Early voting underway in North Carolina primary races 

New districts, new races

Following Trump’s call for new maps, the North Carolina General Assembly reworked the boundaries of Congressional District 1 and 3, reshaping Democrat Don Davis’ district to include coastal, Republican-leaning areas. The seat of the two-term congressman is now up for play in the midterms, and Republicans are vying to replace him. Davis doesn’t face any primary challengers.  

A Democrat has filled the District 1 role for over a century, and since a special election in 1992 that elected Congresswoman Eva Clayton, a Black Democrat has represented the constituents in Congressional District 1. The last Republican the area sent to Congress was Walter Pool, who served in 1883. 

The competitive Republican primary features several public servants, all vying to secure their party’s nomination and face off against Davis and Libertarian candidate Tom Bailey. If the election results in the first-place candidate receiving less than 30% of the votes, the runner up can request a runoff election, which wouldn’t happen until May.   

An Emerson College poll weighs the potential for a toss-up, with 36% of voters still undecided on who to vote for. Laurie Buckhout, a retired army colonel, leads with 26% of the vote, followed by Asa Buck, a sheriff who is polling at 22%.

Following Buck is Bobby Hanig, a long-term member in the state’s General Assembly with 11% support. Trailing him are small business owner Eric Rouse and attorney Ashley-Nicole Russell. 

The district is hard to forecast, Chris Cooper said, but Buckhout may pull out ahead.    

“It’s really just a matter of how much faith we put in the one poll we’ve got,” Chris Cooper said.  

Mary Helen Warren, the vice chairman of the North Carolina GOP’s 1st Congressional District, said that despite Democrats’ long history of winning the seat, the last several election cycles have been competitive. 

The district “has continuously inched its way more red,” she said. “Nobody is disputing the fact that the district is definitely more red since redistricting. Does that mean a guaranteed win for the Republican party here in CD1? No, it does not. I think that candidate choices matter and ultimately, voters need to determine before they vote who would be the best candidate in November to go against Don Davis.”  

Prior to redistricting, Buckhout lost to Davis by 6,000 votes in 2024, in a competitive race where millions were spent.

Democrat competition

In Congressional District 4, which encompasses urban areas including Durham and Chapel Hill, the Democratic primary is hotly contested. There will be no Republican primary; Republican Mahesh Ganorkar will run against the Democratic candidate in the midterms. 

Incumbent Congresswoman Valerie Foushee is set to face off against Nida Allam, the vice chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners. Allam — the first Muslim American woman elected to public office in North Carolina — is endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, while Foushee is backed by Roy Cooper and current Democratic Governor Josh Stein. 

Mary Patterson, a former educator, is also running. 

Allam and Foushee faced off in 2022, where Foushee won 46% of the vote to Allam’s 36% in the primary. She went on to beat Republican Courtney Geels in the midterm election, securing 66% of the vote. 

“The primary is all that matters,” Chris Cooper said. “One result of gerrymandering, of course, is that the majority party gets the majority of seats. The other effect is that the seats the minority party gets, they get with huge margins, and that’s what we’ve seen in this district. This district was drawn so no Republican can have a chance.”

Both Allam and Foushee are competitive candidates who have run strong campaigns before, and the district is a liberal area. 

“It’s tailor-made for a fractious and expensive Democratic primary,” Chris Cooper said 

Over a million dollars in PAC money is flooding into the race, according to INDY Week, and the two candidates have pointed fingers over funding, with Foushee saying her biggest donors are unions, and criticizing the use of an out-of-state PAC trying to unseat her, while Allam claims she doesn’t accept funding from corporate interests and that Foushee’s campaign is bankrolled by corporate PACs. 

In Congressional District 3, two Democrats are striving to be the one to run against incumbent U.S. Representative Greg Murphy in the fall. 

Veteran Allison Jaslow is running against Dr. Raymond Smith Jr., a former educator who served two terms in the state House. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee declared the district “in play” in December, saying that the seat is newly vulnerable for Murphy after state Republicans shifted several GOP-favorable counties out of the district and into Congressional District 1 in order to challenge Davis’ seat.

The Cook Political Report labeled the district solidly Republican, calling it a “longshot” for Democrats, unless a strong candidate emerges and a surge of Democrats come out to the polls.   

Murphy has comfortably won since he beat out another Republican in a special election in 2019. He trumped Democrat Daryl Farrow during the general election in 2020, then in 2022, easily held onto his seat, winning 66% of the vote over Democrat Barbara Gaskins. After 2023 redistricting in the state, he only faced a Libertarian in the 2024 election, soundly defeating candidate Gheorghe Cormos with 77% of the vote. 

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