Balkcom to Replace Edwards as GOP Candidate for 11th District

A committee of Western North Carolina Republicans on Monday night tapped state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom to replace U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards on the ballot in the 11th District.

Balkcom enters one of the most competitive congressional races in the country a mere 85 days before Election Day and less than a month before ballots begin going out to voters on September 4. The last-minute campaign presents a challenge for Republicans trying to hold a seat that Democratic farmer and businessman Jamie Ager is looking to flip.

“Rest assured, I will work every single day between now and Election Day to earn the votes of our friends and neighbors,” Balkcom said in a statement Monday night. “Our region is incredibly strong and resilient, and I plan to be the fighter everyone who calls Western North Carolina home deserves.”

An Edwards replacement may not be welcome news for Democrats. Edwards had been mired in controversy in recent months over allegations of inappropriate behavior with staff members, which outside observers saw contributing to a tightening race.

A 25-page House Ethics Committee report released last week concluded there was substantial evidence Edwards sexually harassed two of his young female staff members. While the committee found no evidence he had engaged in sexual activity with the staffers or explicitly propositioned them, it recommended he be censured.

The report laid out examples of Edwards sending lavish gifts to his female staffers, including jewelry totaling more than $1,000, designer purses, guns, shoes, flowers, a laptop, cell phone, KitchenAid mixer, robotic vacuum, vacations, tickets to performances, and one-on-one dinners. In one instance, Edwards sent a staffer 30 containers of ice cream. 

Multi-Day Frenzy

Within 48 hours of the report becoming public, a number of Republican colleagues, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, urged Edwards to abandon his reelection bid, his political adviser Paul Shumaker told PBS NC. Edwards announced he was dropping out in a social media post early last Wednesday. 

The move set off a multi-day frenzy in conservative circles over who should replace the two-term congressman on the November ballot. Balkcom told The Assembly last week that she wouldn’t pursue the seat and would instead back state Sen. Tim Moffitt. Over the weekend, Moffitt said he had decided against running, making Balkcom the heir apparent.

“I hadn’t planned to go to Washington. But I’ve learned throughout my life that when your community needs you, you don’t sit on the sidelines; you step up,” she wrote on Facebook late Sunday.

Five other Republicans made bids to replace Edwards, including three of his former primary opponents: Matthew Burril and Kristie Sluder from 2022 and Christian Reagan from 2024. Ken McKim, who briefly ran for Congress in 2022, and Chad Nesbitt, president of SKYline News, an Asheville-based group that shares news to its more than 90,000 Facebook followers, also vied for the seat.

Ager has remained bullish on his prospects, regardless of who would take over as the GOP nominee.

“No matter who we face in November, I’m confident we can win this race and deliver what I’ve been talking about since day one: Hurricane Helene recovery, lower costs, and an end to the corruption in Washington,” he said in a statement last week.

A Rising Star

Balkcom is a lifelong Henderson County resident who grew up on her family farm and developed an interest in business. After graduating from high school in 1997, she worked her way up to a position as bank branch manager and earned an associate’s degree from Blue Ridge Community College in 2016, according to her LinkedIn page. She is now a loan officer for the mortgage company ALCOVA. 

Balkcom hasn’t always been a Republican. According to state voting records, she changed her party affiliation from Libertarian to Democrat in 2005, and then switched to Republican in 2016. Voting records show she cast a ballot in the 2012 and 2016 Democratic primaries, but has voted in GOP primaries since 2020. She said in the statement Monday that the Democratic Party “left me behind when they abandoned their values and embraced extremism.”

When Moffitt left the state House to run for Senate in 2022, Balkcom vied for his seat. She won the primary by 1.2 percentage points, or 158 votes.

She quickly became a rising star in the GOP. She has sponsored 30 bills that have become law, including seven for which she was the primary author. 

One of the first bills she introduced was the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which says “athletic teams designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex,” as defined by “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The measure ultimately became law over the objection of former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Three Democrats supported the proposal, including two of Balkcom’s House colleagues in a veto override.

Last year, she expanded on that with a sweeping bill called “Prevent Sexual Exploitation of Women and Minors,” which became law over the objection of Democratic Gov. Josh Stein after one House Democrat supported an override.

The law requires that public school students share sleeping quarters with members of their biological sex on field trips or other settings, unless parents have consented or the students are immediate family members. It also requires districts to make a list of book titles available to the public and let parents block their children from borrowing specific books. The measure also bars state funds from being used to support prisoners seeking gender-affirming care.

Nearly all the other laws Balkcom spearheaded passed with little controversy. That includes a recent bill to prevent businesses and governments from adversarial foreign countries from buying farmland within 50 miles of a military installation. She also led efforts to provide additional funds for Hurricane Helene recovery and cleanup. Balkcom has also signed onto a resolution calling for congressional term limits.

Of the 785 votes she’s taken this session, Balkcom has only bucked the GOP majority once, on a minor traffic control bill that all other House members supported.

Uphill Battle

If Republicans want to hold onto a district that Trump carried in 2024 by nearly 9.5 percentage points, Balkcom will need substantial support.

She’s not a prolific fundraiser, raising less than $38,000 for her legislative campaign so far this year; her Democratic opponent Lynne Russo raised $48,000. 

Ager, meanwhile, entered July with almost $2.2 million in available cash and the support of national Democrats eager to pick up a seat. 

Under state law, political parties must submit a replacement nominee to the State Board of Elections by August 20 to ensure their name gets on the ballot.

While Balkcom should easily meet that deadline, her ascent leaves little time for Republicans to pick someone to replace her in the House District 117 contest. 

Under state law, an executive committee of Henderson County Republicans who reside in the district will select a replacement. If they don’t do so by August 20, there is some wiggle room for the state board to accept the request before mail-in ballots go out on September 4.

Balkcom can remain in the legislature while running for Congress, as her term expires at the end of 2026. Lawmakers aren’t scheduled to return to Raleigh until after the November election.