Impressive Dem Candidate in an Impossible R+9 House District

 

Mark Pless, disgruntled

The prospects for flipping the NC House Dist. 118 look pretty unlikely on paper, though one well qualified and impressive Democrat, former District Court Judge Danny Davis, is making the run anyway against Republican incumbent Mark Pless, who's already won reelection to this Madison/Haywood district twice. I wrote about Pless's being in hot water with his own party back in June:

NC House Rep. Mark Pless (Dist. 118, Haywood and Madison) has earned a reputation for putting his thumb in the eye of local government. He gets yelled at (but he could give a shit). Because he's safe (he assumes) in his heavily Republican district. He's never had a primary, and he never gets less than 60% of the vote against weak Democratic challengers. No primary until now.

Like Senator Ralph Hise, Pless likes to mess with "local bills" which can't be vetoed and which always represent some get-even move against local officials who have offended him or one of his buddies.

For example, last February, Pless filed a bill that would have stripped the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority of its ability to collect the county’s 4% room occupancy tax, effectively dismantling the organization. What actually passed upped the room tax to 6% and cut municipal officials out of membership on the board -- sticking it to Waynesville, Maggie Valley, and Lake Junaluska.

In April 2025 Pless introduced two bills that would eliminate county control of ambulance services statewide and change certification standards. Paramedics, medical technicians, and emergency service directors -- not to mention county commissioners -- got loud in their opposition. And Rep. Pless was photographed not taking the criticism gracefully.

Pless has particularly been at war with Waynesville town government. He tried back in 2022 to get a bill through that would make all town elections in Haywood County partisan, but that failed in the Senate. He later backed a trio of candidates to beat the incumbents and take control, but every last one of Pless's guys lost.

House Dist. 118 comes up on Civitas's "Partisan Index" for 2026 as R+9, "likely Republican," and Dave's Redistricting cites the partisan divide as 60% Republican, 37.8% Democratic, and only 2% "other." That's pretty dismal.

Judge Danny Davis

But Judge Davis seems undeterred, and he's got an impressive resume and an economics message. According to his press release, he's a gol-durned native of the district, graduated from Tuscola High School in Haywood and then Western Carolina University before earning a law degree from Campbell. Like many young lawyers, he served as an assistant district attorney before spending 27 years as a district court judge. According to his press release published in the Smoky Mountain News, "Since retiring from the bench — aside from brief stints as an emergency judge — he’s spent time serving as a court mediator and chairman of the Haywood County Board of Elections."

His campaign theme:

“[The] standard of living has been eroded over the last couple of decades because pro-wealth policies have led to stagnated wages while the cost of housing, healthcare, rent, child care and education have skyrocketed,” Davis said in the release. “Small businesses, which are the backbone of this country, are also struggling to pay their employees and provide good benefits for them. This has resulted in working men, women, couples and couples with children especially those under 50 having difficulty staying afloat to the point that they are angry and frustrated and don’t believe the system works for them.”

It may be an added liability (in what is already a long-shot campaign) that Davis has run for office twice before and lost, though he came "within a fraction of one percent" of winning the House district seat in 2012. Open question: Why did he wait 14 years to try again, after the voters almost gave it to him?