The Unpredictable Surprises of November 3rd

"If you’re a Republican in Congress, even if you’re running in a district Trump won by eighteen points, even if your polls have you ahead, brace yourself – you may find yourself staring a hard reality in the eye on election night."

--Carter Wrenn on Substack, Sept. 4, 2026 

 

I love it when a respected conservative operative, who was Jesse Helms's political guru for years, plays Cassandra for his side. You know who Cassandra was -- Priam's daughter who always knew when disaster was coming. No one ever believed her. That was her curse. Carter Wrenn's playing that part for Republicans. More than prophet, Wrenn knows politics and can see history straight. Among many other political achievements, Wrenn managed Ronald Reagan's winning campaign in the North Carolina primary of 1980, upsetting Gerald Ford. 

Wrenn predicts in a roundabout way that turnout -- lack of turnout -- will be the Achilles heel for Republicans this November. Lack of turnout can erase an 18-point paper advantage very quickly.

Which is why the surprises of November 3rd are pretty much unpredictable. Less than two months to go to find out. 

The Berger Perplex

 

Last Thursday, Phil Berger Jr. announced on X that he would not be running for reelection in 2028. What? First Phil Berger Sr. bites the dust in the March primary. Now Number One Son Phil Junior announces he's going to be off of the state Supreme Court when his current term expires in '28.

Before we can begin to clap his exit, the dern Carolina Journal, the organ of the John Locke Foundation, immediately understands that Junior has his eye on the Chief Justice seat currently occupied by Rumpelstiltskin Paul Newby, the most highly partisan chief justice in our lifetime. In other words, last Thursday what Phil Junior was trying to say on X was "I'm not going to run for this seat on the Supreme Court, but for a wholly different seat -- the most important seat."

Symmetry. Berger first ran ten years ago in 2016 for the Supreme Court seat that Paul Newby was vacating so that he could run for Chief Justice. Berger has a practice of following in his master's footsteps. (Newby is required by law to retire at age 76. He'll be 73 in 2028, which means he would have to retire in the middle of that 6-year term. So tell me they haven't worked this all out in advance.)

Berger's reputation as a Republican partisan comes from his refusing repeatedly to recuse himself from deciding cases in which his own father, Phil Berger Senior (the about-to-be-former President Pro Tem of the NC Senate), was a defendant (who stood to benefit at least politically from the decision). The crucial Harper v. Hall redistricting decision, which had thrown out the Republicans' 2021 General Assembly districts as unconstitutional gerrymandering; the Voter I.D. case; the Leandro school funding case. Occasionally, when he's been challenged for his family relation he's referred the question of recusal to the other justices, and they always vote 4-2, "Hell, no! Junior doesn't need to recuse himself, because Daddy as a defendant is only a defendant because he was acting in his official capacity as leader of the Senate." 

It was a regular Berger family duopoly of power.

A reminder of how Phil Jr. got hatched:

First, he ran in 2014 for the seat vacated by Congressman Howard Coble. He was backed by wads of money and the full-bore influence of his father, but Phil Junior lost to Mark Walker (of noted memory). Lost the Republican primary when a lot of pundits thought he'd win.

Following quickly that humiliating defeat, Phil Junior got himself appointed to an administrative law judgeship. In 2016, he took the next step and challenged Judge Linda Stephens for a seat on the Court of Appeals and won. That was the same year Trump arrived. Plus Junior benefited from a last minute legislative stunt that Phil Senior pulled off in the short session of the General Assembly the summer of 2016. He got the law changed as regards random "ballot order," insuring that candidates that belong to the same party as the sitting governor (Pat McCrory) get listed first on the ballot. Berger beat Stephens by a slim margin, 22,099 votes. He quit the seat in 2020, to run for the Newby seat on the Supreme Court. You could say the boy exhibits ambition, and he's in a hurry.

Reasons Not To Be a College Professor Right Now

 

Peter Hans, President of the UNC System

 

A.I.  

I retired as a college professor in the nick of time (well, 26 years ago, but still). I taught a lot of advanced composition, coaching students in three basic writing challenges: the personal essay, in which a student tells his own story; research, usually tracing and characterizing the pop culture reaction to major national stories of importance; interview, telling someone else's story. I think I was good at it.

But what the hell would I do now with A.I. unleashed on the world? My teaching method -- having every student in my office once or twice a week to review their drafts and make suggestions -- made plagiarism almost impossible. I don't think any of them would have dared hand me something someone else wrote. But A.I. not only makes easy plagiarism possible. It makes it almost inevitable.

Say a student has chosen to research press accounts of the Lindberg baby kidnapping in 1932. My students used to go to the library and pore through old magazines and read the New York Times on microfilm. But now? I dare you to impersonate a student and ask Chatgpt how mass media characterized Lindberg before and after the kidnapping and whether there was any nay-saying about the national hero and his tragic loss. You'd get a publishable essay, with all the links to sources. Research paper done!

A.I. is going to change all of education.

 

Peter Hans  

It's one thing for Silicon Valley to mess with individual achievements based on long and good work; it's wholly another thing when the president of the UNC system -- which includes AppState -- acquiesces to witch-hunters on the Right and mandates a new university-wide policy that all faculty class syllabuses are now public records and will be posted up online for the convenience of politically motivated groups looking for anything that doesn’t match their viewpoint.

One man mandated the new policy -- not the General Assembly, but the UNC System President himself, Peter Hans. Single-handedly. All by himself. He didn't even get the agreement of the UNC Board of Governors. Hans is so clearly in his position because the Republican super-majority in the General Assembly wants him there, and he intends to please them in the continuing harassment of higher education. Hans was himself a one-time Republican political operative who worked as a senior policy advisor to senators Laugh Faircloth and Richard Burr and became a campaign consultant for Elizabeth Dole. 

In October 2025, the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project tried to use their fishing license— public-records requests -- to target some 70 UNC-Chapel Hill courses, "particularly courses dealing with race, gender, sexuality and related subjects." Some administrators pushed back, averring that instructors' syllabi were not public records. So in December 2025 -- three months after the Heritage Foundation went fishing -- President Hans announces the new policy that all course syllabi are public records and must be posted online for the convenience of stalkers and revenge-addicts. 

Here's what the new policy requires of teachers -- in addition to the usual week-by-week outline of reading assignments. I consider it onerous as well as ominous:

1. Course name and description. 

2. Goals, objectives, student learning outcomes and expectations. 

3. An explanation of how the professor will approach grading, including a scale, a percentage breakdown of major assignments, and attendance and participation expectations. 

