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It wasn’t the first time U.S. Rep. Don Davis found himself on a political island, but it may have been his most visible.
On a July morning, Davis joined 214 Republicans and five fellow Democrats in support of a resolution criticizing how Vice President Kamala Harris has handled immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The continuation of the Biden, Harris border policies would be disastrous for both the United States and the American people,” the resolution read.
Less than 24 hours later, Davis endorsed Harris’ presidential bid.
“The stakes of this presidential election are incredibly high, with far-reaching implications,” Davis wrote in a statement. “At the same time, the administration and Congress must address the concerns of the southern border.”
That sequence of events is the latest example of the tightrope Davis has walked to remain in office as rural Eastern North Carolina has become increasingly Republican. Davis was elected mayor of Snow Hill (population 2,100) when he was 29 and served six terms in the state Senate before being elected to the U.S. House in 2022 with 52 percent of the vote.
Now, Davis faces his toughest political battle yet. Republican state lawmakers last year enacted a new voting map that put him in the lone congressional tossup district in the entire Southeast. And he’s facing a candidate in Republican Laurie Buckhout who has broader appeal than the firebrand conservative he beat in 2022, the MAGA-aligned Sandy Smith.
The political calculus over how much to embrace one’s own party is playing out for both campaigns.
Buckhout has deleted social media posts of her smiling and standing alongside Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the divisive gubernatorial candidate whom Republicans fear could worsen the prospects of candidates up and down the ballot. But on the campaign trail, she’s maintained her support of him.
At an October 9 event forum hosted by a conservative pastor at Christian Fellowship Church in Elm City, Buckhout said North Carolinians would thrive under a potential Gov. Robinson and reelected President Trump. “You’ve got a couple guys who are both economically literate,” Buckhout said.
Buckhout, a retired Army colonel who lives in Edenton, is trying to make history. A Black Democrat has represented northeastern North Carolina since 1992, and no Republican has represented the district since 1883.
“She’s an attractive candidate, but so is he,” said Tony Copeland, an attorney and former Democratic state commerce secretary who grew up in the district in Hertford. “It’s going to be interesting to see what’s going to happen. And I do think that the national election will have some bearing on it.”
Voting Across the Aisle
The area Davis currently represents went for Biden by nearly 7 percentage points in 2020. Under the new 2024 map, however, Davis finds himself in a district that swung for Biden by only 1.3 percentage points.
The district presents major logistical hurdles for candidates. It covers 22 counties–the most of any congressional district in the state–and stretches from the outskirts of Raleigh to the Outer Banks. Its expansiveness makes it difficult for candidates to reach voters with a consistent message.
Davis, a 53-year-old Presbyterian minister, is leaning heavily into his local ties, with many of his ads focused on his upbringing. In television ads, on his campaign website and on social media, Davis has described growing up cropping tobacco, spending his formative years in Snow Hill, serving in the U.S. Air Force for eight years, and returning home to continue public service as a mayor and state senator.
Republicans accuse Davis of overhyping his district ties, noting that he went to high school in Texas and spent much of the 1980s outside the state. They also criticize him as a rubber stamp for Democratic priorities, although he has a track record of bucking his party–to the chagrin of fellow Democrats.
According to ProPublica, Davis ranked fifth among House Democrats in voting against his party; as of July, he broke with his party 13.7 percent of the time. GovTrack, which charts votes, rated Davis as the most conservative Democrat in the U.S. House.
Last month, Davis was one of three House Democrats to support an unsuccessful funding bill that would have kept the government open until March 28, 2025. Democratic Party leaders had instead favored a shorter-tem resolution, saying that the Republican proposal violated a previous agreement.
Davis was also among Democrats to support reversing a Bureau of Land Management rule on oil and gas leases and was one of two Democrats to back changes to the Clean Water Act’s permitting processes, which critics argued would weaken protections.
“I’ve tried to be a common-sense Democrat in approaching issues that impact our families,” Davis told Spectrum News. (Davis declined an interview request for this article.)
Davis was also not afraid to buck his party while he was in the legislature. In 2019, he defied Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on the issue of abortion by supporting a measure stating that doctors must try to preserve the life of any infant “born alive” during an attempted abortion.
