GOP hopefuls eye redrawn Triangle-area U.S. House seat as 2024 filing opens
Candidate filing for the 2024 elections began Monday in North Carolina. Would-be politicians have the next 10 days to decide if they want to run for office, and for which role.
There’s expected to be substantial turnover once the dust is settled a year from now — particularly for the state’s 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. New maps for those districts, drawn by Republican state lawmakers, will make reelection nearly impossible for three Democrats who currently represent North Carolina in Congress.
Charlotte-area Democratic U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson has already surrendered, saying he’ll run for state Attorney General. U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning hasn’t yet said whether she’d seek reelection to her Greensboro-area seat. And then there’s U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel, a Democrat who was drawn out of his 13th Congressional District seat, which includes southern Wake county and all of Johnston County.
Competition in the Republican primaries for those redrawn seats is expected to be fierce. They now favor Republicans, meaning whoever wins each GOP primary is highly likely to win the general election, too.
In the 13th District, Nickel hasn’t said if he’ll run for reelection and is instead calling for a lawsuit to block the new congressional map and keep the current districts in place. Nickel won a hard-fought campaign in 2022 against Republican challenger Bo Hines, who plans to run again in 2024 but this time for Manning's Triad-area seat.
The new congressional map, however, changes Nickel’s district from one that was essentially tied in the 2020 presidential election to one that Republican Donald Trump would’ve won in a landslide.
The Republican primary in the new 13th District is therefore expected to be a crowded, expensive and potentially nasty affair. The 2022 GOP primary for the district, which attracted eight candidates, devolved into negative campaigns and even accusations of blackmail targeting a leading candidate — allegations that have since led to criminal charges against a former Smithfield Police officer, who’s also on the Johnston County Board of Education.
Although the new district covers eight counties, just two of them — Johnston and Harnett — are home to nearly half the district’s population.
David Thornton, who leads the political science department at Campbell University in Harnett County, said the GOP primary could come down to a single factor: Whichever candidate Trump backs.
“I suspect that, unless something dramatic occurs between now and March 2024, the candidates will seek the endorsement of Trump,” he said.
But next door in Lee County, which is also now part of the district, longtime Republican leader Jim Womack said he doesn’t think any candidates should count on that.
In 2022, Hines won the 13th District GOP primary in large part because Trump endorsed him. But Womack said he understands Trump will be making far fewer endorsements nationwide in 2024 than in years past, so it’ll be up to the candidates themselves to convince conservative voters that they’re the best bet.
And getting noticed could take some work, in what’s expected to be a crowded race with multiple serious — and well-funded — conservative challengers.
“There’ll probably be 9 or 10 candidates by the time it’s done,” Womack said. “But right now there are already four or five really compelling candidates in the race.”
Because the it’s now a safe Republican seat, no longer competitive like in 2022, major Republican financiers and outside groups are unlikely to pump lots of money into influencing the primary. That means GOP candidates will likely need to spend their own money to boost their profiles through advertising.
Rep. Erin Paré, a state lawmaker who had originally been viewed as a potential favorite in the race, recently said she’ll seek reelection to the state House instead. “Now is not the right time to make the personal financial investment needed for the NC-13 congressional primary,” said Paré, the only Wake County Republican in the General Assembly.
Federal campaign finance records show that as of Friday, eight Republicans had filed paperwork indicating they’ll run for the 13th District.
- Devan Barbour
- Brad Knott
- Josh McConkey
- Siddhanth Sharma
- Matt Shoemaker
- Eric Stevenson
- Fred von Canon
- Kenny Xu
Thornton said the GOP primary will likely focus mostly on national politics, like immigration and Democratic President Joe Biden’s track record on the economy.
“Local issues probably won’t get much attention since everyone seems so caught up in the national negative polarization embodied by the very unpleasant prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch,” he said.
Womack said the March primary will be here faster than people realize; mail-in ballots will start being sent to some voters as soon as January. So already, he said, the most serious candidates have been making the rounds and trying to bolster their support among the conservative base.
“I’ve been to several district conventions now where they’ve all spoken,” Womack said of the candidates who are actively campaigning already. “And each one is hitting on a completely different theme. I don’t think any of them are really emerging as the frontrunner yet. They’re experimenting with different messages, seeing what plays.”
Updates from Monday's filing
- U.S. Rep. Don Davis (D-Snow Hill) announced he would seek reelection. Davis' district in northeastern North Carolina includes many of the state's majority-Black rural counties, although it was redrawn ahead of the 2024 elections to pick up more rural white areas than in the past. That changed it from a lean-Democratic seat to what's expected to be a true tossup, winnable by either party next year. It's the only competitive district of North Carolina's 14 U.S. House seats. Davis, a moderate Democrat and Air Force veteran, served in the state Senate before his 2022 election to Congress, replacing retiring Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield.
- One of the Republicans who ran in the 2022 GOP primary to take on Davis was Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson. He still has an active congressional campaign, according to Federal Election Commission data. But Roberson confirmed to WRAL that he doesn't plan to run for Congress again this year.
- In the state legislature, Sen. Joyce Krawiec announced Monday she will not seek reelection. A Forsyth County Republican, Krawiec is a longtime veteran of the legislature and one of the Senate's top health care policy leaders.
