Sunday Brunch

 

 

Jen Wiles & family

 

We wrote about Democrat Jen Wiles challenging seven-term Republican State Rep Donny Lambeth (HD 75, Forsyth), and characterized the contest as "Working Class v. Aristocrat," impressed as I was by the energetic campaign Wiles was running in spite of being a working mom with two small children and a demanding job (nurse practitioner), running in an impossible district for Dems. After Wiles surprised a bunch of prognosticators and beat Lambeth last Tuesday, Lambeth confessed to Edwardo Medina of the NYTimes that "the Republican House caucus had repeatedly told him that he was in a 'safe' district and that he did not need to spend 'any money' but rather give as much as he could to the caucus .... Unfortunately, I took their advice,” Lambeth said. “Mistake on my part.” He lost by about eight percentage points in a district he had won by nearly 14 points in 2024.

 

Footnote to Lost Glory:

"The most successful congressional stock trader of 2025 was Rep. Tim Moore, R-North Carolina, whose portfolio gained 52% that year, according to Quiver Quantitative." (USA Today)
 

Not Quite Gone Department (and he suddenly has opinions on a bunch of stuff): 

About to be ex-Sen. Thom Tillis, who all of a sudden can't keep his mouth shut, told Jake Tapper that the promotion of Stephen Miller to DJT's chief of staff was "the worst possible choice! ... It is a colossal mistake, and the last thing we need 72 hours after the a-whooping we got on Tuesday.

 

Working Class vs. Aristocrat -- The Dist. 75 House Race

Jen Wiles selfie with family

 

The match between Democrat Jen Wiles and Republican Donny Lambeth in eastern Forsyth (Dist. 75 --Kernersville, etc.) pits a working-class nurse practitioner against a patrician country club Republican. Civitas rates the district R+4. Lambeth is serving his 7th term for more reasons than the partisan lean. He's a grey eminence in Winston-Salem. He was chair of the Forsyth School Board for 18 years and spent 40 years at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, rising to CEO of the whole shebang. That's management, Baby! That's competence on the hoof.

So this seems a harder race for a newbie Democrat like Jen Wiles, a working mom of two who can do back-to-back 12-hour shifts as a surgical nurse and still get dinner. And she's mounting an active campaign, judging from her social media. With a job and a family and now a campaign that some influential people believe she'll never win (despite the weather forecast), Jen Wiles must be even more exhausted now than she was at the end of June, while it was yet a long way from the real heat of this improbable campaign: "I’m going to be really honest: I took the last three weeks mostly off from campaigning, and it reminded me just how much running for office takes from me mentally, physically, and emotionally .... Early in the summer, there was a moment where I wasn’t sure I had the fuel to keep pushing for another five months. Between long days knocking doors, creating content, designing literature, and filing finance reports as basically a team of one ... the weight felt immense." All of us who've been active in the recruiting and management of candidates know the brutal truth of what she says. Not everyone holds up through it.

Donny Lambeth

 

Yet she's doing this. Her biographical video is worth watching for a real sense of her working-class bonafides and her native grit. She says in her interviews that her reason for running was because nobody else would challenge Donny Lambeth, and he needs challenging. She's getting plenty of emotional support from a host of endorsers but little in the way of donations. At the end of the 2nd Q, she'd raised a total of $25,475 and had only $10,900 cash on hand. I haven't seen yet any "big-name" Democrats holding fundraisers for her. The Forsyth Democratic Party has featured her on the party's Substack. Yet there are no big donors from the Democratic base. She's been endorsed by NCAE, Lillian's List, Equality North Carolina, Planned Parenthood, NC Now PAC, and professional medical groups, but where's the money to go with that praise. She needs money to run something more than the kitchen-table campaign she's struggling to maintain. (And yes, I just made a small contribution.)

Bottomline: What does it mean for a candidate to mount a serious challenge when the institutional praise isn't translating into campaign money?

CORRECTION

In an August post, Wiles reported some $40,000 raised, along with 5,000 doors knocked -- both good numbers and certainly better than that 2nd Q report. All of that attention by the progressive networks may now be paying off.

This is the Forsyth County GOP

 

Reaffirming its brand as a tone-deaf political party very comfortable associated with gun violence, the Forsyth GOP is holding -- yep -- a raffle for 30 firearms of various descriptions, including automatic weapons:

Here are the Forsyth County Republican office holders and candidates running under this brand:

Rep. Jeff Zenger
NC House Dist. 74

Rep. Donny Lambeth
NC House Dist. 75

Rep. Kyle Hall
NC House Dist. 91

George Ware
Candidate, NC Senate
Dist. 32

Sen. Joyce Krawiec
NC Senate Dist. 31

Rep. Virginia Foxx
5th District NC

Dan Besse Running Again for NC House in Forsyth County

Many of the Democratic rising stars who made good showings but still lost in 2018 laid the groundwork for coming out stronger, wiser, more organized, and better funded in the 2020 races ahead of us. I'm talking here specifically about the outstanding army of progressives who rattled the doors on the NC General Assembly last year and are back already for 2020.