4. All course materials that students will have to purchase. 

5. A statement indicating that the inclusion of diverse scholarly perspectives does not imply endorsement of those perspectives, but rather is an attempt to develop critical thinking.

I'm glad to be out of the system. 

 

Comeuppance Bait

 

I heard that Bill Clinton turned 80 today. DJT is also 80, but older than Bill by two months. George W. Bush, whom I used to mock as "El Presidente," is also 80. I'm older than all of them. Only Biden was older than me, by two years. That's my cohort.

So it pisses me off for lefties like me to make fun of the way any of my cohort totters around, or limps, or goddamned gets confused about what's not interesting, or stumbles, or needs a hand. I walk worse than any of them, but I'm still here in my upstairs (both senses, the literal and the metaphorical) with all the lights on. I can't get in the street any more, no door-knocking, plus I've become increasingly deaf, so no phonebanking. The stuff I used to do as an organizer -- no one remembers or cares. That's just a fact.

My first campaign was for Eugene McCarthy, 1968. I was part of the volunteers who were organizing precincts to vote for McCarthy delegates to the state Democratic convention. I had to drop a graduate school course -- a Faulkner class. I was never going to finish The Sound and the Fury anyway. I bit in to the job of trying to organize 20 precincts in south Salt Lake City. Our methods were primitive by today's standards. We had no computer lists, no targeting, so we'd knock every door, essentially polling for any anti-war Democrats who might be willing to attend their precinct meeting as a McCarthy supporter. Unfortunately, I learned that Hubert Humphrey, the current vice president, had most of the Democratic vote sewed up. McCarthy was too too academic, a writer of poetry, an egghead who was not being patriotic about the Vietnam War. There was no way that any Democrat was going to win Utah anyway, so our little internal tussle for convention votes was especially futile.

But for me it was my first taste of activism. Activism, once ignited in a personality, can sometimes smolder after a defeat but can leap back into bright flames for a right cause, even in the face of loss. Holding to ethical and moral principles that suddenly appear in the single person of a particular political candidate -- you can be inspired with good old hope that things can change. It takes belief to be an activist. The danger comes when belief turns to dogma, with police powers behind it. The willingness to do the work for the election chances of any candidate, to always be where you promised to be, to keep up with your assigned chores and to do your worst chores first, and always remember to laugh -- not everyone could keep up the pace. Actually doing things and accomplishing things can birth the arrogant thought that you -- little you -- can make a big difference with your recruitment methods and fundraising and get-out-the-vote, because the future depends on you. That's when comeuppance arrives. I've been through earthquake wins and comeuppance losses, but up until I turned 80, crawling out of the wreckage of an electoral disaster, dusting ourselves off, and immediately figgering next steps was just second nature.

Comeuppance seems to be stalking DJT. He looks a little haunted. They say he's gained 20 pounds. He's been so blatant about dipping his beak into all sorts of big money-making ventures that increasingly more of those MAGA guys are recognizing greed and corruption for what it is -- comeuppance bait.

 

Stacy "Four" Eggers Eliminates Sunday Voting in 10 More NC Counties

 

Photo Jesse Barber

 

Yes, we see you, NCGOP. We see you as through a glass, darkly.

Lynn Bonner for NCNewsline:

Ten North Carolina counties that had Sunday voting in the last midterm election won’t have any this year as a result of state Board of Elections votes this week. [Four Eggers of Boone is part of the Republican majority on the board.]

The state board met Thursday [Aug. 20] to consider early voting plans for 20 counties where local boards of election could not agree on locations, dates, or times.

The Republican majority on the state Board of Elections agreed with decisions of GOP majorities in Anson, Chatham, Columbus, Greene, Harnett, Nash, Pasquotank, Pitt, Union, and Wayne – counties that opened polls on Sundays for voting four years ago – to drop those hours this year.

Thursday’s decisions continued the contraction of Sunday voting since Republicans took majorities on the state Board of Elections and county boards last year.

May the Comeuppance Be Cosmic

 

Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood

 

DJT. I'm not using the name any more. Just the initials. Like he's achieved some plus-sized historical significance equal to other sets belonging to celebrated Americans -- LBJ, FDR, JFK, MLK -- all known immediately. Yeah, he's probably already that plus-sized, and he still has a couple years to go. Maybe he'll inflate like a parade balloon and float away.

Did you ever see There Will Be Blood? Daniel Day Lewis starred as the obsessively acquisitive silver miner-turned oil man Daniel Plainview. For Plainview, money becomes a means of winning, controlling, humiliating, and separating himself from people. By the end, he's enormously wealthy but almost completely isolated. His son H.W. has left him; his business empire has become largely irrelevant to his emotional life; and he spends his final scenes in his mansion, drinking, alone.

Let's start a parlor game! Pick the fictional (or historical) character who most resembles DJT for greed and cruelty, and enjoy imagining that every famous ending might also be DJT's.  

Okay, here's another, purely historical destructive ego: King John, who was forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215. He died in 2016 while fleeing his enemies. John, the youngest surviving son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, was a particularly ugly historical personality. His appetites, suspicion, financial exploitation, and abuse of power stand out in the historical record, along with boneheadedness. He repeatedly undermined his own political position -- hence, that signature at Runnymede. He's a good example of a man who is so determined to gratify himself that he destroys the system that sustains him. 

Just a little computer assistance turns up quite a roster of other historical and fictional characters who understood acquisition as a means of making themselves invulnerable, because they were profoundly incapable of genuine human reciprocity: Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Richard III, Thomas Wolsey -- the list is almost endless. Which teaches its own lesson. Given power and opportunity, every man can become a selfish jerk.

Then there's France's Louis XIV, the ultimate royal ego: L'État, c'est moi, he famously said -- "The State, it is me." Not a good candidate for our parlor game because he died of old age, still sitting the throne. Sometimes comeuppance doesn't arrive on time.

Signs of the Times (Are Disappearing for Lack of Interest)

 

 

A large Donald Trump/MAGA merchandise store located along I-40 just outside Knoxville, Tennessee, is selling off its remaining inventory at a 50 percent discount. The store's exterior features a massive Trump billboard, other MAGA banners, and a brick outhouse labelled the "Democrat Superstore," yet people have stopped pulling off the Interstate to scratch their itch to own some decorations sure to piss off Democrats. Slate reports its owner's admitting the closure is due to a lack of customers. 

