District parties search for stability as congressional race looms
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Both major parties in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District have for years been plagued by political instability.
Chairs come and go, strategies collapse as quickly as they form while rank-and-file party faithful are left scrambling.
But as the 2026 General Election draws closer — one in which Democrats believe they have their best shot yet at unseating Republican incumbent Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson) — signs point to Democrats finally beginning to steady themselves, even as Republicans appear to be faltering.
The work of a district chair goes far beyond ceremony. Usually, their main job is to hold an annual convention and do the business of the congressional district at that meeting, sometimes electing officers and sometimes electing delegates to the national convention but always keeping voters and volunteers connected and informed.
Beth Jones, a veterinarian who grew up in Asheville and lived in rural Caldwell County but now calls Haywood County home, said she intends to end the cycle of frequent resignations that has defined district Democratic leadership for at least a decade.
“So the first thing I’m going to do is, I’m going to stay,” Jones told The Smoky Mountain News Sept. 4, shortly after she was elected by acclimation to fill the remaining term of the previous chair who resigned in the aftermath of a dispute over the annual NC-11 gala’s keynote speaker.
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Jones, who has worked in party politics for decades and served as a delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, explained why stability has been so elusive.
“Part of the issue is that these jobs are big jobs. I mean, there’s a lot of work that goes with it, and it’s unpaid volunteer work. And I think in districts that are as red as ours have been, putting in all that work to not be victorious at election time — I think that’s why it makes it hard to get people in,” she said.
Her perspective as a Haywood County resident also gives her a different vantage point in a sprawling congressional district that can sometimes struggle to balance the priorities of its largest block of voters in Asheville with those of the rural far west, echoing state party Chair Anderson Clayton’s rural focus.
“I enjoy talking to folks out in the country too,” Jones said. “I feel like they’re my people, and I like them. I’m hoping maybe that will open some doors for us further out in those rural those rural towns.”
As for 2026, Jones pointed to the economy and democracy itself as central concerns. “Just being able to go the grocery store and buy what you need and afford your rent or pay your home mortgage, these are just basic things that I think people are very, very concerned about,” she said. On democracy, she was blunt, sharpening her point with a metaphor.
“I’ve used the analogy that I feel like sometimes we’re playing Chutes and Ladders and the Republicans are playing rugby,” Jones said. “We tend to be people who care about justice and fairness. I think we’ve got to get tougher, we’ve got to fight the same battle on the same ground that they are. I feel pretty strongly about that. I hope to be playing rugby in this match.”
Her decision to lead again, she said, was motivated by opportunity. “We have the first real chance of winning this seat that we have in a while. And for my community, for my kids, I’m going to do it.”
Edwards’ legacy through his first two terms has been one of failure; he failed to do anything to prevent the closing of the Pactiv Evergreen paper mill in Canton in 2023, failed to advocate for national parks funding — leading to a parking fee for the first time in the park’s nine-decade history — failed to stand up for benefits and medical care owed to seniors and veterans and, most recently, failed to secure adequate recovery funding for a major hurricane that, when it comes to North Carolina, almost solely affected his congressional district. As a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, Edwards has sown division by supporting Trump’s culture war and has also stood by in silence as Trump’s tariffs increase costs for working families and drive manufacturing jobs out of the country.
As of April 3, the Cook Partisan Voting Index for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District is R+5, indicating it is only 5 percentage points more Republican than the national average in the last two presidential elections. Nonpartisan redistricting website davesredistricting.org puts the district at just 53.8% Republican.
Jones said the key to beating Edwards is not just longevity, but cultivation.
“We get a good person on board and then we just kind of work them to death,” she said. “And I think maybe getting some younger people in to kind of apprentice, I’m kind of looking into that possibility as we go forward.”
Haywood County’s Jesse Ross may just be one of those people. After serving in various roles in the party’s young Democrats wing, including as a 2024 Kamala Harris delegate, Ross is running for first vice chair and agreed the party must balance urban and rural voices. So far, he’s unopposed.
“Since Haywood County is kind of booming in attention, both of us being from here know what it’s like not to receive that from the party at large,” Ross said.
Buncombe Democrats, Ross added, must not be neglected but also must recognize their privilege.
“The Buncombe County machine, it’s better set up to do what they need to do, so if they do what they need to do, then it opens up us to focus on the counties that need that moral support,” he said. “In general, I do trust that to happen.”
Ross also spoke directly to the importance of a well-oiled congressional district parties.
“It’s about how you devote your time outside of the party politics and keep focused on those actual electoral wins,” he said. “How do you change the narrative of the party in your district, if it needs to be changed? And maybe more importantly, are you paying attention to what is actually happening in your district, and are you taking that up to the state party? Are you bringing those issues to your congressional candidates, and are you bugging them about those until they give you an answer on how they’re going to address them?”
For Jones, the possibility of unseating Edwards is a unifying force. “Flipping this seat helps the entire country, right? So it matters. It really matters.”
