Rep. Richard Hudson, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, spent his birthday on Wednesday conceding to his Democratic opponent.
It’s a loss that captures just how badly the election went for Hudson’s party, given that he was tasked with defending the Republican majority in the House.
“God is sovereign over my life, and He has a plan for all of us,” Hudson said in a statement. “In the words of Ronald Reagan: we lost a skirmish, but the battle goes on.”
His loss emphasized the major gains made by Democrats: Republicans drew Hudson’s district to be a safe-red seat in the 2024 election, which he won by 20 percentage points.
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“It’s hard to think of a better poster child for the Democratic wave than the chairman of the [NRCC] losing a district that was drawn to be impervious to Democratic waves,” Asher Hildebrand, a North Carolina Democratic strategist, told The Washington Sun.
The race was widely seen as solidly in Hudson’s favor, but his campaign reserved tens of thousands of dollars in TV ad buys in the district in early October in a tacit admission that he anticipated trouble in a national environment that favored Democrats.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also targeted Hudson’s district on its optimistic “districts in play” list. Last month, the flagship Democratic House super PAC told donors that “more expansion seats,” including Hudson’s, were “within reach.”
Richard Ojeda, the Democrat on track to win Hudson’s seat, spent 24 years in the U.S. Army, including time at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, which is in the district. He ran on a progressive platform, telling local TV station WXII that the United States should provide universal health care and forgive college student loans. Ojeda raised $2.9 million this cycle, lagging behind Hudson’s $4.2 million.
Hildebrand said Hudson’s loss may speak more to national trends than to the lawmaker’s own shortcomings.
“I can’t point to a single misstep that Hudson has made other than the collective misstep that Republicans may have made by overestimating the broader environment in their favor,” Hildebrand said.
A year ago, North Carolina’s Republican-led Legislature once again redrew Democratic Rep. Don Davis’ congressional district with the intention of bringing “an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation,” as one state Republican lawmaker said at the time. Republicans hoped that the newest version of the map would give their party 11 of the state’s 14 seats, despite how competitive the state is more broadly.
Instead, Davis’ opponent conceded Tuesday night in what AdImpact called the most expensive House general election on record, and Democrats were on track to win as many as nine other House seats in the state. They also recaptured a U.S. Senate seat.
As of Wednesday evening, The Associated Press had yet to call 10 North Carolina U.S. House races, including Hudson’s. But with the state reporting unofficial results from 100% of precincts, incumbent Republican Reps. Addison McDowell and Brad Knott conceded their races and Rep. Tim Moore appeared to be on track to lose.
At least four races could land within the 1% margin needed for a candidate to ask for a recount. Those were the races in the districts represented by Republican Reps. Virginia Foxx, Pat Harrigan, Greg Murphy and David Rouzer.
None of those races were widely considered competitive until Tuesday night. To many observers’ surprise, Democrats also won control of the state House and broke the GOP supermajority in the state Senate. That supermajority had previously allowed the Legislature to override the veto of enfeebled Democratic governors.
In an election night interview with CBS News, outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) said Democrats didn’t win those races so much as Republicans lost them.
“I think probably the spreading out of some of our Republican base with redistricting, which I said was a bad idea … with this wave trend we see tonight, I think it’s putting some what I thought were safer races, even in North Carolina, at risk, and that’s unfortunate,” Tillis said.
Tillis did not run for reelection this year, and former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper handily defeated President Donald Trump’s chosen candidate, Michael Whatley, in the U.S. Senate race.
Democrats also won the two races that were anticipated to be competitive: Davis kept his seat and Jamie Ager was projected to defeat Jennifer Balkcom to flip Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards’ seat.
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