My frequent treks into Boone always takes me past a well known right turn with yield -- where a busy shortcut joins a major county artery. Facing any driver who has to stop or pause there is a house on the opposite corner that has sported a billboard-sized TRUMP COUNTRY sign. I just noticed recently that the sign if gone. In its place is something positive about Jesus Christ. I kind of get a message from that.

An Opening for Lynn Russo in HD 117

 

Lynne Russo

 

Last night, the Republican executive committee for the 11th Congressional District picked NC House member Jennifer Balkcom to replace Chuck Edwards on the November ballot. Which means that suddenly, the HD 117 seat is open, giving a hard-to-quantify boost to the prospects for Democrat Lynne Russo who's been running for it all year. According to her 2nd Quarter fundraising report, she's raised a respectable $47k so far, and I suspect the spotlight on her now will also boost her fundraising.

House District 117 includes the northern half of Henderson County. Civitas rates it R+6 "Likely Republican," but in the current atmosphere of dissatisfaction over slow-to-non-existent relief for Hurricane Helene victims, that Republican advantage could evaporate.

There is not yet a Republican replacement for Balkcom in HD 117, but we hear it might likely be a sitting Republican county commissioner. An executive committee of Henderson County Republicans will choose Balkcom's replacement.

Russo says she was living in a mountain condo when Helene hit and became involved immediately in helping neighbors, including clearing roads so an elderly person who needed oxygen could get out. She subsequently began making informational videos about FEMA and recovery resources. Her campaign has built almost its entire rationale around the argument that Western North Carolina's recovery has been too slow and that Raleigh and Washington have failed to respond with sufficient urgency. She's published op-eds arguing that Western North Carolina has been shortchanged in federal disaster assistance, and she has been doing television interviews, including appearances on NewsNation. Her campaign site has collected interviews and articles from NewsNation, The Hill, WLOS, the Citizen-Times, and other outlets. She had already established herself as a public advocate for Helene-recovery before becoming a candidate.

Russo's Act Blue donation page.

Moffitt Out of the Running; Balkcom, In?

 

Jennifer Balkcom

 

Tim Moffitt has announced that he's no longer a candidate to replace Chuck Edwards on the November ballot for the 11th District congressional seat. Andrew Dunn sez on his Longleaf Politics substack that now, with Moffitt out of it, Rep. Jennifer Balkcom (HD 117) is probably the frontrunner. The 61-member Republican executive committee for the 11th CD will meet tonight and vote on Edwards's replacement.

Balkcom is a culture warrior, particularly hot on the topic of transgender and abortion and restrictions on ballot access. She has strong roots in Henderson County. She's been a banker for much of her adult life and currently earns her living as a mortgage loan officer.

With Moffitt out of contention, probably the strongest politician to replace him would be Ralph Hise, one of the most powerful Republicans in the state senate who happens to represent Watauga and several other Western counties in the most recent gerrymandering of the maps. Hise pretty much drew those maps. And wouldn't it be wonderful to lose him as Watauga's senator! He'd do us far less damage in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac, but he'd be a fool to give up his seniority in the NC Senate to become a back-bencher in the US House.

Maybe Balkcom will do it. She has the look of a true believer and may think the appointment is a compliment. 

Will Tim Moffitt Throw Himself on the Live Grenade that Chuck Edwards Left in the 11th CD?

 

With Chuck Edwards out of the race for his own US House seat, there's a scramble going on among 11th District Republicans to pick a name to put on the November ballot. Tom Fiedler wrote a really thorough article about it in the Asheville Watchdog. Fiedler, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter in a past life, does a weekly "Democracy Watch" column which I try never to miss.

Tim Moffitt

 

There's some knowledgeable money riding on the bet that it'll be current state Senator Tim Moffitt (SD 48 -- Henderson, Polk, and Rutherford). He's expressed an interest. He was first elected in the frothy political year of 2010 -- the Tea Party insurgency -- to the state House from an Asheville district (HD 116) before suffering defeat in 2014 to Brian Turner after trying to take Asheville's water system and give it to a regional authority. He spent the next four years moving to a Henderson County address and building a business as a "management consultant" (ahem), but jumped back into politics in 2020 to run for retiring Chuck McGrady's seat in HD 117. Moffitt stayed there until 2022 when he ran for and won overlapping SD 48, which is a very safe seat for him. Would he give it up just that quickly?

I cannot for the life of me see why anyone -- especially as slick an operator as Tim Moffitt is -- would actively seek to replace a self-destructing Chuck Edwards on the ballot when every poll is pointing at a loss to a very strong Democratic candidate. Three months for a substitute lamb to mount a campaign, pretty much from the ground up, "hire staff, hire a campaign manager, make ads and print signs, and traverse a district of more than 6,000 square miles.” Whatever a member of the NC General Assembly is used to in a general election campaign, add several hundred percent more headache and frustration. Think of the money! and the need to raise it immediately. Is the National GOP likely to go all in with financial support? No. Maybe a token amount for the bravery of someone willing to enter the race now. Jamie Ager has a shit-ton of money and a great big ole head start. Michele Woodhouse, the former chair of the NC 11 committee, told Fiedler that Party leaders were "trying to clear the field" for Moffitt, which I take to mean that he actually wants it.

I would kind of pity Tim Moffitt if he went for it. He'd have to give up his safe Senate seat (and there'll be a scramble for that suddenly open slot). My understanding from Tom Fiedler is that anyone wanting to be considered for the appointment as Chuck Edwards's replacement will have to show up in front of the 61-member Republican Executive Comm for the 11th CD and make a presentation about why they're right for the job. Moffitt, who's a slick businessman, can easily pull that off. His greatest rival may be Adam Smith, a former Green Beret and a local hero all around Swannanoa and throughout Buncombe County for his tireless work and organizing skills following Hurricane Helene (profiled lavishly on WatWatch). Smith actually ran against Chuck Edwards in the March primary, which gives him kind of a claim to the harness.

I've jeered at Tim Moffitt plenty over at least 15 years on this blog. He courts controversy. His introduction of a bill to seize Asheville's water system and give it to a regional authority was only a sample. He signed up to be an ALEC member and proselytizer (the American Legislative Exchange Council is a front for billionaires). One of the first things he wanted to do after becoming a state senator was ban "participation trophies" from school sports -- burning issue, that. Dirty tricks department: He famously bought up domain names for all 170 NC House and Senate districts and doled them out to office-holders and office-seekers "at a pretty penny." Someone dubbed him "Jerkwater von Jerkington" after that. And he's been a dutiful election denier. He knows better, but he also fears the MAGA base (like they all do).

