Un-Trumping North Carolina: Democrat Sam Edney Running in NC House Dist. 113

NC House District 113 stretches along the South Carolina border through Polk, the southern half of Henderson, and Transylvania counties. It's considered "Safe Republican" (groan). Some 23% of voters are registered Democrats; 36% are registered Republicans (ack!); but 41%, a plurality, are registered Unaffiliated. Is that a crack of light in the gloom? And consider this political tremor from back last December: three Transylvania county commissioners left the Republican Party en masse and registered Unaffiliated as an expression of disgust with the direction of their party.

Democrat Sam Edney, a former school board member in Transylvania County, ran for the District 113 seat in 2018, got 42.48% of the vote against a young Republican whippersnapper named Cody Henson, who had anger issues and who ended up resigning the seat after pleading guilty to cyberstalking his wife. The Republican executive committees from the three counties in the 113th District appointed another young Republican whippersnapper, Jake Johnson, to finish Cody Henson's term, and Sam Edney is back, more energetic and more determined than ever to take a seat in Raleigh that few think can be taken. Smugness and complacency on Jake Johnson's part might be a huge mistake.

Edney has been actively running since midway through 2019, and he shows every mark of a candidate who learned from a previous loss. He's worked to expand his volunteer base (though "boots on the ground" have now become "voices on the phone" in the Age of Covid). Plus he "fits" his district well. He's one of the common folk, came up via hard knocks from what he himself calls "a dirt poor" childhood in Henderson County: “I know what it means not to have food in the house. By working hard, I made a success. But I had lots of help along the way. When people helped me, I didn’t care what their politics were. And when I helped others, their political leanings didn’t matter to me.”

Our refusal to expand Medicaid hurts working people. It hurts working moms. It hurts those with substance abuse issues who have lost their children. We cannot continue letting our money go to other states. #ExpandMedicaidNow

4:19 PM · Jun 10, 2020

Incumbent Jake Johnson

I have a deep soft spot in my heart for Sam Edney, not only because he's an avid gardener with holes in the knees of his pants. He's running what some people think is an impossible race against harsh odds, and he's got a powerful ally at his side in his wife Deda. I've spoken to both on them on the phone and offered them unsolicited advice from the perspective of someone who's fought seemingly impossible odds but in a very different context. I've donated to Sam's campaign and want to see him win. If the mass defection from the Republican Party of three Transylvania county commissioners is any sign of tectonic forces shifting their weight, then this is the year for impossible possibilities in House District 113.

In Virginia, Goodbye Denver Riggleman, Hello Democrats

Virginia's 5th District Congressman, Republican Denver Riggleman, did a nice thing, officiating at the same-sex marriage for a couple of his campaign aids, and for that piece of outrageous tolerance he was ousted by some 2,400 unamused delegates to the Republican 5th District Convention on Saturday. Bob Good, a former athletics official at Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Liberty University who describes himself as a “biblical conservative,” beat Riggleman, who was said to have a libertarian streak but who promptly joined the Freedom Caucus in the House when he took office back in January 2019. But Bob Good captured 58 percent of the anti-gay marriage vote in a "drive by" Republican convention (no clue how a drive-by convention works, except that it would be good for throwing stones).

I followed that 2018 election in the 5th District of Virginia because I was fascinated by the Democratic candidate Leslie Cockburn. She had had a primary opponent in Roger Dean Huffstetler, a clean-cut ex-Marine who has a personal grudge against the opioid epidemic (his father died of an oxycontin overdose) and who talked the language of land and family while operating as an ambitious, well-connected entrepreneur -- Harvard Business School, Silicon Valley. He started running for Congress less than two years after moving to Charlottesville, and he spent big in 2018. Huffstetler, reading the room and understanding that Leslie Cockburn was going to win it, dropped out of the running just prior to the May 2018 nominating caucus. At the time I called that a "class act" on Huffstetler's part, giving him every benefit of the doubt. Leslie Cockburn went on to lose the general election to the now disgraced Riggleman, getting 46.8% to Riggleman's 53.2% of the vote.

Huffstetler's back this year, running again in a crowded primary next Tuesday, June 23 (this time an open voting primary -- Virginia has weird options), and the field he's up against once again is mighty interesting. Huffstetler has put health care at the top of his agenda, and there's real competition for that issue among his primary opponents. The only consideration, though: Can one of these Democrats beat a Bible-spoutin' Republican for an open seat in this "likely Republican" district (Cook) which nevertheless contains Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, but in the year when rural folk are stirred up for Trump's triumph? Which one of these could overcome all odds?

