Sensing opportunity, Dems lining up to run against Edwards
Democrats from across Western North Carolina traveled to Haywood County for the 11th Congressional District convention on May 10. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Henderson County Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards’ repeated failures on economic policy, entitlement programs and Hurricane Helene recovery have left him vulnerable, according to a slew of Democrats who are now competing for the right to run against him in 2026.
Last week, The Smoky Mountain News was first to report on the entry of retired Air Force Col. Moe Davis into the race. Since then, three more candidates have popped up, all of whom attended the North Carolina Democratic Party’s 11th Congressional District convention at Tuscola High School in Waynesville on May 10.
ZELDA BRIARWOOD
Briarwood lives just outside the Canton city limits and works in banking equipment service and maintenance — including ATMs and vaults — throughout Western North Carolina. She said her job gave her a front-row seat to the damage caused by Hurricane Helene, and to what she sees as a failure of political leadership in the region.
“After Helene, I was very, very busy for several months trying to make sure that the ATMs were up and running, because there were so many power surges and whatnot, and I saw a lot of the devastation,” she said.
Originally from just outside Philadelphia, Briarwood moved to North Carolina at age 18 and has split time between the two states since she was 13. Briarwood, who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community, currently serves as secretary of the Haywood County Young Democrats and is active in the 11th District’s youth outreach. She said she sees herself as part of a new generation of young, rural, working-class candidates touted by State Party Chair Anderson Clayton — originally from rural Person County and herself one of the youngest state party chairs in North Carolina history.
“It is older white males, and mostly people above the age of 40 — mostly 50, if I’m remembering my statistics correctly,” Briarwood said. “We don’t have enough young people to advocate and actually show up and represent.”
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Briarwood said she was moved to run after watching Edwards’ performance during a recent town hall.
“I am currently watching — I think we all are — the fall of our democracy and an administration that actually does not care about the people,” she said. “What really solidified it for me was Chuck Edwards’ interactions with the public during the town hall [in Asheville on March 13]. It was frustrating to see someone not actually being authentic and not actually caring about the people, just kind of using buzzwords and not engaging with anyone in a human-to-human interaction, which I feel like is what’s missing from a lot of our political officials and public servants.”
Edwards’ biggest failure in Congress, Briarwood said, has been “not actually doing his job.”
“Especially when it comes to the legislative branch — [which is] supposed to be checks and balances for the executive branch — he straight up, with the continuing resolution, abdicated his responsibility, along with a bunch of other Republicans, on making sure that we can hold the executive branch accountable.”
Although she credited Edwards with advocating for Helene recovery efforts, Briarwood said his actions didn’t go far enough. In March, an investigation by The Smoky Mountain News revealed that six months after Helene, most local governments still haven’t seen a nickel of promised federal monies.
“At the end of the day, while he did start advocating for us in that disaster moment, we’re not really seeing much from it,” she said. “And it very much frustrates me that we need a disaster in order to see that behavior from legislators.”
She also criticized Edwards’ embrace of Trump’s political platform. At the recent North Carolina Republican Party Convention, also held at Tuscola High School on April 26, Edwards, in a speech, described the Trump agenda as “your agenda.”
“Absolutely not. It is not my agenda. I do not believe it is at all indicative of what the people want,” Briarwood said. “They want legislators that are going to be accountable to them.”
As for funding, Briarwood said her campaign is fully grassroots.
“I know I’m fighting an uphill battle,” she said. “The people’s support is what needs to come first. I would rather have less money and be able to advocate for the people properly than take a bunch of money from lobbyists and super PACs.”
CHRIS HARJES
Harjes, a nurse practitioner, real estate investor and self-proclaimed “political nobody” from Asheville, has launched his own grassroots campaign for Congress in the 11th, joining an expanding field.
“I’m a husband, father, nurse practitioner, business owner, seasoned whitewater kayaker, struggling beginner guitarist and brand spanking new politician,” Harjes said.
Harjes said his motivation for entering politics came from frustration with the increasingly toxic national discourse.
“I am somewhat terrified by the partisan vitriol, the dark money, the billionaires who’ve teamed up to mislead America and tear our nation apart,” he said. “I want to see us working together. The edges of both parties are drowning out the middle. I want to see us working together as a nation, and I want to do it under the Democratic banner, because I have faith in the core ideals of the Democratic Party.”
Asked why voters should fire Edwards, Harjes didn’t mince words.
“He has either directly voted for or allowed to happen quite a few pieces of legislation and actions that have pulled billions of dollars out of the North Carolina economy in order to provide more tax breaks for billionaires,” he said.
Harjes called Edwards “a slave” to the current administration who can destroy his political career with a single tweet.
“His hands are tied. He can’t defend North Carolina. He can’t help us,” Harjes said. “I would step in, listen to the people of Western North Carolina and represent us with practical policy that makes our country safer, wealthier and happier.”
He cited Edwards’ appearance alongside Donald Trump in Swannanoa after the devastating Hurricane Helene as the congressman’s biggest misstep.
“I think it was when he was standing next to Trump in Swannanoa while Trump lambasted the very agency that was stepping in trying to save us from the destruction of Helene,” he said.
At that event, Edwards also stood right behind Trump as Trump spread lies about what was happening in Western North Carolina — lies that Edwards had actually tried to debunk previously.
Again, Harjes hinted at Edwards walking a fine line, trying to do what he can for his district while also trying to avoid the ire of a finicky president with a mercurial temper.