Michele Woodhouse, who blabbed a lot to Fiedler about internal Republican Party politics in the 11th District, pointed out another reason for any office-holder to think twice: Woodhouse admitted that Michael Whatley is an "albatross" at the top of the ballot. Yikes. 

When Is a Congressman Fully Cooked?

 

Yesterday the U.S. House Committee on Ethics, with equal numbers of both Republicans and Democrats, recommended unanimously that North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards (11th CD) be censured by the full House for sexual harassment. In its report, the committee said that Edwards “may have created or fostered a hostile work environment and engaged in sexual harassment in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.” The report and Edwards' response to it are linked here. The full House still has to vote. If Edwards is censured, he would be required to stand in the well of the House while the Speaker reads the resolution of censure aloud.

The report describes a pattern of conduct rather than a single incident. According to the committee, Edwards gave two female staffers unusually expensive and personal gifts; invited them to dinners, vacations, and other one-on-one social activities outside the normal employer-employee relationship; sent highly personal notes, messages, and expressions of affection; paid extraordinary personal attention to them in ways that other staff members viewed as inappropriate; and created an atmosphere in which the women felt uncomfortable because he was their employer and held substantial power over their careers.

The committee found no evidence that Edwards engaged in a sexual relationship with either employee or that he explicitly propositioned them for sex. 

Two North Carolinians sit on the Ethics Committee: Rep. Brad Knott on the Republican side and Rep. Deborah Ross on the Democratic.

Praise for the Woman Taking on Boss Hogg in House 46

 

Brittany Newton

 

House District 46 is an R + infinity district in Columbus and Robeson counties, ruled over by House Majority Leader Brenden Jones, who's been nicknamed by Thomas Mills "Boss Hogg" for his several reported connections to pay-to-play corruption in office. He's also rumored to be the power running the GOP-dominated NC House, rather than young Destin Hall, the actual Speaker, who's said to be more absent than in control. Brittany Newton is the brave native of Whiteville who put her name on the ballot to challenge the corruption.

According to her Facebook page, Brittany Newton is an eight-year Army veteran, a single mom who works four different jobs (Certified Nursing Assistant, tax preparer, HR assistant, and nail tech). In 2024, when a group of "Patriotic Millionaires" came to Whiteville to unite working-class Black and white residents around economic reform, the documentary film about the event, The Deciders, starred Brittany Newton as one of the most influential local voices calling for economic reform. Her participation ignited her and put the idea of running for office in her mind: "For the past three years, Brittany has been a team captain with The Deciders, a grassroots group fighting for a fair tax system and a living wage. After sending hundreds of postcards [to Brenden Jones] that went unanswered, she led a bus of 40 neighbors to Raleigh to meet with [Mr. Jones], only to find an empty office. They slid their stories under the door and went home. But Brittany realized that if our leaders won't open the door, we have to change who is sitting in the office" (Brittany Newton website). 

Just reading that lifts my spirit.

Newton has also been endorsed by Run for Something, the national organization that recruits and supports first-time Democratic candidates, and she's been endorsed by Lillian's List of North Carolina.

You may support Newton's campaign by contributing here:  https://secure.actblue.com/donate/brittanyfornc. I did (full disclosure).

 

The Notorious "Boss Hogg"

Brenden Jones

 

Dan Kane's reporting in the Raleigh News & Observer has raised substantial questions about Rep. Jones's conduct, focusing on whether Jones used his legislative position to benefit politically connected private interests.

Item One: The ABC warehouse deal. North Carolina's ABC Commission needs a new liquor distribution warehouse. There were two competing ideas. The ABC Commission's preferred plan: borrow approximately $310 million, build the warehouse, have the state own it. Brenden Jones's Boss Hogg idea: a "public-private partnership," meaning that a private developer would build and own the warehouse, the state would lease it at an estimated cost to taxpayers of over $500 million for the next two decades. Kane reported that when Jones persuaded House members to approve language authorizing the public-private option, he stated on the House floor that ABC Commission Chairman Hank Bauer wanted it that way. Bauer later said through a spokesman that he never requested the amendment, that he actually opposed the public-private plan, and he later told Jones directly that it was a "horrible" idea.

Kane connected Jones's legislation to a Florida-based developer called M Group Companies: an M Group subsidiary owns land near Statesville suitable for such a warehouse; lobbyists representing M Group arranged meetings between Jones and the ABC chairman; M Group affiliates and associated donors contributed more than $500,000 to Republican legislative campaigns over several years; Jones was among the largest individual recipients, reportedly receiving about $59,000.

Item Two: The "Greater Carolina" bourbon-tours investigation. A separate but related investigation concerns whether the notorious Kentucky bourbon tours, in which Jones was a playah, were a cover for lobbyists' improperly providing gifts to legislators through these trips. Search warrants later revealed that discussion of the future liquor warehouse occurred during at least one of those bourbon trips. Because some of the same lobbyists also represented M Group, Kane's reporting suggests overlapping networks of influence, though these remain legally distinct matters. Four lobbyists—not Jones—have been indicted on misdemeanor gift-ban charges connected to the bourbon-tour investigation.

Item Three: The Ritual Flogging of Chapel Hill. In December 2025, Jones chaired a meeting of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform, grilling Chapel Hill–Carrboro City School Board Chair George Griffin and Superintendent Rodney Trice. Jones's yelling at the school officials over supposedly obscene books foisted on innocent school children was intended as catnip for the book banners and other low-information consumers of manufactured outrage. Jones repeatedly held up books he said the school system had recommended, called them "freaking trash" (because he couldn't say "fucking"), and contemptuously threw them over his shoulder onto the floor. Superintendent Trice testified that he had no knowledge that the books were being recommended to students, and the school district later maintained that Jones was referring to books that had appeared on a third-party resource list previously linked from the district's website rather than books assigned in classrooms or necessarily stocked in elementary libraries. Jones got the media he wanted, because bullying anything "Chapel Hill" appeals to the old, mean Jesse Helms crowd, now known as trumpists.

Ray Pickett

 

 

SIDE NOTE OF INTEREST

Rep. Ray Pickett (HD 93), who represents Watauga County in Raleigh and who was on at least one of the Kentucky bourbon tours and who never listed the trip on his financial interest disclosure form, has suddenly been elevated to the chairmanship of the North Carolina House Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Committee, with wide power over all alcohol policy legislation. Cozy world, that! Where Boss Hogg keeps his deputies in the chips. 

