An Independent Candidate’s Tough Battle

For Shelane Etchison, time was running out.

She was trying to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for Congress, something nobody had ever done in North Carolina. She’d spent a lot of money with a Florida company that promised to get the 7,460 petition signatures needed by March 5. With the deadline looming, she was still far short. So she asked her friends for help.

“The flare went up–so out we came,” Dominique Reyes, a fellow Army veteran, told The Assembly. “It was like, OK, boots on the ground. Here we go.”

Friends came from around the Sandhills region and from as far away as Utah. Many were fellow veterans or active-duty soldiers from nearby Fort Liberty. Most were women. This time, their mission took them not to remote villages in Afghanistan but to laundromats, wine bars, and restaurants in the 9th District in the central part of the state. By March, their “band of sisters” had the required signatures–and then some.

“Thank God a lot of my friends are from the military,” Etchison told one interviewer. “We can put together a pretty mean operation when we need to.”

Their success made Etchison the first independent congressional candidate on a ballot in North Carolina, according to Richard Winger of the newsletter Ballot Access News. (South Carolina is now the only state to never have an independent congressional candidate.) But Etchison’s work was just beginning.

At 38, she’s running against U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, an influential six-term Republican, and Democrat Nigel Bristow, a former New York City detective who actually lives in a neighboring district. The 9th District, spanning seven counties from Guilford to Hoke, is considered safely Republican. Donald Trump won it with more than 56 percent in 2020. 

Hudson, who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee, is heavily favored and well financed. Bristow, simply by virtue of his party identification, is guaranteed to win a share of votes.

Independent candidates like Etchison not only face hurdles getting on the ballot but lack the advantage of a party label and the support, machinery, and money that come with it. They run in districts gerrymandered for one of two major parties to win. 

Only one of North Carolina’s 14 congressional districts is considered competitive; across the country, fewer than two dozen are. A group of North Carolina voters sued this year, arguing that the state constitution implicitly requires “fair” districts. A panel of judges dismissed the suit in June.

“The political system is stacked against independents,” said Iraq veteran Paul Rieckhoff, who interviewed Etchison on his Independent Americans podcast.

In some ways, Etchison might be an ideal candidate. She served in combat in Afghanistan and Syria, broke gender barriers, retired with the rank of major and earned two graduate degrees from Harvard. Like a third of the voters in her district and a plurality in the state, she’s registered as unaffiliated. She and her husband, a former Air Force fighter pilot, live in Moore County. 

Although a longtime Republican in her native Florida, she now calls herself a “proud centrist” in a country where polls show more and more voters dissatisfied with binary options. She wants to give voters a choice not confined by the two-party system.

But analysts give her little chance. Critics go even further. They say she’s deceiving donors by asking them to fund a hopeless campaign. “She’s literally lying to people if she tells them she has a chance,” said Larry Shaheen, a Republican strategist. “She has zero chance of winning. She should be held liable in court.”

Andrew Yang, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, disagrees. Etchison is among the 19 congressional candidates that his centrist Forward Party has endorsed. 

“The truth is that Americans are much more varied … than just ‘Team Red’ or ‘Team Blue,’” he said. “Most of us are ‘Team America,’ and that is the team Shelane is on. She is exactly the kind of candidate who can create real competition and choice where it otherwise would not exist.”

Seeking Taliban Targets

Etchison was a star tennis player at her central Florida high school when America was attacked on 9/11. It gave her a new focus.

“There was just this nagging sense … that I needed to be part of our country’s response,” she told the Carolina Democracy podcast. “So I took a leap of faith.” She joined the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and went on to win an ROTC scholarship to the University of Central Florida, where she rose to the top post of battalion commander.

In 2008 she was commissioned by the Army as a military police officer and sent to a base in Alaska. From there she deployed to Iraq where, at 23, she led a platoon providing security at a base in Ramadi. By 2011 she was back at what was then Fort Bragg. There she found another challenge.

The Army had a problem. Afghanistan’s cultural taboos kept troops from dealing with Afghan women, often a vital source of intelligence. U.S. women weren’t allowed in combat (and wouldn’t be until 2015). So the Army created an experimental program of “Cultural Support Teams,” which were carefully selected women who would join Army Rangers and Navy SEALS on combat missions. Etchison was one of the first 20 women chosen.

She was assigned to the Helmand province, one of Afghanistan’s most dangerous Taliban strongholds. Her two-woman team accompanied Rangers in search of “high value” targets. Etchison would approach women in search of information or hidden weapons. She helped trace and find Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets.

“Shelane definitely had the highest number of missions in our group just by nature of having more targets down there [in Helmand],” said Laura Peters, a senior Cultural Support Teams officer. “She was definitely in more intense combat situations. She quickly proved herself with the most elite special operations warriors in Afghanistan.”