Dan Besse, on the right

Our friend Dan Besse came within 2,000 votes of beating incumbent Republican Donny Lambeth in NC House District 75. The 75th is entirely inside Forsyth County and largely suburban. It creeps along Forsyth County’s southern border with Davidson County, from Kernersville in the east to Clemmons in the west, with a finger reaching into southwest Winston-Salem, including the Ardmore neighborhood.

Dan is an attorney, a graduate of UNC Law School, and a five-term member of the Winston-Salem city council.  He's made good (and alternative) transportation a special focus of his terms in office, including safe streets, good public transit, and a growing network of safe biking and pedestrian paths, greenways, and sidewalks. (Dan takes full advantage of those paths, greenways, and sidewalks because he's a pretty damn impressive athlete, competing in bike rides and foot races in that Forsyth County heat). He also represents Winston-Salem in leadership roles on the urban area Transportation Advisory Committee, the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation, and the National League of Cities. I contributed to Dan's campaign in 2018 and have again for the 2020 contest.

In his law practice, Dan has sought out cases dealing with environmental law and public health, clean energy and utilities, and fair employment, housing, and health care access for working families. He has taught classes in environmental law and policy, and in government, at colleges from N.C State University to Winston-Salem State University and Forsyth Technical Community College.

So ... no surprise he recently posted this on his Facebook page:

I focus a lot of attention on the need to change some of the most egregious failures of this Republican-led legislature: its refusal to close the health care coverage gap or protect coverage for people with pre-existing health conditions; its disrespect for our teachers and failure to pay them what they deserve or fund a good public education for every child; its outrageous attacks on voting rights, civil rights, and human rights.

But there's another Republican legislative failure that is hurting the health of our people today and jeopardizing our future: its rollbacks of clean air and water protections, its refusal to make polluters pay to clean up their messes, its baffling attacks on clean energy development, and its willful ignorance in the face of impending climate disaster.

I've spent much of my public service career working to cut pollution and protect public health and our natural environment. I understand in detail just how much damage this legislature is doing to us all now, and to the prospects for a good future for our children and grandchildren. And I understand how to go about repairing that damage and getting our state back on track as a leader in clean energy and a clean environment.

Donny Lambeth

Meanwhile, incumbent Donny Lambeth won his seat in 2012 with people suggesting he'd be a "moderate." Whatever that word meant when applied to Republican office-holders pre-Trump, it's become something of a joke now. (To Trump, a "moderate" is a limp dick.) But, really, moderate? Lambeth recently tried to wipe out Dan Besse, his 2018 election opponent, as a Winston-Salem city councilman in a "local bill" to redistrict the council seats, double-bunking Dan with a Republican member, while also incidentally punishing the four African-American women on the council. That proposed redistricting bill produced a fire storm, and Lambeth quickly withdrew it.

Even more recently Lambeth played a more obvious "moderate card" as chief sponsor of an (ultimately doomed?) Republican-lite Medicaid expansion bill that suddenly passed a Republican committee last week. The timing's everything, with the Republican majority currently thwarted in passing a vetoed budget until they cave to the governor on Medicaid expansion. That Lambeth bill passed its committee but has yet to reach the House floor, and so far the Big Boss, Mr. Berger in the Senate, has shown no affection for it. Lambeth, who always looks like the act of smiling is physically painful, of course stuck a work requirement into his legislation, because why would a "moderate Republican" pass up an opportunity to further humiliate the already working poor.


SIDEBAR ON PARTISAN SOCIAL MEDIA USE
The day after the election last fall, Dan hinted on Facebook that he would run again: "This race was not the end of our efforts, but the beginning. You can look for more news over the coming month." If he ever made a formal announcement about running again in 2020, I can't find it. But he's obviously running. The post excerpted above about a new emphasis on the environment was prelude to inviting everyone to a fundraiser for the 2020 campaign.

Dan is currently very active on Facebook, has a Twitter account but doesn't use it. He needs to up his game.

He also needs a campaign manager, preferably one with experience. He needs boots on the ground, lots of them. He needs a strategy (based on data) for identifying those Republican voters who're weary of Trumpian conduct wherever it takes place.

FOOTNOTE
Forsyth County was one of the most under-performing urban counties in all of North Carolina in 2018. All Democratic candidates running in all races in 2020 need to hold a private summit and figure out why and what to do about it before 2020 actually dawns.