Cameron Webb

Let's go straight to the website: "After graduating from UVA and getting [both] his medical and law degrees, Cameron was tapped by President Obama for the White House Fellowship. He served on the White House Health Care Team and also worked on President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative, where he helped tackle issues in education, workforce development and criminal justice reform."

Impressed yet? "A practicing physician, Cameron returned to Charlottesville where he treats patients as a general internist, teaches students and serves as the Director of Health Policy and Equity at UVA’s School of Medicine. His wife, Dr. Leigh-Ann Webb, is an ER doctor who grew up in Appomattox County. They reside in Albemarle County where they raise their two children, Avery and Lennox."

Expanding health care to everyone is his prime driver, and he has fairly moderate views based on experience and knowledge.

I like his political savvy: “...it is a mistake to say that the 5th District is heavily Republican.” Instead, he explained, Democratic candidates should focus on outreach to district residents who usually do not vote at all, especially African Americans. “Field a full team,” he said. “Expand the electorate.” There's clearly an electorate in that swath of Virginia ripe for expansion.

But will rural white Virginians elect a black man, even one as accomplished as Cameron Webb? I think it's wholly feasible, maybe even for a district that still contains moonshine capital Franklin County.

John Lesinski

Lesinski, like Huffstetler, is a retired Marine. His major distinction: He's alone among all the candidates for his actually having been elected to office, as both a school board member and a county supervisor in Rappanhannock County.

He's running as the moderate and seems to believe fervently in the Chuck Todd Theory that there are just oodles of Republican and Independent voters out there in a conservative district like the Virginia Fifth just waiting for a decent and moderate Democrat to vote for as a relief from the indecencies of the Trump presidency. “I feel that now there are moderates and independents who would consider voting across the aisle, who feel left behind by their party,” he said. Dr. Rachel Bitecofer demolishes the Chuck Todd Theory of the great swing vote, but there are always Democratic candidates who hitch their fortunes to being agreeable to the opposition.

Lesinski expressed support for moving toward a single-payer health care system eventually, although he argued that building on the Affordable Care Act would be more politically feasible in the short term. Regardless of the mechanism, he said, “I believe health care is a right, not a privilege.”


Claire Russo

More wealth of ex-Marine Corps experience. Claire Russo "served as an Intelligence Officer in the First Marine Expeditionary Force and the First Marine Air Wing. She deployed to Fallujah, Iraq where she led a team of Marines targeting insurgent networks. Claire continued her service after the Marines, working as a civilian with the Army. In this capacity, she deployed to Afghanistan and served as a counter insurgency adviser to the infantry. Following her work with the Army, Claire served on General Petraeus’s counter insurgency advisory team where she evaluated the training and employment of female engagement teams and their support of special operations forces in Afghanistan." [website]

Good Lord, the talent running for Congress in the Virginia 5th this year! She's making gun control a central issue, a risky proposition for rural Virginia, but look at this: "She likened her stance on gun policy to the laws surrounding driving a car. When speaking to gun-owning rural voters, she said, she emphasizes that 'I absolutely respect his right to own a gun, but it has to be safe and not hurt other people.'

"She would support legislation requiring background checks on every firearm transfer and the creation of so-called 'red flag' laws, a mechanism by which police or individuals can petition a court to remove temporarily an individual’s firearms if that individual is deemed to represent a threat to public safety. She elaborated later, 'It is unacceptable that people convicted of domestic violence can continue to possess guns.' ”

Will that fly? Dunno, but we'll soon know which of these Democrats will get to take on Bob Good for this now open House seat.

Caesar Demands It

So it's official. About 300 Republicans will be in Charlotte on Monday, August 24, to count the party's paperclips (but really to avoid a lawsuit over breach of contract with the City of Charlotte), but then everyone will decamp for Jacksonville, Florida, where Trump will pack 15,000 people who are guaranteed to be immune to COVID-19 into the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, where they can grow hoarse from yelling their approval for the Great Coronavirus Denier. 

Masks will be socially unacceptable accessories, like wearing white after Labor Day.

It's a fever dream fit for the last days of the Empire.

