Jamie Ager -- Strong Arms

As a first-time candidate, Ager needs a primary. If he can’t get through it, he shouldn’t be the nominee, but if he does, he’ll get the practice he needs to face Edwards.

--Thomas Mills

Jamie Ager

Thomas Mills wrote yesterday that the Democratic primary in CD 11 will be the race to watch. Jamie Ager, whom I wrote about the other day based on a lengthy profile piece on him by Cory Vaillancourt, has suddenly emerged as campaign royalty and the frontrunner over main competitor Moe Davis (there are some other also-rans). I started writing about Moe Davis during his first run for Congress in the 11th District in 2020 (also contributed to his campaign). I liked Moe Davis's pugnacious spirit and his willingness to call a spade by its common name. He was a fighter with a career behind him of prosecuting terrorists and of pushing back when higher ups tried to interfere with his independence.

Davis turned that fighting spirit into a political brand when he teamed up with another pugnacious Democrat, David Wheeler, who once upon a time not long ago (2018) mounted a campaign against Ralph Hise for the NC Senate. Moe Davis and David Wheeler roll together, or at least in tandum. Wheeler specializes in raising instant dust, like when he invaded the premises of the notorious cult church Word of Faith in Rutherford County with the suggestion that Hise had improperly enabled its unconscionable power in the local ecosystem, and Wheeler went on to found American Muckrakers PAC dedicated primarily to publishing every piece of available dirt on snot-nosed Madison Cawthorn, the former congressman from CD11. Moe Davis was very much a part of that PAC's activities and its benefactor, as he was running against Cawthorn, and he had no qualms about going negative. (Davis lost the election to Cawthorn in 2020 by 12 points). Cawthorn then went down in the 2022 Republican primary, and the Wheeler-Davis vendetta was likely a factor in his crash. Wheeler subsequently turned his muckraking on Colorado's Lauren Boebert and ended up suing her for defamation. That case wound up in a Watauga County courtroom with local Republican lawyer Nathan Miller representing Boebert. Wheeler's suit got tossed without prejudice for being filed in western North Carolina instead of in Colorado.

More recently, Wheeler made himself a pariah among many Democrats for pursuing a Democratic primary run for Commissioner of Insurance against Natasha Marcus, who had lost her NC Senate seat to gerrymandering and whom Gov. Cooper had anointed to run for the Council of State seat. Wheeler lost the primary and Marcus lost the fall election.

Wheeler has made himself into a sort of professional trouble-maker who seems to enjoy smashing the furniture just for the sound of smashing furniture. There's definitely a place for professional trouble-makers, especially in the Age of Trump, but Wheeler's arrogance and obnoxiousness -- especially when those character traits are aimed at fellow Democrats -- can get exhausting. That oppositional style is crude ore, unrefined, especially when contrasted with the satiric incisiveness of a Gavin Newsom.

David Wheeler and Moe Davis are now teamed up for a weekly podcast, MUCK YOU! (with all caps and the exclamation point) in which they indulge their instincts and druthers and have guests on to discuss the times. 

All of that just to say that Jamie Ager brings a clear contrast to the Wheeler-Davis manner. He projects the kind of calm thoughtfulness and consideration that comes from years of navigating among fellow farmers in a culture that values community connections and non-confrontation. He strikes me as an honest man with Democratic instincts. He won't insult his critics, and he might just win one or two over to his side. Reticence doesn't have to signal weakness. The bottomline: He fits the 11th Congressional District, while it's been pretty well demonstrated that the Wheeler-Davis style doesn't.