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. 

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.

DCCC Involves Itself in a North Carolina Primary

Jamie Ager
Photo Katie Linsky Shaw

On February 23rd (yesterday!) the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) added Jamie Ager and the NC 11th Dist. to its “Red to Blue” program, "a merit-based designation for Democratic challengers or open-seat candidates the DCCC believes have a real chance to flip a Republican-held district." In other words, an arm of the National Democratic Party is doing what has previously been frowned on -- endorsing a primary candidate, one of five in Ager's case, thus putting the Party's thumb on the scale in hopes of controlling the outcome. That is supposedly verboten for county Democratic parties and for state party officials, though you may have noticed that both Roy Cooper and Josh Stein have made primary endorsements.

The Jamie Ager case is interesting for several reasons. Five people are running. I read through the transcript of a very revealing candidate forum published by Asheville Watchdog. All five candidates were there and spoke. But the questioning was designed to disarm and reveal. Retired investigative reporter and questioner Tom Fiedler pulled some stunning honesty out of them, and several are frankly more interesting than front-runner Ager. A working-class woman named Zelda Briarwood, who admitted to a prior drug addiction and talked about her path to recovery. Paul Maddox, with a strong country accent, called himself a "hillbilly scientist" -- born in the hills but educated to the hilt, with advanced degrees in science that make him tough on bullshit: "I’m a cancer researcher and I solve problems, that’s what I do. And you take the hillbilly and the scientist and put them together, ain’t no problem we can’t solve." Richard Hudspeth, a medical doctor and a family physician who ran Blue Ridge Health Care, a very large community health center. Hudspeth is probably Ager's chief rival.

Jamie Ager comes from Democratic Party nobility in Buncombe County. He is the grandson of Jamie Clarke (James McClure Clarke), famous for trading the 11th CD seat back and forth with Republican Bill Hendon in the 1980s. Both Ager's father John and brother Eric either served in the past (John) or is now serving (Eric) in the NC House. Jamie runs Hickory Nut Gap Farm, the very large operation started by his grandfather. In other words, Jamie Ager comes from a family steeped in politics who seem to know how to do it, and he's got access to beaucoup money through his business and family associations.

He's a good old boy. He seems almost apolitical. But when you introduce yourself to a political audience as "fourth generation in these mountains," I wince. Pulling rank. What I hear, Mr. Fourth Generation, is "I'm entitled." So I find myself wondering what sort of congressman Jamie Ager will be, whether he's got actual philosophical principles about social justice and the power of great wealth, whether he's got a spine or is too accustomed to going-along-with, which can metastasize into damnable passivity. In one of Ager's responses to Fiedler's questions, he signals "moderate Democrat" ("just a country boy"), but the image of the straddle unnerves me a little:

...the political divide gets wider and wider and wider. I feel like I’ve been straddling this divide my entire life, since I’ve been involved in agriculture and I’ve been involved in the meat business, which turns out most of the people are not generally Democrat....

Ager will win the primary. But will he win the general? There's a good chance, according to the DCCC. And I wish him the best for becoming a well-informed and effective legislator. Not another Heath Schuler, please.

 

Moe Davis Drops Out

 

Moe Davis

And he broke some furniture as he exited.

In a wickedly ironic post on Facebook at 11:29 last Saturday night, Democratic primary candidate for the NC 11 seat, Col. Moe Davis, gave up his candidacy for Congress: "Tonight, I concede to John Ager."

John Ager? Davis was supposedly running next March in the primary against Jamie Ager, John's son, but Davis had an important point to make: That Jamie is nothing but a nepo baby of Western North Carolina Democratic royalty, a descendant of the late Jamie Clark, who founded Hickory Nut Gap Farms near Fairview in Buncombe County, very near the Henderson County Line, and who served a few terms in both the North Carolina General Assembly and in the US Congress. Jamie Clark begot through his daughter a grandson, John Ager (served four terms in the NCHouse), whom Moe Davis was supposedly conceding to, and who begot Jamie Ager (running for the US Congress now) and Eric Ager (serving in the NCHouse now). A genuine dynasty, but what does that matter if Jamie Ager can win? I like his chances.

But Moe Davis's point is logical, and Jamie Ager's entry into the race does look an awful lot like a coronation -- especially if you ignore the respect that family has earned in a wide neighborhood in both Buncombe and Henderson and if you also discount the recruitment efforts of high-ranking Democratic Party officials in those two counties who wanted Jamie Ager simply because they thought he had a legitimate shot at unseating fast-food purveyor Chuck Edwards. After Moe Davis's failed bid to take the seat in 2020, his relationship with the Party took a nosedive, and the style and substance of his midnight Facebook post tells you a great deal about why.

