The Return of Col. Moe Davis

 

In 2020, retired Air Force Col. Morris "Moe" Davis attracted a good deal of attention running in the Democratic primary for the 11th Congressional District and then in the fall election that year against that vivid train wreck, Madison Cawthorn. Cawthorn won the race by 12 points, but Davis brought some Democratic heat and raised a respectable $2.5 million for his campaign.

He says he's back for 2026, running for the same seat now occupied by Chuck Edwards, the former state senator who ousted Cawthorn in the 2022 Republican primary.

Davis ran a combative (some nervous liberals thought too combative) campaign against Cawthorn, highlighting the post-teenager's moral and ethical black holes. (Full disclosure: I contributed more than once to Davis's campaign.) Davis retired from the US Air Force at the rank of colonel and already had a high pre-candidacy national profile. He served two years as Chief Prosecutor of the Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay and resigned in protest because his superiors in the Air Force Judiciary and the General Counsel of the Department of Defense overruled his decision to disallow evidence obtained via CIA torture. In resigning his position, Davis declared that he wasn't going to take orders from people who think "waterboarding is A-Okay."

In other words, he's a hard-nose with a spine. He's got a clear pattern of courting controversy, or at least not skirting around it when it blocks his path of moral certitude (he said the Supreme Court was "meddling" when it chose to review the Military Commissions Act). He's not afraid to defy authority when he thinks he's right, and you've got to admire his fortitude. He's been on all the broadcast and cable news programs as a recognized expert in national security, especially security from terrorists who he thinks should be prosecuted the fair way and not via the CIA torture wheel, but he's also defended Guantanamo as a "humane" detention center (which makes him suspicious to some liberals).

He was a "risk" candidate in 2020, at a time when too many Democrats wanted "safe." But times have changed, and more Democrats are in a fighting mood and want their candidates served raw. Cory Vaillancourt points out that in 2020 Davis actually polled best in the rural counties of CD11. And the incumbent looks weakened after Hurricane Helene ravaged his district, and the Trump admin hasn't done much to bolster Edwards' popularity. Vaillancourt:

Edwards has increasingly come under scrutiny for his performance while in office, most notably in failing to acquire the $60 billion North Carolina says it needs to recover from Hurricane Helene. A bill Edwards claims he authored last December will instead deliver between $9 billion and $17 billion; however, a Smoky Mountain News investigation in March revealed that most local governments hadn’t yet received any money from the federal government six months after the storm.

In a March 13 town hall, Edwards faced fierce opposition. During his speech to delegates at the NC-11 GOP convention on April 26, Edwards touted his proximity to Trump on nearly every issue, claimed “we’re winning” and mocked Democrats.

I'm up for a Moe Davis/Chuck Edwards contest.