Even Donny Lambeth Knows When To Take His Hand Off a Hot Stove

Donny Lambeth

NC House Rep. Donny Lambeth (R-Forsyth) has withdrawn his "local bill" that would have remapped Winston-Salem's city council districts ... obviously, to eliminate some undesirables, mainly black women and Dan Besse, the Democrat who ran against Lambeth for the NC House last fall:

The new [city council] wards created in the Lambeth bill would have placed three black council members in one ward. The ward plan would have also placed Council Member Dan Besse, who ran against Lambeth in 2018, into a ward with Robert Clark, the council's only Republican. [Wesley Young]

 Lambeth apparently reached a compromise folded like a cheap suit in negotiations with Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines, agreeing to a "study commission" (to be named by Joines, I kid you not!) to determine if there's any real need to change the mapping of Winston-Salem's city council districts.

That's what I call a giant cave.

And a good thing too (though we would have enjoyed the campaign against Lambeth in 2020, based on his Winston-Salem meddling).

Shivving Winston-Salem ... Because They Can

Rep. Donny Lambeth,
forcing himself to smile

Currently, the city of Winston-Salem elects eight members to its city council (plus a mayor who only votes to break ties). Currently, seven of them are Democrats and one is a Republican. Currently, four are white and four are black. Forsyth County Republican reps in the General Assembly filed a vicious little bill last Thursday (March 28) to change that council in radical ways.

The bill would reduce council districts (wards) from eight to five. Three black incumbent women (D.D. Adams, Vivian Burke, and Annette Scippio) would be shoved into the same district, to run against each other. Incumbent white male Dan Besse would also be double-bunked with the lone Republican. The three dissolved ward seats would become "at large" council seats, the mayor would be given a vote on every measure before the council, and all terms of office would be reduced to two years.

Chaos.

The two House sponsors of this snide innovation, Donny Lambeth and Debra Conrad, might relish the punishment they're meting out to their partisan enemies in the urban core of Winston-Salem. But they might want to take note of what happened in Guilford County after a vicious little attempt to upend the Greensboro city council in a similar way (see last paragraph below). Neither Lambeth nor Conrad won reelection last fall by unassailable margins. As a matter of fact, Lambeth beat his Democratic opponent, Dan Besse (where have I heard that name before?), by just over 2,000 votes, and Debra Conrad's Dem opponent, Terri LeGrand, came within 3,200 votes in a much more rural section of Forsyth. (Full disclosure: I contributed to both the Besse and the LeGrand campaigns.)

One of the black council women targeted with triple-bunking, D.D. Adams, ran against 5th District Congresswoman Virginia Foxx last fall, and she "emphatically denounced" Lambeth and Conrad to the Winston-Salem Journal "for what she described as a racist payback for the Democratic activism of black women":

"Everybody thinks we are going to hold hands and sing Kumbaya — it's not going to happen that way," Adams said a day after learning of the bill. "This is one of those times when we are going to have to fight."

Her message to Lambeth and Conrad: "How dare you?" ... repeated. "How dare you!"

Said Dan Besse: "It is no coincidence that they drew me into the only Republican-leaning district ... When you look at the fact that I challenged Donny, and D.D. challenged Virginia Foxx -- that has to flag the city on the radar of the Republican party structure."

No kidding, the arrogance. "I don't know what problem they are trying to solve," said the lone Republican on the council, Robert Clark, referring to Lambeth and Conrad. "I think the city council should be consulted before anything moves forward. They don't talk with anybody, they just do it ... I am absolutely puzzled." That's what the Republican thought.

Remember that Republicans in Raleigh also overreached for partisan advantage in a proposal to redistrict the city government of Greensboro. How did that attempt work out for them? In this last election, Guilford County saw a net gain of one Democrat in the NC House (Ashton Clemmons) and one Democrat in the NC Senate (Michael Garrett). Garrett actually beat the author of the Greensboro redistricting attempt, Sen. Trudy Wade, a comeuppance that could instill a little humility in Lambeth and Conrad.

Dan Besse Announces for NC House Seat

Our friend Dan Besse, a Winston-Salem city councilman, announced today that he is running for the District 75 NC House seat which is currently held by Republican Donny Lambeth. Dan is an attorney, a graduate of UNC Law School, and a five-term member of the Winston-Salem city council. He's a righteous dude and is going up against a powerful Republican in Donny Lambeth, who has connections to all sorts of Republican money.

Dan says, “Our state legislature has forgotten how to cooperate. We need a new set of priorities working for us at the state level: improving our schools, helping our people stay healthy, protecting clean water and air, and creating jobs. I’ll bring to this task the lessons I’ve learned serving in local government—it’s all about neighbors working together to help our communities.”

