Republican Laurie Buckhout, challenging two-term incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis in North Carolina’s biggest toss-up election, mixed family, her military career and the quest to work for veterans in advertising released Tuesday.
The retired Army colonel from Edenton is bidding to be the first Republican in 71 U.S. House elections – dating to the 1882 cycle – to win the northeastern-most congressional district in North Carolina. The 1st Congressional District was redrawn and passed into law, along with the 3rd, by state lawmakers in October to buoy the Republican chances of winning it.
A black-and-white opening has the explosions of war and a child’s voice asking, “Momma, are the bad guys trying to kill you?”
Buckhout, in the voiceover, explains she told her son she had to go stop some bad guys when she was deployed to Iraq. Then-President George W. Bush ordered troops into position in March 2003, more than a year after the Muslim militant group known as al-Qaida hijacked four commercial airliners and crashed them – two into the World Trade Center towers, one into the Pentagon, and another never making its target and falling from the sky in Shanksville, Pa.
The campaign ad images include a mortar shrapnel “from near miss on LTC Buckhout and troops” three months later in June.
“I know the high price military families pay,” Buckhout says. “We did it for 30 years. In Congress, I will show up to fight for veterans because for me, it’s personal.”
Buckhout was commissioned in 1984 after graduating from James Madison University and retired in 2010. She commanded 800 troops in a battalion task force in Iraq in the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom, an invasion also commonly known as the War on Terror.
Her husband, Paul, is also retired from the Army. The West Point graduate was an Army Infantry Airborne Ranger who served with Delta Force.
Davis earned the rank of captain before discharging in 2001 from the Air Force several months before 9/11. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1994, was commissioned as an officer and during his eight years coordinated Air Force One and congressional delegation operations at Andrews Air Force Base while also supporting military families as a mortuary officer.
Republicans’ 220-215 edge won in November 2024 is today 218-214 with one independent formerly Republican caucusing with his former party, and two vacancies. North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District is considered pivotal to Republicans retaining majority.
Beaufort, Hyde, Dare, Craven, Pamlico and Carteret counties change from the 3rd to the 1st Congressional District; Wilson, Wayne, Greene and Lenoir counties change from the 1st to the 3rd.
Buckhout was defeated by Davis 49.5%-47.8% two years ago in the state’s only U.S. House race of 14 closer than 13%.
Differentiations because of court orders have been in each map used for four of the last five congressional elections – 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022. The Legislature’s draw in 2024 was the other. The General Assembly move in October makes this the sixth consecutive different map.