It's a shame, too. But when the fighting spirit I admire in any Democrat becomes a habit of tone-deafness and hurtful back-biting, the base is gonna skedaddle from you, because that don't play well in Western North Carolina.

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. 

Jamie Ager Announces for Congress in CD11

 

Photo Cory Vaillancourt

Reading this morning in the Smoky Mountain News about Jamie Ager, who announced he's running in the 11th Congressional District Democratic primary next March, setting up what may be a big battle for the nomination with Moe Davis, who ran for the seat in 2020 and is running again, about whom I've spilled a good deal of digital ink and to whom I've contributed campaign donations in the past. Moe Davis comes on hot where Jamie Ager is cooler. Ager told Cory Vaillancourt that he's more of a "happy warrior." So this will be a primary about political style as well as personal roots. Jamie Ager comes from Democratic Party nobility in Buncombe County; Moe Davis earned his spurs as a no-nonsense and morally upright member of the Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps, prosecuting terrorists at Guantanamo (while bravely opposing higher-ups over water-boarding). Davis is a relative newcomer to the 11th District (though he's a native of Shelby). His abrasiveness in 2020 ruffled a few feathers among establishment Democrats.

Jamie Ager is the grandson of Jamie Clarke (James McClure Clarke), famous for trading the 11th CD seat back and forth with Republican Bill Hendon in the 1980s. Both Ager's father John and brother Eric either served in the past (John) or is now serving (Eric) in the NC House. In other words, Jamie Ager comes from a family steeped in politics who seem to know how to do it.

Grandfather Clarke started the Hickory Nut Gap Farm, which specialized in dairy and apples. Jamie his grandson and now candidate for office runs the operation and has drawn praise for his "regenerative agriculture." He's 47. He earned a degree in environmental studies and sustainable agriculture from Warren Wilson College. The farm now encompasses some 250 acres of both family and leased land. Ager raises beef cattle, chickens, turkeys, and pigs — "all pasture-raised and hormone-free, using rotational grazing to promote soil health and carbon sequestration." The operation requires another 25 hired employees.

Ager is politically progressive but also practical-minded, as we say in the country. “My family’s legacy is kind of built around being environmentalists, which I 100% am," Jamie told Vaillancourt, "but I remember as a kid seeing some of this regulatory stuff come through, and when it hits the ground, it’s often kind of slightly ridiculous,” he said. Regulations are important for changing behavior, but they have to make sense to be effective (not to mention being accepted by the public as worth the hassle).

He believes entrepreneurship is the key to creating a resilient agricultural system and wants to see federal policy shift from incentivizing the cheapest food possible to rewarding sustainable, soil-friendly practices. He’s also concerned about the loss of farmland in North Carolina — the state was recently ranked second in the nation for farmland loss, behind Texas — and supports conservation easements and smarter development to preserve agricultural land for future generations.

Ager has sharp assessments of the incumbent congressman, fast-food-king Chuck Edwards, especially disaffection for Edwards' performance following Hurricane Helene. Two months after Helene, then-Gov. Roy Cooper and a delegation traveled to the White House with a $25 billion request toward an estimated $60 billion in damage. Rep. Edwards, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, said he authored the relief bill that ultimately passed, but out of more than $100 billion in the bill, North Carolina has gotten scant and may get no more than $9 billion. “That’s frustrating, yeah, the fact that Chuck Edwards said we’re going to get all this money, and [he] actually sits in roles that can help facilitate getting that money, and then not actually being clear about what’s going on -- that’s a leadership problem,” Ager said.

While in Congress, Edwards has gone along with Republican budgeting and program-gutting, which has allowed maintenance to suffer in national parks like the Great Smoky Mountains. “It’s sort of this classic Republican move to defund things and then point out that they’re not operating well and to me, that’s just baloney,” Ager said. Congressman Edwards' cure is to start charging visitors to park. And when DOGE shut down the Social Security office in Edwards' district in Franklin, the congressman did nothing to protest the closure. 

When asked what's the matter with the Democratic Party, especially in a mainly rural district with a R+5 rating, Ager said, “There’s a level of condescension that comes out of urban areas for rural people,” he said. “That pisses me off.”

NOTE

There are at least two other declared Democratic candidates in CD11's congressional primary, but neither appears to have much of a base for competing credibly with Moe Davis or Jamie Ager.