Lambeth was on the Forsyth School Board for a number of years before taking a seat in the NC House in 2013. He's sometimes been regarded as a moderate, so far as moderation goes with the NC GOP, and he was even mentioned a few years ago as the Forsyth Republican who could successful challenge Virginia A. Foxx for her US House seat. (He might be a vast improvement.) Despite the reputation, he's been a total foot soldier for the extremist leadership in the NC General Assembly.

According to the Triad City Beat, the NCGA's high-handed and dictatorial attitude toward our state's municipalities explains at least part of Dan's motivation for running this year. Besse "experienced the heavy hand of Raleigh up close and personal last year when his proposal to name Winston-Salem a 'welcoming city' was scuttled under the threat of punitive legislation that would withhold tax revenues from the city.​"

The 75th House District is "largely suburban." It "creeps along Forsyth County’s southern border with Davidson County, from Kernersville in the east to Clemmons in the west, with a finger reaching into southwest Winston-Salem, including the Ardmore neighborhood."

If you'd like to contribute to Dan Besse's campaign -- and you should like to very much! -- https://www.bessefornc.com/donate.

Winston-Salem Journal, Stirring It Up

In an editorial praising the newly retired Donny Lambeth, leader of the North Carolina Baptist Hospital, the writers at the Winston-Salem Journal made a sly suggestion:

"There was talk a few years ago that Lambeth might run against U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx in the Republican primary in the 5th District. Maybe he'll consider that, or a run for the state legislature. We look forward to following his next step, whatever it might be." [Dec. 20, 2011]

In 2010, there was indeed a rumor that Lambeth would find favor among Forsyth's Republicans if he took on the odious Virginia Foxx in a Republican primary, which apparently led Lambeth to call Foxx personally and squelch the rumor. The Journal's resurrection of that deep desire to have a more mainstream Republican representing the 5th District of NC is note-worthy.

Mr. Lambeth, who is also chair of the Forsyth County Board of Education, may be waiting for Foxx to retire (but, then, aren't we all!?) to run for the open seat. If she retires before the ocean levels rise to drown our coastal cities, and if Mr. Lambeth is still viable, he'll have to face Foxx's chosen (and duly anointed) successor, the ineffable empty suit, Dan Soucek. A Soucek/Lambeth primary would be no contest, and Lambeth would win, going away.

That's all contingent, of course, on Foxx actually winning another term against challenger Treva Johnson, which in this year (2012, that is) is not a foregone conclusion.

More Primary Rumors for Foxx

Scott Sexton's column in today's Winston-Salem Journal is about rumors of a Republican primary challenger against Congresswoman Virginia Foxx.

One of those rumors has centered on former Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith (pictured left), whose retirement last November some 11 months before the end of his elected term (after 19 years in the job) apparently fueled some speculation that he was getting ready to run for some office up the food chain. According to Sexton's column, quoting a well-connected Forsyth County Republican under condition of anonymity, "Tom's got the name recognition, and the Rolodex to pull it off."

The other potential primary challenger is Donny Lambeth, president of Wake Forest Baptist Hospital and the chairman of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board. When asked about it, Lambeth laughed: "I heard that rumor, too," he said. "There was a Web site in Watauga County that had my picture in it. But the rumor is incorrect. I called Virginia as soon as I heard to tell her it wasn't true. The school board is good for me."

Wonder what web site in Watauga had his picture? That's almost as funny as his nervous, fumbling call to The Madam once the rumor surfaced: "Please please please don't turn your evil eye in my direction!"

Two observations to make about this: (1) At least there's widespread acknowledgement among 5th District Republicans that they need to do something about this Foxx, who is an embarrassment to the whole state and bad for business, though it appears unlikely that any of these potential candidates have the balls to challenge her; and (2) the greatest current myth about Foxx is that she's good at "constituent services." Sexton mentions it twice in his short column. The fact is that she checks your party affiliation before responding to requests, and she absolutely, positively will not meet personally with anyone who does not genuflect deeply and kiss her ass ... or give her cash. It's an open secret (from members of her own staff and others close to her) that she's increasingly "phoning it in" and that she has an open terror of actual interaction with voters. Her personal meanness and irrationality are best kept under close wraps.

Potential Primary Challenger for Foxx?

There is some Forsyth County talk that Virginia Foxx might get a Republican primary challenger in one Donny Lambeth, currently president and chief operating officer of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and chair of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education.

Lambeth, a former Democrat, would be a moderate, sane antidote to Madam Foxx's irrational psycho manifestation of poisonous partisanship. In other words, he'd have a snowball's chance of beating her.

But the actual goal of a Lambeth run against Foxx in 2010 would be preparing himself for a 2012 race for what Forsyth County activists hope will be the redistricting result of the 2010 Census, the carving out of a new district for Winston-Salem which would shove Foxx off onto the rest of us while Tobacco Central takes a more rational course into the future.

Good luck with that agenda.