Inside the Intensely Personal Battle to Be the GOP Nominee in Eastern NC

A rematch with Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis wasn’t supposed to be in the cards for Republican Army veteran Laurie Buckhout.

“I had a couple of serious health incidents during my own campaign last year, and I realized I would not be able to do it again,” she said in 2025, according to local media.

That calculus started to change after Republican state lawmakers redrew the 1st District last year to be more advantageous to the GOP starting in 2026. Then, Buckhout’s top political ally, Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson, ended his congressional bid to focus on his city’s ongoing financial crisis. Buckhout also says she felt that her health issues—kidney damage she believes resulted from burn pit exposure in Iraq—improved once she got quality care while she worked at the Pentagon last year.

So, in mid-December, she announced she was jumping into the Republican primary to take on Davis in the 2026 midterms. The five-person GOP race in the expansive Eastern North Carolina district quickly devolved into one of the most contentious political battles in the state, in what could be the only competitive House race in N.C.

After Buckhout’s entry, two candidates shared personal conversations that they hoped would take her down a notch.

“In the very first telephone conversation we had, she mentioned three times that she was not excited about running, didn’t particularly want to run, mentioned that she had health issues,” Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck told The Assembly in an interview, recounting a December call.

State Sen. Bobby Hanig of Currituck County said that around the same time, Buckhout offered him a chief of staff position if he dropped out of the race. “Laurie, I have been in this race four months,” he recalled telling her. “I have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have 165 volunteers. I have a freight train of momentum behind me. I’m in it to win.”

Buckhout’s memory of those calls is very different. 

She said she took pity on Hanig after he expressed regret for staying in the race. “I didn’t offer him chief of staff, but I said, ‘Hey, I could have a lot things open, to include chief of staff.’” 

She also said Buck called seeking her endorsement and was mischaracterizing their conversation. 

“Asa’s attacks have been relentless,” Buckhout said. “Maybe he doesn’t have a lot to offer and that’s why he’s attacking.”

In case things weren’t messy enough, Buckhout’s former campaign spokesman, Jonathan Felts, is working for a different candidate in this race, Lenoir County Commissioner Eric Rouse. Divorce attorney Ashley-Nicole Russell is also running.

Whoever comes out ahead on Tuesday could be the first Republican to hold the 1st District seat since 1883. A runoff election could take place in the GOP primary if no candidate secures more than 30% of the vote, though that appears unlikely based on the polling so far.

Tariff Trouble

In 2024, Davis squeaked out a 1.7-point win over Buckhout in the state’s only congressional tossup. Republicans redrew the district to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. President Donald Trump would have won the new district by 11.6 percentage points.

Historically, midterms bode poorly for the party that holds the White House and Congress. Democrats are expected to spend heavily to help Davis defend his seat. Republicans, meanwhile, are jockeying to present themselves as the most aligned with Trump’s agenda.

That was on display during a debate last week, when four candidates (Russell was excluded because of low poll numbers) praised the president for imposing sweeping tariffs on imports from other countries. Even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the following day that Trump had exceeded his legal authority, top candidates reaffirmed their support in interviews with The Assembly.

“President Trump should have the authority,” Buckhout said. “I don’t think that this ruling really reflects the will of the people right now. We’ve been taken advantage of for decades with unfair trade practices, and this is putting America back on an equal footing.”

Hanig said that while the court’s ruling must be respected, lawmakers should work with the president to implement his tariffs. “I would hope that Congress would support the president in the tariffs,” he said.

Buck said during the debate that farmers hurt by tariffs are willing to accept some short-term pain.

“The folks that I talked to understand that there has to be some short-term pinch in order to effect a long-term gain and level the playing field so that we can have equality across our markets,” Buck said.

Estimates from the Tax Foundation, a conservative-leaning organization that favors deregulation and lower taxes, show Trump’s tariffs represented an effective $1,000 tax on the average U.S. household last year. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the remaining tariffs could represent an additional $400 hit to households this year, according to the group.

Davis could point to this pocketbook impact in the general election. But it’s unlikely to turn off primary voters.

“We are in a primary-first world,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist who grew up in North Carolina and worked on three successful U.S. Senate campaigns in the state.

An Emerson College poll conducted this month found that nearly 81% of likely Republican primary voters saw the tariffs as more beneficial than harmful to the economy. The same poll showed Buck and Buckhout neck and neck, with Hanig trailing in third. 

The poll, however, referred to Hanig by his first name, Robert, and not his widely known nickname, which will be listed on the ballot. Rouse and Russell both polled in single digits, while more than a third of voters in the survey were undecided.

‘Deceptive’ Tactics

Anyone in the northeastern part of the state who has watched television in the past month would probably be surprised to learn that Trump hasn’t actually weighed in on this race.

In a widely aired ad that also has nearly 1 million views on YouTube, it takes all of four seconds for Buckhout to leave the impression that she has the president’s backing. Trump appears in the ad five more times expressing his support for the Army veteran.

“She has been great,” Trump says of Buckhout. 

Cut to image of the two standing together giving the president’s signature thumbs-up.

Cut to image of Trump saluting Buckhout onstage at a rally. 

“This is a fantastic woman,” Trump says.

The clips are from 2024. Buckhout says they’re not misleading; she told The Assembly she has never claimed Trump endorsed her this cycle and noted that she’s proud to have been a presidential appointee.

The ad reflects Buckhout’s substantial financial edge over her competitors. She loaned her campaign $2 million and reported having nearly five times as much available cash as all her opponents combined as of February 11. That could help in a district that now encompasses 23 counties and parts of two others; even her opponents currently in office have only represented a small share of the electorate.

Buck and Hanig insist their long ties to the district will ultimately prove successful. Buck has been a sheriff for nearly 20 years, and he is leaning on his public safety record. 

“They run slick-looking ads,” Buck said of Buckhout’s team. “They run deceptive ads on television, and they pump a lot of money into campaigns and things like that. They think that’s what it takes to get elected. And that’s not the way we campaign. We campaign on grassroots.”

Hanig, meanwhile, is in his eighth year as a state lawmaker, and he says he’s the only one with a track record. 

“I’ve passed legislation to keep men out of women’s sports,” Hanig said. “I passed legislation to keep men out of women’s bathrooms. I passed legislation for our veterans. I passed legislation for our health care issues. I’m not talking about doing it. I’ve done it.”

While Buckhout won the GOP primary two years ago, she hasn’t lived in the district as long as her competitors. (However, she was the only candidate at last week’s debate who directly answered a question about her favorite local barbecue establishment.)  

In 2019, Buckhout sold her military advising company, Corvus Consulting, for $9 million. Two years later, she moved from Virginia to a $2.7 million home in Edenton along the Albemarle Sound. After losing to Davis, she went to work on cyber policy at the Department of Defense, though she kept her home in Edenton and remained registered to vote in North Carolina.

“It’s nothing but ego,” Hanig said of Buckhout’s motivations. “Her interest is not Eastern North Carolina. She’s lived in Eastern North Carolina for five years. She has spent the last three trying to get to D.C.”

Buckhout has cited her military service and experience consulting on electronic warfare and cyberspace operations as evidence of why she’s best positioned to represent the district. 

“Veterans can certainly find something in me that they can relate to,” Buckhout said. “I think I’m relatable to so many people across the district, and I have vast experience that’s really going to help so many more when I get up to the Hill.”

She also insists she’s much healthier than she was in the 2024 election.

“I’ve been confirmed as 100% healthy by the president’s own physicians at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center,” Buckhout said. “That’s where he gets his care. That’s where I got my care.”