Etchison’s partner in Helmand, Kristine Olsen, said, “It seemed like almost every other night we were going out on a raid. She was always trying to push and prove that women are equal to the men.”

After eight months, Etchison returned to Fort Bragg and began another arduous selection process, this time for Special Ops. In 2016, she went to northeast Syria and worked alongside female Kurdish soldiers fighting ISIS. “We lived out of Humvees, we slept in abandoned homes,” she said. “It was very like wild West-type living.”

After a subsequent deployment to Turkey and 11 total years in the Army, Etchison decided to retire. “It’s a hard profession, and you start getting a little disconnected,” she said. “You live in a bubble.” She decided to go back to school and applied to just one place: Harvard. Two weeks after leaving the Army in 2019, she was in a Cambridge classroom.

“Talk about two diametrically opposite worlds,” Etchison said. “In the military, people would look at me as maybe more on the liberal side. But at [Harvard’s] Kennedy School, I might as well have been a die-hard conservative.”

In 2020, she was named a Pat Tillman Scholar, a recognition honoring the former NFL player and Army Ranger killed in Afghanistan. By 2022, Etchison had an MBA and a master’s in public policy. That summer she returned to Iraq for a four-month stint as a consultant to the prime minister of the Kurdish regional government in Erbil.

The Independent Voter Challenge

Moments after June’s presidential debate, CNN viewers in the 9th District saw Etchison’s first TV ad. 

“The debate you’re watching is part of the problem,” she said in the ad. “Same candidates, same political parties, but not much choice for voters like us. … I’m running for Congress as an independent because Washington needs to change.”

In June, Gallup found that 51 percent of Americans identify as independent, the highest number ever recorded. Last fall the Pew Research Center found 28 percent of Americans dissatisfied with both parties, the most they’d found in three decades of polling. In North Carolina, more than 37 percent are registered as unaffiliated.

“I call it a supply-and-demand mismatch,” Etchison said. “Why are 35 percent of the people in my district registered independent? Why are 45 percent of Americans registered independent? The demand is there, but there’s so little supply of candidates. … Everything is stacked against you not to be successful.”

Etchison is counting on independent voters. But exactly how independent are they?

“Most are not,” said Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University. “Most are what we call ‘shadow partisans.’ They may not identify with a party formally, but they vote consistently with that party.”

He added that independents “are not hermetically sealed from their environments. In ‘red’ counties they tend to vote redder; in ‘blue’ counties they tend to vote bluer,” he said.

Thomas Mills, a Democrat advising her campaign, believes Etchison “is going to get the vast majority of unaffiliated voters. And I think there’s a core of dissatisfied Republican voters [for whom] Shelane is very appealing.”

It’s unclear how many disaffected Republican voters there are in the district, though former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley got 23 percent of the primary vote against Donald Trump statewide. At the same time, some of Etchison’s positions could be appealing to Democrats. For example, she supports abortion rights, backs aid to Ukraine and Israel, favors independent redistricting, and opposes book bans. 

“That’s pretty antithetical to saying you’re pro-individual liberties,” she said of abortion bans. “I trust that people know what is the best thing for them and their families. And I don’t believe there needs to be government involvement in personal decisions like that.”

Despite the spike in unaffiliated voters, North Carolina–like the rest of the country–has become more polarized. Fewer voters may actually be on the fence.

“[If] the idea is you’re going to appeal to the swing voters, I just think there aren’t that many swing voters,” said Dallas Woodhouse, former executive director of the state Republican Party.

A Different Kind of Veteran

On a hot, cloudy day in May, Etchison joined other veterans at the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in Greensboro. The event, attended by about 50 veterans, was sponsored by Veterans for Responsible Leadership and Common Defense, two anti-Trump groups.

A handful of speakers stood under a bronze statue of  Nathanael Greene, the Revolutionary War general. Each carried a sign saying either “Service Unites Us” or “Trump Divides Us.” Etchison held the former. Most speakers denounced the former president. Etchison, wearing a cap emblazoned with the state flag, talked instead about what she called “the American ideals of freedom, equality and justice.”

“For those ideals to thrive well into the future, it’s imperative that we are electing people of true leadership principles and service,” she said in measured tones. “True leaders work toward a common good. They’re humble. They’re collaborative. They’re empathetic. … They’re motivated simply to uphold the oath that they take to our Constitution, our country, and the constituents that they are supposed to serve.”

In interviews, Etchison has deflected questions about her choice for president. But after the Greensboro event, she was asked if the speakers who criticized Trump reflected her views.

“I’m not running an anti-Trump campaign,” she said. “I’m running my race. A lot of their message about Trump and what he’s said about service members, I completely agree with, about him draft-dodging and some of the things he’s done.

“Then the fact that he’s got the audacity to call service members ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’” she added. “I am very happy to stand up here and support what they’re saying regarding him on that.”