Cooper vetoed the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act,” writing in his veto message that it would present “an unnecessary interference between doctors and their patients” and “criminalize doctors and other healthcare providers for a practice that simply does not exist.”
“I’ve tried to be a common-sense Democrat in approaching issues that impact our families.”
U.S. Rep. Don Davis
Davis voted to override the governor’s veto, but the measure never became law. When a similar bill was considered in May 2021, Davis was the lone senator who missed the vote.
He has since said he would support codifying Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion that the court reversed in 2022.
His opponent paints him as a faithful Democrat.
“He’s voted with Biden. He’s voting with Harris,” Buckhout said. “He makes an occasional token vote. But honestly, if you want nothing to continue, Davis is a yes vote for Harris and Biden. That’s the bottom line.”
A High-Poverty District
Republicans are urging voters to reflect on the inflation and economic hardship they’ve experienced under the past four years, and are seeking to link Davis to Harris—a task that was made easier when Harris campaigned in Greenville on October 13.
Within minutes of Davis greeting Harris on the Greenville airport tarmac, the National Republican Congressional Committee was planning its next line of attack. “Obsessed with Don Davis gifting Republicans with this visual 23 days before an election,” NRCC regional press secretary Delanie Bomar wrote on X.
Republicans hope that linking Davis to Harris will resonate with a voting bloc that has long struggled financially and remains in the poorest district in the state, according to the latest U.S. Census data.
“It’s a pretty simple deal: Either you think you’re better off under Democrat policies or better off under Republican policies,” said Jonathan Felts, a GOP strategist advising Buckhout’s campaign. “In the 1st District, people are suffering right now under the current administration. And Don Davis is a vote for the current administration.”
Democrats argue the Biden administration and Davis have made life better for northeastern North Carolina. They cite spending on infrastructure and successfully keeping jobs in place at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, a Goldsboro military installation in Davis’ district.
In an ad, Davis accurately said he helped prevent job cuts at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, but he also said he delivered essential aircraft for Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City. 13News Now, an ABC affiliate based in Norfolk, Virginia, first reported on Davis’ claims and found that Air Station Elizabeth City is getting new funding for maintaining its current fleet, but not for any new aircraft.
Regardless, nearly 18 percent of people in the district live below the poverty line, including 25.4 percent of Black residents and 11.7 percent of white residents. Statewide, 12.8 percent of North Carolinians live in poverty.
Davis told Spectrum News he’d support an expanded child tax credit, similar to what Harris has proposed, to help struggling families. “Those dollars are able to get into families and really make a difference for children,” he said.
At the same time, the workforce is aging. One in five district residents are at least 65 years old, representing a slightly greater share than the statewide average of elderly residents.
An Aging Electorate
Copeland, the attorney who grew up in Hertford, said the northeastern part of the state has changed in recent decades.
While the area remains heavily rural and is home to many farmers and military veterans, more suburban parts of the district in and surrounding Wilson, Rocky Mount, and Nashville, have seen population growth or at least no sizable decline. This has come in part from people leaving their home states to take advantage of more affordable locations.
Rising costs have also pushed native North Carolinians and urban dwellers farther and farther outside the Triangle. At the same time, however, many adults who grew up in the district have left their hometowns for economic opportunities elsewhere.
“The rural areas of the country, and the world for that matter, are changing dramatically,” Copeland said. “The workforce is so old. The industries now are advanced manufacturing, and they’re looking for a trainable workforce and someone young.”
While North Carolina has seen sizable population growth, it hasn’t materialized in much of the northeast. Between 2022 and 2023, just 15 of North Carolina’s 100 counties saw their populations decline. Most were in the northeast, including nine in the 1st District.
The shifting demographics and expansiveness of the district pose major challenges to both parties.
Democrats are dealing with a new congressional map that dilutes the voting power of Black voters, a historically reliable constituency. And East Carolina University, with 27,000 students who tend to lean liberal, is no longer in the 1st District.
Anderson Clayton, state Democratic Party chair, said ECU’s removal deals a blow for Democrats, but it’s also a shift that has prompted organizers to campaign in places that have often been ignored, including Elizabeth City State University and North Carolina Wesleyan University, a small, private four-year college in Rocky Mount.
