(The Center Square) – Five candidates bidding to be the first Republican since 1882 elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the northeastern part of North Carolina professed allegiance and alliance with the president and had few differences Thursday while discussing their first priorities if elected, rural health care, and the country’s spending problems inside the Beltway.
In Thursday’s forum in Greenville, hosted by two CBS affiliates and Inner Banks Media, respective platforms for each trying to unseat Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., were laid out in a one-hour candidate forum. Evidenced by their choice of words, each seeks the endorsement of second-term Republican President Donald Trump in the 1st Congressional District race, where absentee voting has been ongoing since Jan. 12, and in-person early voting starts Thursday.
The 51-day voting window closes with primary Election Day on March 3.
Retired Army Col. Laurie Buckhout of Edenton got Trump’s endorsement in the 2024 general election and worked the past year in his administration. Defeated by Davis two years ago, she’s joined in the primary by Beaufort’s Asa Buck, Powells Point state Sen. Bobby Hanig, Atlantic Beach’s Ashley-Nicole Russell and Kinston’s Eric Rouse.
Late Friday afternoon, all were still awaiting his now familiar “complete and total endorsement.” Unlike the president’s style of campaigning, the quintet was congenial to one another and quite surprisingly rarely brought Davis’ name or record into the conversation.
The differences are most contrasting in respective backgrounds. Buckhout wasn’t well known until her run two years ago and subsequent role as assistant secretary of Defense for cyber policy. Hanig, also an Army veteran, has legislative experience, having won state House of Representative races in 2018 and 2020 and state Senate races in 2022 and 2024.
“I’ve served in all levels of government, from county commission chair to two terms in the North Carolina House and my second term in the North Carolina Senate,” Hanig said. “I know I can beat Don Davis, and that’s our No. 1 goal – to beat Don Davis.”
Buck is taking the next step of retiring from the post he’s held as Carteret County sheriff since 2006. Rouse won election as Lenoir County commissioner in 2010 and is vice chairman of a majority Democratic panel. Russell said her candidacy as an outsider, without elected office previously, is to her advantage.
“I think we have a clear choice right now,” Buckhout said in her closing. “One, we can send a career politician back to D.C. to bargain away your values, he’s going to make deals in the back room, and we’re going to end up with nothing and the radical left running roughshod over eastern North Carolina families, or, choose a warrior. I’m a warrior. I’m combat-tested.
“I’m going to be fighting for eastern North Carolina families because there are three things we absolutely have to do. We’ve got to push the Trump America first agenda without compromise. We’ve got to lower the cost of living destroyed by Washington’s insane spending spree. And we need to fight relentlessly and savagely for the families of eastern North Carolina.”
All the candidates supported eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. They didn’t get questions about the military or veterans, and the lone question tied to agriculture revolved more on the green agenda with solar panels on farmland than the state’s No. 1 industry as a whole.
Hanig said many surrounding counties copied a move he led in Currituck County with the unified development ordinance to halt leases of farmland for the green agenda. He said farmers have a right when facing fiscal dilemmas, and the county has come alongside with soil monitoring requirements so the land can return to agricultural farming in the future.
The rise in life sciences companies choosing the Tarheel State and data centers also were not mentioned in questions or answers.
They did get questions on what makes them unique for the job as well as a closing statement; how to stabilize rural health care; most important action Congress can take for the district; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and events that happened in Minnesota; budgeting and fiscal restraints; leasing farm land; saving Social Security; first thing on their respective agenda if elected; and an agency in need of closure or reduction.
“American citizens are losing confidence in the institutions,” Buck said. “And every time there’s a crisis or an issue, people on both sides of the political fence will say, ‘Well this needs to be reformed. And that needs to be reformed.’ The first thing that needs to be reformed is the Congress. They’re the ones that are up there making the laws, passing rules and regulations and everything that’s done affects every citizen in the country. The American people need to have confidence in their institutions.”
Each had multiple moments that showed their strengths for the forum style platform. All have heard the voices of people, whether in an RV traveling through the district for “dinner table” conversations like Russell has had, or Buck and Rouse through occupational conversations.
“This is something I feel led to do,” Russell said. “When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, that gave me the push to run for this position. When the lines were redrawn, I felt like that was my calling. I’ve passed policy reform in different states and across North Carolina. I created collaborative family law and mediation across the state, so I know what it is like to get it done without having to hold office forever.”
Collaborative family law means a process where parties and attorneys sign to settle out of court with focus on transparency, child well-being, and a nonadversarial route.
Buck said he would employ the characteristics that made the late Walter Jones Jr. so beloved with constituents – Jones voted for them, not party whether the time he was a Democrat or Republican. Rouse was well-versed on a number of statistics for the district. Hanig’s experience successfully running bills and being in committee was clear, and unparalleled by his opponents.
Rouse has an extensive history in spending responsibility through his business portfolio, as does Buckhout with her consulting and services group for electronic warfare and cyberspace operations. Buck has first-hand up-close dealings with the threats of drugs like fentanyl – a significant driver of Trump foreign policy with Central and South American countries – prescription drugs and immigration.
“I’m running to flip this district,” said Rouse, billing himself a constitutional conservative. “Don Davis, the first thing he’s going to do is he’s doing to vote for Hakeem Jeffries. The second thing he’s going to do is vote to impeach Trump, and then that ruins everything. That lame ducks Trump and you’ve got big issues where we’re trying to struggle for the next two years to make a comeback and make America great again. And that’s absolutely something we do not need. More importantly, I’m running for our children. I’m running for more and better-paying jobs in eastern North Carolina.”
As newly constructed in the Realign Congressional Districts 2025, known also as Senate Bill 249, six counties were moved from the 3rd Congressional District to the 1st Congressional District. Four counties went from the 1st to the 3rd. In the reconstruction, Republicans said their hope was to gain another seat – they have 10 to Democrats’ four in the 119th Congress – in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Twelve districts have no change.
Differentiations due to court orders have been applied to each map used for four of the last five congressional elections – 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022. The Legislature drew it in 2024, and this year’s map has already survived litigation.
Davis and Libertarian Tom Bailey do not face primary opponents.