Un-Trumping North Carolina: Democrat Jenna Wadsworth for Agriculture Commissioner

Let's call Jenna Wadsworth "The Dirt Road Democrat on a Mission To Bring North Carolina Agriculture Into the 21st Century."

She's been coming on strong all year, a blast of youthful energy ready to break both an age and a gender barrier in North Carolina politics, running for an office that's been in the idle hands of an aging white guy for long enough. She is a clear down-ballot asset for all Democrats running in North Carolina this year.

In November of 2010, she became one of the youngest -- at age 21 -- elected officials in the state, earning a seat as a supervisor of the Wake County Soil and Water Conservation District where she's continued to serve ever since. Though born in Wake County, she touts her growing up on a dirt road in Johnston County on her grandparents farm where she learned how to raise corn, soybeans, tobacco, cattle, cotton, and hogs -- all the major food groups of Southern agriculture!

A dirt road farm kid, yes, but also a major brain, as she qualified for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, no easy feat. She went on to graduate magna cum laude from NC State University in 2011, after she'd been elected a supervisor in Wake for Soil and Water Conservation. Since that election of 2010 she's been very active in pursuing farmland preservation and "local foods enhancement" projects and conservation easements.

Face forward? Yes. "Jenna is the Co-Founder and former Co-Director of a progressive nonprofit called New Leaders Council – North Carolina. She serves on the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, is an active member of both the Young Elected Officials Network and Local Progress, and she speaks to international delegations for the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitors Leadership Program and US AID--resulting in her recent appointment to the North Carolina chapter of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. She became a small business owner in 2017 and works as the Managing Partner of her political and fundraising consulting firm Elevated Prospects, LLC."

She still farms several acres of vegetables and is a card-carrying member of the Farm Bureau. 

Republican incumbent Steve Troxler squeaked by Democrat Britt Cobb in 2004 to win the office and has been reelected easily since then. This year may be different. Troxler is best known in these precincts for being a lax enforcer of civil penalties and lax on citing violations of milk grading standards and unwilling as a public official to take a hand in protecting poultry processing workers from COVID-19.

After President Trump ordered all meat-processing plants to stay open at the end of April, Troxler bragged that no meat plants had shut down in North Carolina and that he intended to keep them all open. He seems to have Trump's general level of empathy for front-line workers. He defends factory hog farms and their right to pollute the air and water of their neighbors.

Jenna Wadsworth presents a clear contrast on issues. She supports the growing of hemp as a cash crop and supports the legalization of cannabis and thinks the Department of Agriculture can have a strong hand in preparing farms for appropriate responses to climate change, which brings with it disastrous weather challenges for all farmers.

Poor Jacksonville, If True

Multiple news orgs are reporting that the GOP upper echelons have decided on Jacksonville, Florida, for the big, splashy, packed-to-the-rafters Trump acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, because Governor Cooper wouldn't guarantee a packed Spectrum Center in Charlotte for Twitterman.

An authoritarian needs adoration.

But Charlotte is not completely in the clear: "The GOP will reportedly still hold routine convention meetings in Charlotte to avoid potential lawsuits for violating its contract with North Carolina" (Talking Points Memo). Presumably after three days of business votes in Charlotte, all the delegates will get themselves to Jacksonville to genuflect. By trains, planes, and automobiles.

Jacksonville is Florida's largest city and has a Republican mayor. The state, of course, also has a Republican governor. Evidently, they are not inclined to impose any silly rules about social distancing and mask-wearing. Meanwhile, COVID cases in Florida are also on an upward trend. Almost three times more people have died from the virus in Florida than in North Carolina.

But the appetite in Jacksonville for Trumpism may be limited: "Jacksonville is among the dozens of cities and towns where protesters have called for changes in the treatment of black people by law enforcement. On Tuesday, [Mayor Lenny] Curry walked with protesters who were demonstrating outside City Hall. Early Tuesday morning, city officials took down a confederate statue there" (Maggie Haberman).

If You Think the COVID Crisis Is Over, Think Again

I drove into downtown Boone yesterday to the post office. All the shops looked open, and the sidewalks were crowded with shoppers. I didn't see one person wearing a mask. Surely some were, but I didn't see them.