Blue Wave or Roy Cooper's Coattails -- Either Will Do Just Fine

 

Mike Schietzelt

 

Democrats are counting on a big Blue Wave, especially in Wake County, to truly put a permanent crimp in the GOP's veto-proof House majority. One of the only remaining Republicans representing any part of Wake, Mike Schietzelt in HD 35, has been targeted for defeat by Democrat Evonne Hopkins, a family law specialist who ran against Schietzelt in 2024 before he was the incumbent and lost to him by only 200 or so votes. Carolina Forward has endorsed Hopkins. I'm very curious how fundraising is going for her, and was frustrated to find that the 2nd Quarter report which was due at the State Board of Elections on July 10th hasn't been posted. Schietzelt also hasn't reported for the 2nd Quarter. Cash-on-hand for the two campaigns, and where the cash is coming from, will tell us a good deal about whether there's grassroots juice rising for either candidate.

Schietzelt is getting big money from the House Republican caucus and plenty of support from Speaker Destin Hall and the whole networked donor base that concentrates on keeping the General Assembly imperious to any Democratic governor. 

Schietzelt is fascinating as a new character in the NC GOP because he eschews culture war and MAGA shit in favor of practical matters that suburbanites actually care about a lot more, like his strong opposition to changing the Capitol Blvd. corridor from downtown Raleigh to Wake Forest into a toll road. Schietzelt appears to be a young and affable but also conservative policy lawyer with a suburban governing style. He's not trying to become a firebrand. He's trying to become known as someone who solves practical district problems.

Evonne Hopkins

 

His first-term incumbency gives him an advantage over Evonne Hopkins. This is her second contest with Schietzelt. She did very well against him in 2024, and some think that loss established for her enough name recognition to overcome Schietzelt's incumbency advantage. I don't know about that. Familiarity can also breed contempt. I hate to suggest it, but I think it's true.

The Civitas Partisan Index puts HD 35 at R + 0, pure tossup, but I actually think Schietzelt has the advantage. It may well come down to how overwhelmingly Roy Cooper beats Michael Whatley in Wake. His coattails may be as potent as any hoped-for Blue Wave.

 

House District 63 Could Be a Red-to-Blue Flip

 

Ian Batutis

 

I've been absorbed all morning in the race for House District 63 down in Alamance County. The seat has been held since the elections of 2022 by Republican Steve Ross, but he decided to retire. The open seat is now rated R+2 by JohnLocke.org. Dave's Redistricting gives it a 52% Republican lean. But the Democrats ended up with a candidate who -- on paper, at least -- is one of the strongest I've seen.

"Ended up with." Ian Baltutis, who is now the Democratic candidate, didn't start out as the candidate. He was appointed by Democratic Party leaders in mid-May to take the place of Whitney Olive, who dropped out. Olive had filed in December and had no primary opposition. She had 15 years experience as a public school teacher, was an activist for LGBTQ, but had never run for office before.

Ian Baltutis had run for office before -- and quite successfully in Burlington, serving from 2015 to 2021 as the youngest-ever mayor.  He was heavily recruited to take Olive's place on the ballot, having just returned to the limelight by winning anew a seat on the Burlington City Council last fall. In 2021, he went back to school and earned his master’s degree in City & Regional Planning and Public Administration. His LinkedIn profile: "Ian Baltutis -- Inventor Innovator Entrepreneur." He helped establish the Burlington Beer Works, and he owns Persnickety Books, a local independent bookstore. Last fall Baltutis said of his purpose in life, “I’ve had my hands in a lot of development that’s going on, really from the standpoint of, ‘what does the community need? What kind of activities, business operations would really bring the community together and help create good, positive engagement and development.' ”

He had me at "independent bookstore owner."

He ran the first time for Burlington City Council in 2013, fresh out of Elon with a degree in business entrepreneurship, with no formal platform, but luckily he was guided by the advice to “go knock on doors.” "This grassroots approach allowed him to learn Burlington block by block, gathering residents’ stories and turning them into the foundation of his campaign." Currently, he owns and manages Vibration Solution LLC, an American product design and manufacturing company that he founded during his studies at Elon. "Baltutis is a strong supporter of American manufacturing. He founded his company around the idea of turning the standard business model upside down and creating a company that is lean, efficient and nimble." (NationalDMO).

From his social media, I get the impression he's a human dynamo of ideas and action. His website and he's all over Facebook.

 

Ryan Moffitt, the Republican Candidate

Moffitt was heir apparent, the pick of Republican Party leaders to succeed Steve Ross in an orderly continuity of Republican control. Moffitt announced his candidacy on the same day Ross announced his retirement. He's a young lawyer on the rise, a first-time candidate, and as whitebread as you could ask.

Also clearly energetic, and I see his doing some walking and talking on his Facebook feed -- always a good sign in a campaign. In Moffitt's favor are several factors: Fresh face with no legislative voting record to defend; well-positioned within the local Republican establishment; attorney with a polished professional profile; benefits from the district's Republican lean.

But Baltutis looks to have the edge: Greater political experience; better-known public record; strong résumé on local government, planning, and economic development; likely to appeal to independents and ticket splitters.

Moffitt has an impressive pile of cash-on-hand as of his Second Quarter filing with the Board of Elections, some $114,000, compared to Baltutis's cash-on-hand of $45,000. That lopsided money advantage for Moffitt is at least partially off-set by the former mayor's much greater name recognition. They both look like go-getters, but I give Baltutis a very slight edge.

Tricia Cotham, "As Vulnerable As She's Ever Been"

 

Ken McCool

 

So said Chris Cooper about the NC House member who used to be a prominent Democrat and who deserted to the GOP to give them their veto-proof majority. I watched Tricia Cotham easily fight off Democratic challenger Nicole Sidman in 2024. Sidman was a novice at politics, had never been a candidate before. Cotham's Democratic opponent this year, Ken McCool, might be a different story. JohnLocke.org rates the district R+0 "Toss Up."

I dug into Ken McCool way back in January:  

McCool ran for Matthews Town Commission in 2019 at the age of 20, came in 7th in a very crowded scrum, but only missed snagging one of six at-large seats by some 14 votes. When a vacancy opened up in February of 2020, the Commission recognized his showing in 2019 and appointed him to fill out the term. He was reelected a couple more times, including earning himself mayor pro tem as the top vote-getter. He and his father own Ken's Sports Cards and Collectibles in Indian Trail, which is a suburb of Matthews. According to LinkedIn, he also does subcontractor painting.