“My only big objection to what he’s doing now is lying,” Harjes said. “He doesn’t need to lie to the American people. He doesn’t need to lie to Western North Carolina. He needs to just tell us that he’s between a rock and a hard place and that he can’t help us as long as Trump is his boss.”
Launching a competitive campaign in the district won’t come cheap. Moe Davis raised nearly $2.5 million in his first go-round with Madison Cawthorn in 2020, and said he expects it will take at least $3 million to run a competitive campaign against Edwards this time.
“I’ve started out by hitting up close friends and family, putting in some of my own money,” Harjes said. “I’m going to use that to get the campaign going right now — to run attack ads against Chuck within the next month and use that as leverage to start chipping away at his paradoxical popularity within the Republican Party. I’m also going to use that to leverage continued donations.”
A seasoned whitewater kayaker, Harjes will inevitably draw comparisons to 2022 Dem Congressional Primary Candidate Katie Dean, who pulled a respectable 26% of the vote in a field of six but finished well behind eventual nominee Jasmine Beach-Ferrara. Harjes, however, offered up one idea for a campaign stunt that Dean never did.
“If I have to scream about Chuck Edwards’ failures while swimming over a waterfall wearing an American flag swimsuit to get America’s attention and get our message across — I will do it,” he said.
But Harjes also acknowledged criticism about a potential land-mine in his own campaign — his work flipping homes in a region where some speculate that housing costs are driven up by corporate landlords and speculators.
“They’re not completely wrong,” he said. “Our industry is here to make money. However, the way we make money is by providing housing. When I buy a house that’s beat up and destroyed and then fix it and resell it, it’s because nobody wanted to buy it the way it was. So I am providing a service, a necessary service.”
Those experiences, he said, gave him more insight into the real reasons why housing is unaffordable across the region, the state and the country. Local regulations, Harjes said, drive up building costs and incentivize developers to build luxury homes instead of affordable units.
“It’s not something I can change on the national level,” he said. “But the current tax system is far too [slanted] in our favor. In 2019, I had a great year. I had successful flips, successful builds. I worked 70 hours a week for the VA, serving veterans, and I made great money. I have a good accountant. I paid an 8% federal tax rate. I would change that. I would break down this system. We can take back this money, close these loopholes, simplify our tax system and lower your tax rates.”
MARCUS BLANKENSHIP
Blankenship, of Candler, isn’t officially in the race yet, but he’s clearly put a lot of thought into it already. A skilled trades program administrator at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, Blankenship used to teach U.S. history in high school and has a clear vision of what Democrats are, were and one day could be again.
“I think of myself as an ‘old school’ Democrat,” he said. “Now, when I say old school Democrat, I want to clarify — we’re talking FDR, JFK, right? I’m not talking Strom Thurmond.”
His website labels him a New Deal Democrat, putting him in line to support Roosevelt-era policies like active federal intervention in the economy, extensive social safety net programs and a laser-focus on America’s working class.
Blankenship said he’s begun talking with Democratic voters across the district to gauge support and plans to make a final decision by the end of the summer.
“Right now, my goal is to get out to meet my fellow Democrats, talk about who I am, and ask them if they feel like they can get behind me as a candidate with the goal of making that official decision of really jumping into this race or saying, ‘You know what, I don’t think it’s my time,’” he said.
Originally from the far southern end of the Appalachian Mountains in northern Alabama, Blankenship noted that the values that define his political philosophy — “faith, fairness, dignity, and opportunity” — were passed down through his own family history.
“My great-grandfather had to drop out of school in the sixth grade to go work in the same mines that had disabled his father,” he said. “He was a Democrat because of the New Deal … the Democratic Party, with FDR, offered the people a bold vision that met the moment. And on top of that, they had the gumption and the strength of will to go out and fight for it.”
Conversely, Blankenship said that for the first time in history, Republicans are “pulling back” from what really made America exceptional — not a blind belief that America was always perfect, but rather that each generation has found a way to expand what it means to be an American.
Blankenship also took aim at Edwards’ support for stripping away health care protections, calling it hypocritical for a member of Congress — who enjoys premium taxpayer-funded health care — to oppose the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion and Medicare protections.
“Everything that he says, he’s saying it to us, and then he’s going to D.C. and he’s doing the exact opposite,” he said. “Chuck Edwards acts like he is a part of our community, yet he’s gone to Congress to be a rubber stamp for corporate elites on Wall Street and in D.C., and I think that’s his biggest weakness — he’s not one of us.”
If launched, Blankenship’s campaign will focus not just on economics and policy but also on restoring a sense of unity and common purpose. The heart of his message, he said, is about building community across differences and remembering shared identities — especially that of the American worker.
If he could pick a campaign theme song, he said, it would be “Crowded table,” originally by Americana supergroup The Highwomen.
“All of us are united in an identity as a worker,” he said. “All of our identities matter, but we all share that common working-class identity. And if we can start to remember the things that we share in common, we can start to re-knit the New Deal coalition back together, right here in the 11th District of North Carolina.”
MORE?
Although Briarwood, Davis and Harjes all appear to be in the race, with Blankenship still debating, the candidate filing period doesn’t begin until Dec. 1, leaving plenty of time for others to consider their own options.
Sources within the Democratic Party told SMN they expect more candidates, perhaps many more, indicating a level of enthusiasm that’s either naively optimistic or keenly intuitive.
A combination of factors could favor the latter theory — the president’s party often loses ground in midterm elections, the Cook Political Report rates the district R+5, and data from davesredistricting.org shows the 11th performed at 53.8% for Republicans between 2016 and 2022. Meanwhile, frequent protests have been targeting both Trump and Edwards, even in small, rural communities across the district.