Because the Trump mal-administration has decided to ignore the pandemic, some people -- many people -- seem to think the whole thing's over. But get a grip, peeps. The infection and hospitalization rate in North Carolina keeps going up. On Monday, 739 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, a new single-day record high. The last record high was Friday. The trend-lines are all pointing up. The seven-day average of new cases topped 1,000. To date, 36,484 people in North Carolina have tested positive for COVID, and more than 1,000 people have died from the virus since late March.

After staying in the single-digits for weeks, confirmed infections in Watauga County shot up into the mid-30s, as more reopening goes forward and people stop being careful. There's a hot-spot outbreak on an AppState construction project, which looked for all the world like a coverup until the wife of a worker blew the whistle.

The WashPost reports that North Carolina is experiencing the second-largest spike in COVID cases in the nation behind Texas. Yet majorities on both the Watauga County Commission and the Boone Town Council have declined to require masks in public. That's a species of wishful thinking much in line with the Trump administration's "if we don't speak of it, it doesn't exist."

Un-Trumping North Carolina: Democrat Cal Cunningham for US Senate

We've been knowing Cal Cunningham for a decade, ever since he emerged to challenge Elaine Marshall in the US Senate Democratic primary in 2010, not a particularly good year to be a rising Democratic Party star, but we were impressed with Cal. We couldn't support him in that primary because we were pledged to Elaine Marshall, but we thought he had a bright and shining future in North Carolina politics. Took a decade, but he finally came back to give Thom Tillis a good case of flop sweat in 2020.

Tillis won the seat in 2014 by less than 2 percentage points, and he hasn't done much to improve his standing with the voters. Now he's indelibly labeled a Trump lickspittle who attempted a couple of times to look like an independent and ended up just looking weak and confused. A survey from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling released recently showed his approval at just 26 percent (The Hill).

He's being propped up by Republican "super PACs." Reuters reported than at least $47.4 million is flowing into North Carolina already, but that counts also what Cunningham is getting from Democratic PACs, which is a lot. Both the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball now rate the race a toss-up, which probably means if North Carolina flips to Biden, Tillis is toast.

How nervous is Tillis? So nervous he's robo-calling our landline multiple times, like he thinks he's going to persuade a Democrat as blue as this one to come to his aid? Three debates with Cunningham have been set, but Tillis is actually pressing for even more -- a sign that he knows he's losing: "Usually it’s challengers who press incumbents to debate, hoping for the free exposure of a televised encounter" (Jim Morrill, Charlotte Observer).

Cal has received some criticism for appearing too moderate for the times, partly because his primary opponent Erica Smith was such a progressive bomb-thrower. Before he fully fleshed out his policy positions on his website, I was one of those critical voices last September because I was afraid Cal was slipping into "McCreadyism." I don't worry about that any more: "...many of the candidates in swing states are more liberal than their counterparts just a decade ago. Every Senate candidate in a major race, from Mark Kelly in Arizona to Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, supports a public option to compete with private health insurance plans" (Politico).

Cal has to be careful about corporate money. He has not taken money from corporate PACs, but he has received money from business executives and PACs that receive money from corporations (Politifact). That's maybe not concerning on the face of it, unless he starts trimming his policy positions to suit those donors. Then he'll catch hell.

Cal's launch video was strong and well done. You can watch it on his website. Below is his short victory speech after winning the March primary:

Un-Trumping North Carolina: Democrat Pat Timmons-Goodson in the 8th Congressional District

The redrawn 8th Congressional District still looks gloomy, on the face of it. Made up principally of conservative rural counties of Stanley and Montgomery and large parts of Moore (yikes!), Lee, and Harnett, but bookended (here's the good news) in the west by more suburban Cabarrus and the city of Concord and in the east by Cumberland County and the city of Fayetteville, a Democratic stronghold. Nevertheless, Trump carried the area by 9 points in 2016, and Politico still considers it +8 for Republicans. The Cook Political Report rates it "Likely Republican."

Never mind that. The DCCC -- all the way back in January -- named the 8th as part of its "offensive battlefield" for 2020 -- a targeted push to increase the Democratic majority in the US House. Later, just a couple of weeks ago, the DCCC named the candidacy of Pat Timmons-Goodson in the 8th as one of its "Red-to-Blue" targets. Means financial and tactical support. Smart people seem to think that Timmons-Goodson has a shot at it, especially in a year like TwentyTwenty.