He appears to have been both very active and effective as a pro-development member of the town board. He brags about bringing Acceleration Advanced Manufacturing Campus to Matthews, which plans to occupy a large site on the I-485 loop south of Charlotte. Acceleration looks to be a subdivision of Hendrick Motor Sports, which builds high-performance vehicles among other things. McCool also claims ownership for expanding affordable housing in Matthews, delivering tangibles like a new fire station, and making "the largest investment in parks in a generation."

McCool's message: lifelong Matthews resident, municipal problem-solver, supporter of parks, improver of transportation and housing, armed with small-business knowledge, and a family man (wife, two young kids). In contrast, Cotham is running on a message that she knows powerful people. She touts her insider knowledge of Raleigh and her ability to get favors from Republican leadership.

McCool's been endorsed by Carolina Forward, and Pete Buttigieg came to Matthews to campaign for him. But for a Democrat in 2026 who's in a tossup race with a highly controversial incumbent, McCool's social media presence isn't much, and his website is bare bones. I get no sense that he's got volunteers on the ground knocking doors. And he has never shown his family. I can respect his (and their) desire to stay out of the political spotlight, but the visual absence of support is noticeable. 

I hope someone will message me that the McCool campaign is a raging brushfire not at all visible to us folks up in the mountains. In his July 10th report to the State Board of Elections, his campaign had raised over $130,000 and had some $76,000 cash-on-hand. But Cotham's 2nd Quarter filing lists $153,000.00 cash-on-hand.

 

Because Dallas Woodhouse Wasn't Enough

 

State Auditor and Elections Czar Dave Boliek found and then lost a good hatchet-wielder in Dallas Woodhouse, who once installed as Mr. Boliek's so-called "liaison" to county boards began to break furniture for the sake of limiting voting opportunities for at least two groups, college students and Black voters. Woodhouse recently resigned after his activities came to light, mainly when a Republican Board of Elections member from Jackson County spilled the beans.

This same Mr. Boliek has now grabbed for the new money that the Republican bosses put into the state budget for him, funds to hire 25 new staffers, which Boliek intends to make "at will political" appointees. Boliek notified Senate and House leaders (Messrs. Berger and Hall) on 7/27. That notification starts a clock ticking in the General Assembly. By statute, lawmakers have 30 days to object. If they do nothing, Mr. Boliek's project of surrounding himself with flying monkeys becomes a bigger reality. Boliek will have a total of 50 political drones in his department.

Signs of Life

 

Jamie Ager, in his element

Last Saturday, the State Board of Elections (SBOE) released new voter registration stats covering the first half of 2026:

Unaffiliated up 4,136, to total of 3,113,007

Democrats up 578, to total of 2,316,541

Republicans up 379, to total of 2,327,131

[The Center Square]

Democrats now rank third in registrations in North Carolina. By a hair, only 10,500 voters behind the Republicans. Perhaps ironically or perhaps prophetically, the only party to register fewer new voters than the Democrats so far in 2026 are the Republicans. Obviously, everyone's fate is in the hands of the numero uno Unaffiliateds. And I like them odds.

That 10k Republican advantage over Democrats becomes irrelevant if pollsters are right that an "enthusiasm gap" has yawned between the two (thank you, DJT!). The most recent right track/wrong track polling I've seen from North Carolina was conducted by High Point University in March and April, questioning 800 registered voters (703 of them considered "likely voters"). More of them thought North Carolina was on the wrong track (47%) than on the right track (31–32%), with a whopping 20% "undecided" because they haven't paid attention and don't know what's been going on.

I was just reading in the Asheville Watchdog about the enthusiasm gap that's opened in the 11th Congressional District, where Democrat Jamie Ager is outraising incumbent Republican Chuck Edwards some 9-1. In the heat of Ager's rise -- on September 11, 2025, the Cook Political Report moved the 11th from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican"; on June 18, 2026, Cook moved the race again, this time from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican" -- Congressman Edwards, lightening ship, sold all his McDonald's franchises. Ager had Pete Buttigieg at a fundraiser out on his farm. One campaign has a funerary aspect; the other pulses with life.

Total registrations by party in the 11th CD (latest numbers):

Democratic 107,989

Republican 180,267

Unaffiliated 164,871

Like I said before, I like them odds.

Guilford Co BOE Nixes Campus Early Voting at A&T and UNC-Greensboro

 

Four Eggers, Member, SBOE

 

Joining the Republican rush to discourage college-student voting in North Carolina, the Guilford County Board of Elections, with its Republican majority (plus one Democrat arrrrg!), passed its early voting plan, which took away General Election early voting sites previously available at North Carolina A&T and at UNC-Greensboro. The meeting was packed with students who remained quiet and respectful (for the most part) through a dirty deed that took less than 30 minutes. One person did yell out during the discussion about campus voting, “You don’t care about these people!” And was escorted out.

The vote of the board was 4-1, meaning one Democrat broke with her fellow party appointee and voted with the Republicans. Because the vote was not unanimous -- a tic in North Carolina election law -- it must now go for final resolution to the State Board of Elections (SBOE), where men like Four Eggers and Francis DeLuca and Bob Rucho will fer shore nix the campuses. The boss of these SBOE bosses, State Auditor Dave Boliek, is already well known as the vote suppressor supreme. It's a perfect circle of life, if life is like an anaconda. The NCGOP now owns access to the polls, an ambition they've had for decades.

The Democrat who voted yesterday with the Republicans is Felita Regina Donnell, a retired revenue agent for the IRS, a graduate of A&T, executive board member of the Greensboro NAACP, past president of the African American Caucus of the North Carolina Democratic Party, past president of Guilford County Democratic Women, and a former member of the North Carolina Democratic Party's Council of Review. I would call her a big deal in the Party. Who just left a gaping wound in the side of Democracy.

 

Questions Remain About Ray Pickett's Participation in an Expenses Paid "Bourbon Tour"

 

Rep. Ray Pickett

 

WEDNESDAY, April 22, 2026: Four Raleigh lobbyists -- 

Douglas Bowen “Bo” Heath, a lobbyist for McGuireWoods,

Douglas P. Miskew, a lobbyist for Public Sector Group,

David Ferrell, a lobbyist for Maynard Nexsen PC,

Kevin Wilkinson, the president of The Southern Group --

were indicted in Wake County for arranging illegal gifts for Republican members of the General Assembly -- under NC law, misdemeanors. These four dudes are alleged to have invented a "dark money" PAC called Greater Carolina under whose name certain lawmakers were given treats, like all-expenses-paid and no-behavior-barred "Kentucky Bourbon trips." The whiskey tours were covers for a distillery industry's lobbying for favorable legislation. Just today, the Raleigh prosecutor issued a very detailed search warrant of Greater Carolina's finances (Will Doran). The warrant says Greater Carolina spent almost $80,000 on golf outings, a little tickle-dick at strip clubs, and expensive tickets to Carolina Panthers games, but it does not name any lawmakers nor even allege that members of the General Assembly benefitted from any of those activities.

