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Army veteran Laurie Buckhout won a hotly contested Republican primary in the 1st Congressional District on Tuesday. She’ll now advance to a rematch with Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis in which she hopes to become the first Republican to hold the seat since 1883.
Buckhout edged out Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck, state Sen. Bobby Hanig of Currituck County, Lenoir County Commissioner Eric Rouse, and divorce attorney Ashley-Nicole Russell.
“I spent my career as a U.S. Army Colonel leading troops in combat and defending this country,” Buckhout said in a statement Tuesday. “Now I’m ready to take that same mission-first leadership to Washington.”
Buckhout spent heavily on the race, including a $2 million personal loan to her campaign. Ads touted her military service, cyber policy work last year in the Trump administration’s Department of Defense, and the president’s embrace of her in the 2024 general election.
Buck and Hanig both unsuccessfully sought to present themselves as better representatives of local voters, highlighting their longstanding ties to the district compared to the five years Buckhout has lived in the state since selling a Virginia-based military consulting company.
Buckhout narrowly lost to Davis in 2024, but Republican state lawmakers last year redrew the district from a tossup to an area that President Donald Trump would have won by 11.6 percentage points.
Even so, the general election contest between Buckhout and Davis is one of a few dozen competitive seats nationwide and is widely seen as North Carolina’s most competitive congressional race.
Buckhout has pledged to support Trump’s tariffs and said she trusts the president’s foreign policy in Iran. She also said she’ll prioritize economic development across the district.
“The Republican Party has become the party of the working man and woman, and we’re going to be working to relieve working families of some of the government overreach that’s making their lives harder,” Buckhout told The Assembly last month.