Larry Kissell was the last Democrat to win the 8th (a differently drawn 8th back then), in the Obama year of 2008. Kissell beat the Republican incumbent, Robin Hayes by a good 10 points. Kissell was reelected in 2010 but lost in 2012 to the current Republican incumbent, Richard Hudson. The Republicans had redrawn districts to favor themselves following the Census of 2010, and they drew Fayetteville out of the 8th, so Kissell was out too. Didn't help either that he voted against Obamacare.

Now, Pat (Patricia) Timmons-Goodson looks to be a very strong candidate. She's got the gravity and wisdom of a judge because she was one. She spent over three decades in the judicial system of North Carolina, earning her law degree at Chapel Hill and working as an assistant prosecutor in Cumberland County (Fayetteville). She rose to a local district judgeship and then to the North Carolina Court of Appeals before becoming in 2006 the first African-American woman elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court. President Obama attempted to add her to the bench of the 4th Circuit, but Sen. Richard Burr blocked her nomination and of course Mitch McConnell was not about to confirm her.

Her integrity and intelligence come through strong and clear in her introductory video. She marshals respect.

More video! That DCCC support needs to invest in some professional productions that utilize the inarguable, earned wisdom of this woman as a talking-head, but an ad that breaks free of the talking-head monologue. Her deliberate reasonableness provides a rich contrast to the chaos of the Trump administration and to Congressman Richard Hudson's collaboration with it.

Incumbent Republican Congressman Richard Hudson is really a swamp creature. He became a rising Republican Party foot soldier shortly after he graduated with a poly sci degree from UNC-Charlotte in 1996. He rose quickly to working for Congressman Robin Hayes back in the district, and then Virginia Foxx brought him to Washington to work for her, and he stayed in Washington power circles, working for several other Republican congresspeople after he left Foxx, until he defeated Larry Kissell in 2012 for his own seat.

He's frequently described as a "moderate." What is a Republican moderate in the age of Trump? A silent collaborator who kowtows to the strong man, keeps his head down and his mouth shut. The times require sinew. But he was photographed wearing a COVID mask (which in a Republican county like Moore is tantamount to being a Democrat), and he approvingly retweeted the video of the Fayetteville police taking a knee in solidarity with street-marchers.

So, okay, "moderate." Rhymes with "human." At least he can express empathy for people not in his corner. But Pat Timmons-Goodson may out-rank him for humanity and out-flank him for votes.

Un-Trumping North Carolina: Democrat Moe Davis in the 11th Congressional District

I've been an enthusiastic supporter of retired Air Force Colonel Moe Davis who's trying to take the congressional seat in western North Carolina that Trump toady Mark Meadows held until very recently. Davis is perhaps the strongest Democratic Congressional candidate in North Carolina not supported by the Democratic Congressional Candidate Committee (DCCC). The DCCC opted to support Pat Timmons-Goodson in the NC8 as a part of its "Red-to-Blue" campaign, the only Democratic congressional candidate in North Carolina singled out for that kind of financial and tactical support (and I'll be profiling Timmons-Goodson soon).

If anyone can do it on his own steam, it's Moe Davis. He's got a adamantine spine from years of "gut-check moments," when as chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay he refused to use evidence obtained from torture during the Bush admin and later came out publicly against the handling of prosecutions by the Obama admin. An equal-opportunity pain in the ass. We like that in the age of Trump.

He's a graduate of AppState and lives in Asheville.

He does not yet know who his Republican opponent will be in November because there's a second runoff primary on the Republican side on June 23rd (postponed from May 12 because of COVID) between Trump-endorsed Lynda Bennett, a middle-aged real estate developer, and upstart Madison Cawthorn, a very young 20-something who has the looks of a movie star. Bennett's baggage includes the ill will generated by Mark Meadows' trying to prearrange her assent to the seat. Bennett is standard-issue Tea Party. Cawthorn represents a much younger, perhaps less encumbered generation. If there's resentment of Bennett for her closeness to Meadows, and Republican backlash against Trump, Cawthorn may be the winner.

Judge Bob Orr

NOTE: Republican Judge Bob Orr, who has a moral compass and who lives now in Asheville, already announced on Twitter that he would be voting in the runoff for Madison Cawthorn, propelled by Trump's endorsement of Bennett, but that he'll be voting for Moe Davis in November.