State law bans lobbyists from providing any sort of gift to an elected official, either directly or indirectly.

No current or former members of the General Assembly have been charged with anything. The Bourbon travel generosity of Greater Carolina for members of the House became more widely public because a server at a Kentucky distillery published a "gee whiz!" comment on Reddit, alleging that the North Carolina crew were loud and obnoxious, "being extremely rude, disruptive, not tipping the bartenders and tour guides, and even VOMITING in our bathroom sinks."

Watauga County's House Representative, Ray Pickett of Blowing Rock, was on the 2022 tour, but whether he was a ralpher-in-the-sink remains unknown.

Sen. Tim Moffitt, who went on the 2022 Bourbon tour, actually reported it as a gift on his Statement of Economic Interest (SEI), a form required yearly by the state's Ethics Commission. Moffitt's disclosure led to questions about the other GA whiskey tourists, like Ray Pickett. Did he report it? Here's the relevant questions on all of Pickett's SEI filings since 2022:

14. During 2024, after you were appointed, employed, or filed or were nominated as a candidate, did you

 receive any “gift(s)” exceeding $200 per quarter from a person or group of persons acting together,
 when both you and those person(s) were outside North Carolina,
 under circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to conclude the gifts were given for lobbying?
To answer Yes, all three conditions must apply

☐ Yes ☒ No

15. During 2024, after you were appointed, employed, or filed or were nominated as a candidate, did you

 accept a “scholarship” exceeding $200 related to your public position from a person or group of persons acting
together,
 when those person(s) were outside North Carolina?
To answer Yes, both conditions must apply
A “scholarship” is a grant-in-aid, either direct or indirect, to attend a conference, meeting, or similar
event, including tuition, travel, lodging, meals, and other similar expenses.

☐ Yes ☒ No ☐ Judicial Officer - You are not required to complete this question if you are filing solely because you are a legislator or judicial officer or as a candidate or appointee to those offices

Hmmm. Are there other shoes to drop, and when might we expect that?

 

Maine Man

 

Troy Jackson -- AP

  

Lot of reading to do right now about Troy Jackson, Graham Platner's replacement as the Dems Senate candidate in Maine. (His nomination is not official yet, but every news source is saying Jackson has it sewn up. Four other would-be candidates dropped out and endorsed him. Delegates vote this coming Saturday.) 

Jackson's "Beefeater face"* shouldn't mislead you that he hasn't been both a working man and a man of action. His mother was 16 when he was born, his father a struggling logger like his own male forebears going back three generations. The Jackson men all "went to the woods." Troy made a living loading and hauling cut timber for corporate growers as an employee. The growers got together, changed the haulers from employees to contract workers (the First Shafting), and then in 1998 imported a bunch of Canadian sawyers, who were cheaper labor because of the exchange rate and because they're covered by Canadian socialized medicine. Hiring the Canadians was illegal under U.S. law. Jackson joined others to organize a week-long blockade at the border with Quebec in 1998 to thwart the corporations. Jackson and two other ringleaders got led away in handcuffs, escorted off the property, told they were banned from it for life, and then let go.

Instead of strictly going away, Jackson got catapulted into politics. He first ran unsuccessfully as a Republican, was first elected to office as an Independent, and then joined the Democratic Party in 2004. Deciding that having a hand in law-making was far more useful than protests, Jackson first ran and won a seat in the Maine House of Reps in 2000 and won, switched his focus in 2002 and ran successfully for Maine Senate, held the seat until term limits ousted him in 2008, came back immediately in 2010 to run successfully again for the Maine House, went back to the Maine Senate in 2012 and remained there through December 2024 when term limits once again caught him. The Senate clearly suited him, and he could get stuff done, important progressive stuff like passing statewide free breakfast and lunch for every public school kid in the state, like improving funding for rural hospitals, like protecting union workers, and keeping Maine a pro-choice state. When he was term-limited out in 2024, he had risen in prominence, elected by his peers as Democratic Leader and then President of the Senate. 

He's one determined Yeoman Warder. He ran in the Democratic primary for Governor this year and came in third. Throughout his political career, he has been resolutely progressive, and already the right is braying about Democratic Socialists. Good!

Jackson is described as blunt and sometimes profane (I wouldn't expect anything less from a Mainer!). He's personally well liked across party lines, seen as authentic rather than polished, regarded as unusually knowledgeable about legislative procedure, viewed as "the real deal" on labor issues, and can be criticized for lacking charisma. He can't compare to Graham Platner there.

 

Jackson has to now raise a lot of money to compete with Susan Collins. He's better known out of the gate than Platner was, who had to build a following by showing up everywhere. His combat-ready aura may be enough -- that and the insurgency that Platner ignited -- may be enough to overcome the charisma deficit.

 

*Beefeater face: the jowly, rudy, well-fed look of the Tower of London's Yeoman Warders. 

 

Watauga's Own "Four" Eggers Shuts Down Investigation into Dallas Woodhouse's Voter Suppression Activities

 

Photo Jesse Barber

 

Last Thursday, with Stacy C. Eggers IV ("Four") presiding over the State Board of Elections (SBOE), Jeff Carmon, one of two Democratic members, spoke about the allegations that preceded Dallas Woodhouse's resignation as Auditor Dave Boliek's enforcer ("liaison") to all county boards, going over and around the actual staff at the SBOE. It had become well established that Woodhouse was behind orders in some specific counties advising the closing of early voting at college campuses and an end to Sunday voting in Black communities.

“Given the seriousness of these allegations and the public attention that they have generated, I believe we have an obligation to establish a complete and factual record,” Carmon said. “At this stage, I believe the board has little choice but to subpoena Mr. Woodhouse so that he may answer questions under oath.”