“It’s given us an ability to bring campaigns to schools and to places that have not seen it in a long time,” she said.
The district is slightly more white and slightly less Black under the new voting map; 39.6 percent of residents are Black, compared to 40.7 percent in the old map. Meanwhile, 49.3 percent of people in the new district are white, compared to 47.7 percent in the old map.
One factor working in Davis’ favor: the latest campaign filings showed him with a sizable financial edge. Davis entered October with $2.5 million in the bank, far more than the nearly $1 million at Buckhout’s disposal.
From July through September, Davis took in $2 million, with roughly 76 percent of the funds raised coming from individual donors. Buckhout raised $1.3 million over that stretch, with little more than half of the money coming from individuals.
Buckhout loaned her campaign $300,000, and entered October with $1.6 million in outstanding personal loans. Davis had no outstanding debts.
Meanwhile, national parties and outside groups have spent heavily to bolster their respective candidates.
According to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political spending, the GOP’s Congressional Leadership Fund has spent nearly $4.4 million on the race. Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Majority PAC have spent a combined $4.8 million.
Buckhout Touts Independence
Over the airwaves, Democratic groups have sought to portray Buckhout as extreme on the issue of abortion by saying she would push for a national ban. PolitiFact rated the claim mostly false, citing reports of Buckhout calling for exceptions and never advocating for a total ban.
Buckhout says she supports North Carolina’s current law, which bans most abortions after 12 weeks. In cases of rape or incest, the law allows an abortion up to 20 weeks.
Democrats argue Buckhout would follow the whims of the national GOP, but she insists she’d be an independent voice in Washington.
“I’m not beholden to House leadership,” Buckhout, 62, said in an interview. “I’m not beholden to a president. I’m not beholden to a speaker. I’m beholden to the people who have elected me.”
After CNN reported that Robinson wrote on a pornographic website that he liked transgender porn and peeped inside women’s locker rooms, Buckhout’s X account removed multiple tweets of her standing alongside Robinson on the campaign trail. Robinson denies the allegations and has filed suit against CNN, but a law firm he’s hired has yet to produce any evidence substantiating his denials.
Democrats have since sought to link a number of local, statewide, and national candidates to the increasingly unpopular lieutenant governor. In their first TV ad in the 1st District last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee showed four photos of Buckhout and Robinson standing together at various events.
“Laurie Buckhout being a Mark Robinson-Donald Trump shill is the reason that she is unqualified to represent this district,” Clayton said in an interview. “She stands for every single hateful, harmful agenda that they do.”
Democratic groups have seized on Buckhout’s lack of longevity in the district to present her as politically ambitious—a criticism her former GOP primary opponent, Sandy Smith, also leveled against her.
“She isn’t from here,” one voter says of Buckhout in a DCCC ad.
“I’m not beholden to House leadership. I’m not beholden to a president. I’m not beholden to a speaker. I’m beholden to the people who have elected me.”
Laurie Buckhout, Republican candidate in the 1st District
Buckhout is a 26-year Army veteran who founded Corvus Consulting, a Virginia-based firm that works with the federal government to protect service members from improvised explosive devices. She sold the company in 2019 and moved from Virginia to North Carolina two years later. She bought a home in Edenton along the Albemarle Sound for nearly $2.7 million.
“[In the] military, it’s very hard to put down roots,” Buckhout said. “The bottom line is we got here as soon as we could. We love North Carolina.”
For her part, Buckhout said she supports term limits and has no intention of becoming a career politician. She’s trying to present Davis as the politically ambitious candidate looking to take another step up the ladder.
“Every time Don Davis gets a new political job, he gets a raise,” Buckhout said. “It’s mayor, it’s a state senator, he’s working his way up in politics. I haven’t done that. I had a military career, and then I built my own business. I’ve signed the front of a check. For me, this is not a promotion. This is an honor for me that I’d like to take on to help the folks of this district.”
Bryan Anderson is a freelance reporter who most recently covered elections, voting access, and state government for WRAL-TV. He previously reported for the Associated Press and The News & Observer. You can subscribe to his newsletter here.