Endorsements: Our choices in North Carolina’s U.S. House primaries in Districts 2 and 4

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Endorsements 2022

The Editorial Board’s recommendations for the primary elections on Tuesday, May 17, 2022.

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U.S. Congressional District 2 covering northern Wake County and District 4, which includes Orange and Durham counties, are solid blue districts that help color North Carolina purple.

District 2

In the Republican primary to pick a challenger to Democratic incumbent Deborah Ross, there are three candidates: Adina Safta, Christine Villaverde and Mahesh Ganorkar. Villaverde and Ganorkar did not respond to our requests for an interview. Safta, 33, is a Romanian immigrant and small-business owner who told the Editorial Board she does not believe Joe Biden is the duly elected president.

We make no recommendation in this race.

District 4

Democratic Rep. David Price, 81, is retiring and his House seniority is going with him. He has been a North Carolina congressman for three and a half decades, save a two-year stint in the 1990s.

There are two candidates seeking the GOP nomination to replace Price. Robert Thomas did not respond to a our request for an interview. Courtney Geels, a Durham nurse, is running on an agenda that includes protecting gun rights, increasing border security, restricting abortion, expanding school choice and allowing exceptions from vaccine mandates. We make no recommendation in this race.

In the Democratic primary we spoke with all but one of the eight candidates. Matt Grooms could not be reached for comment. The seven others showed strong qualities, but this is a primary in which the nomination is likely to go to one of the three clear frontrunners: “American Idol” singer and disability rights activist Clay Aiken, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam and state Sen. Valerie Foushee.

Here are the other Democratic candidates (with their ages on Election Day, as listed in The News & Observer Voters Guide): Crystal Cavalier, 44, is a member of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation Occoneechee Band of the Saponi Nation whose work for American Indian people in the state focuses on climate justice and preventing interpersonal violence; Stephen Valentine, 52, a lawyer and U.S Army veteran, wants to bring jobs to North Carolina and expand education.; Ashley Ward, 50, a climate scientist at Duke, is raising alarms about the climate crisis and Richard Watkins, 37, a Durham virologist, is animated when speaking on the importance of science in and the need for universal health care.

Among the frontrunners, Aiken, 43, has name recognition that he says he could leverage as a new member of Congress. Allam, 28, has the enthusiasm of a grassroots progressive campaign and has received endorsement from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Foushee, 65, has spent decades serving Orange County, both as an elected official for 24 years and as a staff member of the Chapel Hill Police Department.

Aiken’s celebrity has faded some since he was the 2003 runner-up in TV’s “American Idol” singing competition and later saw his second album go multi-platinum. But he remains a strong performer, comfortable on TV and persuasive in media interviews. Aiken, who would be the South’s first openly gay congressman, thinks his high profile would make him a strong liberal representative of North Carolina and one who could counter the negative images created by Republican extremists such as Rep. Madison Cawthorn.

Foushee enjoys the support of the Democratic establishment, but she stumbled by accepting $165,000 in bundled contributions from the conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The heavy AIPAC support is clearly targeted at keeping Allam, a Muslim who has criticized Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people, out of Congress. Foushee’s campaign should be about what she stands for and not what an increasingly conservative super PAC stands against.

If Allam wins the primary and wins again in November, she would become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, surpassing New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected at 29. She would also be only the third Muslim woman to serve in Congress, after Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar and Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib. Some Democrats worry that she will join those women in “The Squad,” a group of House members that has pressured Democratic leaders to take a more progressive course. But as a Durham commissioner, Allam has shown that she recognizes that compromise is a key to moving forward on issues. As a congressional candidate, she has spoken out against antisemitism and apologized for any of her advocacy that could be seen in that light.

Allam isn’t as experienced as Foushee and she doesn’t have Aiken’s celebrity, but a solidly blue district with a growing immigrant population would be well served by having a young, progressive daughter of immigrants represent it in Congress.

We recommend Nida Allam for District 4.

This story was originally published May 2, 2022 at 4:30 AM.