Eggers was horrified and shut that shit down quickly, refused to allow a vote on a subpoena for Woodhouse, arguing hilariously that it would be inappropriate to go after Woodhouse now because he's resigned his job and is a private citizen. What? When Carmon pointed out that Woodhouse's official actions were the point, not his private behavior, Eggers retreated to a threat, warning Carmon that he'd better "drop it," before the Republican majority called for investigating people who ran the SBOE for Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. (Will Doran, WRAL)

This is the same Four Eggers who secretly directed efforts to suppress the college vote in Watauga in 2013 after his younger brother was installed as the chair of the Watauga BOE. Bertrand Gutierrez scooped that scandal for the Winston-Salem Journal, and I used up a lot of bandwidth writing about Mr. Eggers and his attempt to change the entire landscape of voting in Watauga County. The first meeting of the Watauga BOE after the Republicans took over, August 12, 2013, a huge crowd had been alerted that something bad was about to go down. The meeting room was standing room only, so they moved to the main courtroom. The Republican majority proceeded to pass a dozen or more "resolutions" (changes in policy) that were proven later by digital thumbprint to have been ghost-written by the chair's big brother Four. One of those resolutions closed early voting at AppState. That meeting, with that crowd, became a raucous circus of protest, with cat-calling and boos. The lone Democratic member of the Watauga BOE said damn twice, and it was captured on video. The Civitas people alleged that the Democratic member "cursed through the whole meeting." An exaggeration that nevertheless summarizes adequately the vibe of that day.

That decision to close AppState early voting, on appeal, was upheld by the SBOE, also Republican majority at that time. A non-profit, the Watauga County Voting Rights Taskforce, and individual plaintiffs, sued in Wake Superior Court to restore the student union site. On October 13, 2014, literally on the eve of the start of early voting for the fall elections of 2014, the senior resident judge Donald Stephens issued a sharply worded decision declaring the Watauga BOE's shutdown at AppState "arbitrary and capricious." The next morning, and just as quickly as the judge had ruled, the staff of the Watauga BOE was set up in the student union and ready for early voting. We were first in line. And we've had early voting on the AppState campus ever since because a judge ordered it. (Q. Does a judge's order have a limited lifespan? How is that determined?)

Couldn't do it in Watauga in 2014. But willing to let Dallas Woodhouse do it in 2026. Same "Four" Eggers.

 

The Blimp That Dared the Lightning

 

I've been collecting individual impressions of the Trump speech last night -- because no way am I tuning that shite in, though I can't avoid for long the substance of what the con man sez, just in case. Several have mentioned the lifeless delivery, as though he had someplace to be and had (at long last!) lost interest in the 2020 election. Lucian K. Truscott IV caught the vibe: "Trump didn’t believe a word of it." 

I think that's accurate. He's a man so thoroughly false and fake that all his utterances and gestures can only be understood as parts of a big con, a "patriotic" dumb show of bilkery, a living version of Herman Melville's novel The Confidence-Man, wherein a mysterious stranger boards a Mississippi steamboat and manipulates the passengers by exploiting their trust, vanity, greed, and prejudices [A.I. assist for the summary].

Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani "and the rest of the half-baked half-wits who filed lawsuits challenging the election results in 2020" (Truscott) introduced affidavits ("statements" not taken under oath) alleging (for example) that somebody saw an election worker in Georgia hand a flash drive to another worker. No followup, because, for example in the Georgia instance when someone bothered to ask more questions, the alleged flash drive turned out to be a breath mint. "Somebody heard." "Somebody saw." Mere statements without substance or proof, yet perfect for the Fox News hounds of our Republic who, abandoning all hope, believe what the con man says because all other gods have failed to deliver.

Trump spent much of his 25 minutes telling the folks that he has ordered declassified all the long-hidden secrets about the stuff that happened in 2018 and some stuff that happened in 2019 and then all came to a head in 2020 when all the conspirators succeeded in rigging the election -- for all those years, 2018, 2019, and 2020 -- Trump was president. All the relevant agencies he now wants to finger were under his control, appointed by him. But what do the Fox News hounds know? They peer into those now muddy waters and figger it must have been Biden who done it.

He's so clearly desperate to protect his own ass that he's willing to sic the January Sixth Types, or ICE, or the National Guard on whole communities that are known to detest him and his policies. Everyone expects the worst, come November. While I don't think he's going to discourage a single Democrat or left-leaning Independent -- they'll get themselves to the polls over hot coals, if that's what it takes, through barbed wire barricades and fields of open gunfire, and they'll vote against every Republican on any and every ballot in every county, district, and state. Some Republicans will stay home, either embarrassed past the breaking point by this president or newly uninspired or completely turned off by the Iran War (or any dozen other possible motives for disaffection in trumpland).

He's a mess. Flailing his arms maybe to scatter the odor of his own mortality. But falling asleep, dozing off, checking out when anyone else but him has something to report. How can this great over-inflated Hindenburg not crash and burn?

He Loved Those McDonald's

 

Congressman Chuck Edwards of the 11th CD put out a press release yesterday that he and his wife Teresa have sold all their McDonald's restaurants in Henderson, Transylvania, and Haywood counties to good friends in Asheville who are already McDonald's franchisees. The Edwardses owned seven McDonald's, according to the letter that Teresa addressed to Leslie Boyd, banning her from entering all of them because Boyd was leading a boycott. 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the Congressman himself, Teresa Edwards has been essentially the general manager of all the restaurants ever since Edwards was first elected to the NC Senate a decade ago. The demands got very much heavier after Edwards went to Washington in the 2022 elections. The responsibilities Teresa Edwards carried might crush a young person, let-alone a 65-year-old woman who had helped Chuck build the McDonald's empire over four decades. I can see selling out of that treadmill and retiring.

But retiring ain't in the cards right now.

The Congressman is locked in a reelection death-match with good-old-boy Democrat Jamie Ager, with various polls and pundits suggesting Edwards would be suddenly vulnerable in a Blue Wave. Plus bad press has dogged Edwards. Hurricane Helene survivors -- and they are legion in his district -- have not stopped biting his ankles over the paltry Trump admin treatment of the region, and now he's under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for wholly inappropriate contact and interaction with 20-something girl staffers.

Selling a highly profitable and beloved set of restaurants takes on the odor of panic, doesn't it? Beloved? Edwards has talked about how, at the age of 16, he went to work at a McDonald's that he later was able to buy, and he took justifiable pride in the kind of joy he was able to bring to his customers for over 40 years. He has put his bone and blood into building that chain of franchises, so selling out must hurt more than a little. Does he need to juice his campaign budget, because fundraising has been lagging? (Trump doesn't seem likely to chip off a chunk of his gigantic MAGA Inc. fund -- reportedly at least $350,000,000 -- which Trump appears to be hoarding for himself. But of course he would.)

Selling those restaurants at just this time draws attention to itself as something quite extraordinary.