Combat veteran wins GOP nomination in NC’s ‘only competitive’ congressional district

Laurie Buckhout, a combat veteran running for office for the first time, won the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 1st congressional District.

Buckhout defeated Sandy Smith, who was twice the Republican nominee in the Eastern North Carolina district. She will move on to face incumbent Democrat Don Davis in November’s general election.

The Associated Press called the election for Buckholt at 11:15 p.m. At that time, Buckholt was leading by a margin of 30,421 to 25,853 votes with 255 of 281 precincts reporting.

Both candidates ran on policies in step with those supported by former President Donald Trump.

Buckhout, a retired U.S. Army colonel, started a consulting firm after retiring from the service in 2010 but has since sold it. Buckhout, who lives in Edenton, ran on border security, anti-abortion and pro-gun policies.

In a speech to supporters in Edenton Tuesday night, Buckholt criticized Davis, blasting his support for President Joe Biden, who she blamed for recent inflation. Buckholt described being on the campaign trail and talking with people who had to choose between buying gas to get to work or buying groceries.

“Here in the 1st district of North Carolina, Joe Biden and the Biden agenda have one name and that’s Don Davis. Don Davis has enabled all of Biden’s failures and if you want more of the same failures, vote Don Davis,” Buckholt said.

Democrats started their attacks on Buckholt Tuesday as well.

“After spending a decade in Virginia after retiring from military service, she moved to North Carolina to run for office. Laurie is an anti-abortion extremist, insurrection apologist, and transplant opportunist only looking out for herself,” U.S. Rep Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement Tuesday.

Smith, the more experienced candidate, was the Republican nominee for the seat in 2020 and 2022. Both times, she lost to a Democrat.

Smith attended election denial events on Jan. 6, 2021 on the Washington Mall but previously told The News & Observer she did not enter the Capitol. Smith, who lives in Rocky Mount, has said her platform is anti-abortion, pro-gun, pro-military.

Davis is serving his first term in the U.S. House following the retirement of longtime Democratic Congressman G.K. Butterfield.

If Buckhout wins in the general election, she would become the first member of the GOP to represent the 1st congressional district since 1883.

Largely rural, the 1st congressional district runs along the Virginia border from Currituck County in the east to Vance County in the west, looping in Nash and Wilson counties before also drawing in Kinston and Goldsboro.

The district is widely expected to be the most competitive in the state after the N.C. General Assembly completed redistricting in October 2023.

“It’s the only competitive district in the state,” Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, previously told The News & Observer.

The district’s voters have been somewhat fluid politically in recent elections, with 52% of those who voted casting ballots for Republican Ted Budd in the 2022 U.S. Senate race. That was a change from the 2020 U.S. Senate race, when voters narrowly went Democratic.

The district could also carry national significance, if control of the U.S. House of Representatives remains tightly contested.

A Buckholt victory could mean it will be more difficult for Davis to win re-election, Cook Political Report Executive Editor Amy Walters said during a Tuesday appearance on The New York Times’ The Run-Up podcast.

“If we’re talking about the House as being a battle of inches, then this is one of those inches,” Walter said.

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