Etchison is counting on support from veterans, a key constituency in her district. There were more than 62,000 veterans in Moore and Cumberland counties in 2023, according to the N.C. Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, though not all are within the 9th District. Fayetteville, home to Fort Liberty, is the district’s largest population center.

An April report by the Pew Research Center showed that nearly two-thirds of veterans identify with or lean toward Republicans. But Jason Cain, an Army special ops vet and political science instructor at Wake Tech, said most vets are “pretty centrist.” And, he added, “Our area has a unique community that she’s definitely going to be able to tap into.”

Rieckhoff, the Iraq war vet who founded Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said there’s a grassroots network of veterans in the Fort Liberty area who support other veterans. “It’s like a giant extended family, and we look after our own.”

He said Etchison is “kind of redefining what it means to be a veteran, especially for the older generation who think every veteran is an old white guy with a VFW cap on,” he said. “She looks like a movie star. … That is undoubtedly part of her appeal, but there’s a lot of substance there.”

Financial Underdog

In 2022, the average winning House candidate spent $2.8 million, according to The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending. Etchison is far from that–and far from her GOP opponent.

Through June, Hudson had given more than $330,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee and other GOP candidates, according to Federal Election Commission records. That’s more than the $308,000 Etchison has raised, a figure that includes a $124,000 personal loan to her campaign. 

Hudson, 52, raised over $3.1 million and had $1.7 million on hand; Etchison had just $110,000. 

Democrat Bristow, 53, raised $11,000 through June but had just $860 on hand. “I’m confident we’ll reach a level to be successful,” he told The Assembly.

Mills, who ran against Hudson in 2016, argues that candidate fundraising is just part of the picture. “You’re trying to impress the donor class and hope the third parties come in,” he said. “Candidate campaigns matter less than super PACs,” which operate independently from campaigns. 

Etchison has been endorsed by Together!, a “multi-partisan” PAC focused on electing young leaders. It’s given her $1,000. Co-founder Jason Palmer, a former Microsoft executive who defeated President Joe Biden in American Samoa’s Democratic caucus this spring, said the group hopes to spend $1 million on her behalf by Election Day.

Etchison has garnered free media in terms of newspaper profiles and TV interviews. But the two TV markets that dominate the district–Raleigh and Greensboro–are expensive and may be out of reach. As she did the night of the presidential debate, she’ll try to reach voters through cable TV, social media, and direct mail.

“Everything about this race is about being the underdog, and that includes the money,” she said. “It just makes you more creative on where to get the resources and prudent about where to deploy them.”

Etchison has criticized Hudson’s 2021 vote to not uphold the results of the 2020 election, as well as his response to Trump’s criminal conviction in May. On X (formerly Twitter), Hudson called it “the most corrupt political WITCH HUNT in history.”

“Trump’s guilty verdict and Hudson’s statement showcase exactly why we need more than just two parties,” Etchison said. “One side is attacking the legal system and the other is exploiting the verdict for political gain–both are sowing mistrust in our institutions and governing bodies. This isn’t good for our country.”

She said Hudson “touts his leadership being student body class president [at UNC-Charlotte]. With all due respect, I was leading soldiers in Iraq as a 23-year-old.”

The Hudson campaign did not return phone calls or emails.

‘Exceedingly Confident’

The story of the Cultural Support Teams in Afghanistan is recounted in Ashley’s War, a 2015 book by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. It focuses on Ashley White, who lost her life in combat, but tells the stories of her teammates, including Etchison. “Confidence,” Lemmon wrote of Etchison, “had never been her issue.”

“[I]f anything, a surplus of it was usually her downfall, and she knew it. But she didn’t care. Nor did she apologize for knowing what she wanted or for possessing ambition equal to an entire class of Harvard MBAs.”

When she was young, Lemmon wrote, Etchison played manhunt in the woods with neighborhood boys. “At first,” she wrote, “[Etchison] had been deeply afraid of waiting for hours, alone in the dark, creepy woods, trying to avoid capture by the others, but she was certain the boys would look down on her and label her ‘a girl’ if she admitted to any fear. So she trained herself to show no weakness, ever.”

Laura Peters, the former officer who worked with Etchison in Afghanistan, said Etchison is “great at having the odds stacked against her. She is exceedingly confident of who she is and what she can bring to a situation.”

But running for Congress is a different situation. Although there are four Independents in the Senate, there are none in the House. David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report said scores of independents are running for Congress this year, almost all from states with easier ballot access than North Carolina. But none, he said, has a realistic chance of winning.

Still, Etchison has the confidence of someone who has bucked the odds before.

“It’s a myth that there isn’t support out there–there is,” she said. “There just isn’t yet the institutional scaffolding to help mobilize it. … If you are going to be doing big things, you have to have a little bit of delusional confidence to achieve them.”