Being named a Young Gun gives Buckhout access to mentors, support and tools from the NRCC to win her election.
She is one of 26 Republicans being added to the Young Guns program.
“Extreme House Democrats’ border, crime and cost of living crises wrecked Americans’ safety and security,” said NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson, a North Carolina member of Congress. “Fortunately, these Republican candidates are already well on their way to running winning campaigns that will grow our House majority in November.”
Buckhout is competing to representing North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District against Davis, the incumbent.
Davis, 52, a Democrat and Army veteran from Snow Hill, is in his first term in Congress, and formerly was a six-term state senator and the youngest person to ever be elected mayor of his town.
He succeeded Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a Democrat, who served in the U.S. House for 18 years. Butterfield retired after seeing a map the Republican-led General Assembly planned to use for the 2022 election. Butterfield said he was fed up with legislators gerrymandering his district and felt he could fight against it more effectively outside of Congress.
But the courts got involved and had an independent mapmaker redraw the congressional districts for 2022, which gave the two political parties an even 7-7 split in representation in Congress.
Davis defeated his Republican opponent with more than 52% of the vote.
Then Republican legislators got a chance to redraw the map again for the 2024 election cycle and gave their party an easy win in 10 districts, leaving Democrats with another three.
1st District is a swing district
The 1st Congressional District is now the state’s only true swing district, meaning its voters could pick either a Democrat or a Republican, though it leans slightly Republican.
That’s put Davis in a precarious position as he tries to align himself both with his base, and others who might not agree with Democrats’ platform.
But Davis is seen as a moderate Democrat, and was recently ranked as the second-most most bipartisan U.S. House Democrat and the fifth-most bipartisan member of either party, according to the Lugar Center and Georgetown University.
On Thursday, Davis voted with five Democrats and House Republicans on a resolution that chastised Vice President Kamala Harris for her work on immigration policy. On Friday morning, he put out a statement that while work is still needed on the southern border, he was endorsing Harris’ campaign and supporting Gov. Roy Cooper as her running mate. Cooper is among several people under consideration for vice president.
Davis’ statement Friday makes him the last of North Carolina’s seven Democrats in the U.S. House to offer his support to Harris.
Since early last year, the NRCC has targeted Davis’ seat, hungry for a win to keep Republicans’ narrow majority in the House.
The NRCC requires candidates named to the Young Guns program to meet specific goals and benchmarks throughout the campaign season to keep their campaigns competitive, well-funded and communicative within their districts.
Last month, NRCC announced a $2.4 million investment to run ads about the 1st district in the Greenville and Raleigh markets.