With Jones at the helm and Ross seeking to join her, NC-11 Democrats appear to be inching toward the stability that has long evaded them. For Republicans, however, the picture looks far less certain. In April, 11th District Republicans ousted incumbent chair Michele Woodhouse in favor of former Henderson County Republican Party Chair Merry Guy.
Woodhouse had previously served as district chair from 2021 until she stepped down to run in the 2022 Republican Congressional Primary Election that saw then-state Sen. Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson) narrowly beat Congressman Madison Cawthorn. Edwards went on to defeat Buncombe County Democrat Jasmine Beach-Ferrara in the General Election by more than nine points, and Woodhouse was reelected chair on Dec. 9, 2023. Woodhouse could not have foreseen the challenges ahead, but by most accounts rose to meet them.
While Edwards’ seat wasn’t thought to be at risk in 2024, North Carolina Republicans were working to deliver the state for former president Donald Trump, who’d won North Carolina in 2020 by just 1.34 points, and for Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who was running for governor against then-Attorney General Josh Stein.
They were ultimately successful with Trump and several other important council of state offices, but not with Robinson, Lt. Gov. nominee Hal Weatherman or Attorney General nominee Dan Bishop. Just over a month before the General Election, however, Hurricane Helene not only disrupted lives and livelihoods, it also created significant challenges for voters displaced by the storm and for voters who dodged damage but were left with polling places that had been destroyed.
“Without Western North Carolina, there was no path to victory, not only for [Trump], but also for local races and statewide races,” Woodhouse told The Smoky Mountain News in January, just prior to Trump’s Inauguration. “The 11th Congressional District was the model for the NCGOP on how nothing can stand in the way of getting people to the polls.”
Woodhouse spent a lot of time on the phone with state party leaders, legislators in the General Assembly and county party chairs to ensure voters — all voters — were kept abreast of the changing landscape.
In the end, voter turnout actually increased in hard-hit Haywood County. Although turnout among registered voters was slightly down in even harder-hit Buncombe County, slightly more people voted in that election than did in 2020.
C. Edmund Wright, a longtime political activist and author at Breitbart who’d also written for conservative icon Rush Limbaugh, said that kind of relentless visibility was no accident.
“If you were in a laboratory trying to design someone for that position, Michele [Woodhouse] is what you’d come up with,” Wright said. “She’s very passionate, her understanding of the national media but also understanding the weeds on the ground is pretty phenomenal.”
That combination of energy and savvy, Wright said, created what campaigns call “earned media” — free publicity that can help drive turnout in close contests and shape narratives far beyond the district itself.
“Proactive is everything, and that’s where Michele’s energy and her persistence is so critical,” he said. “She can do an interview at three in the morning. You wake her up one minute later, she’s ready to go. She can make your district relevant or not. Right now, it’s an invisible district. You know, with Michele, it wouldn’t be an invisible district.”
With Woodhouse gone and Guy now at the helm, Republicans face questions about whether they can sustain that level of attention.
Guy hasn’t had the presence of Woodhouse and hasn’t returned calls from SMN since her election earlier this year. During the flap over the NC-11 Democratic gala that led to the resignation of the previous Dem chair, one Democrat told SMN at the time that they were glad Woodhouse was no longer running the party at that time because “she would have been all over us.”
Republican leaders in NC-11, speaking on background, chalked up much of Woodhouse’s opposition to a spat over the party plan of organization. Woodhouse, along with others, championed a re-write that would have made the state party more of a bottom-up party rather than a top-down party. One called Guy’s election a “short-sighted coup,” and said it’s led to an “enthusiasm gap” now apparent in meeting attendance and frequency.
Harvey Sankey, a precinct chair in Transylvania County and member of the NC-11 GOP executive committee, voiced deep dissatisfaction with current district leadership under Guy. He contrasted her methods with Woodhouse’s, saying that she brought a practical approach that Guy just doesn’t have. As an example, Sankey cited Zoom meetings Guy’s had that are less about business and more about conversation.
“We should have a business meeting like Michele always had, and we should come up with some plans, some motions or whatsoever, that’s needed to direct District 11 and the counties in District 11,” Sankey said. “I don’t see that hands-on approach with Mary, compared to Michele’s hands-on approach.”
Sankey added that he felt Guy’s performance could hurt party performance at the polls and that Guy was only elected to satisfy the Henderson County faction of the district party.
“She’s aligning herself with the establishment of the Republican Party in North Carolina, and I’m against the establishment,” Sankey said. “I think if she continues in that mode, that she shouldn’t run again.”
That enthusiasm gap could prove costly, although probably not for Edwards. Despite Democratic assertions to the contrary, Edwards appears to be in the driver’s seat in NC-11, which produces tens of thousands of Republican votes Edwards doesn’t necessarily need to return to Washington every two years. In 2022, that was more than 30,000 votes. In 2024, it was nearly 60,000 votes.
The people who do need those votes, however, are Republicans down east running in statewide races. As Republicans look to 2026 and a Senate race that will likely include Cooper — who has never lost an election — likely GOP nominee Michael Whatley will need every single one of those votes. If NC-11 fails, so does Whatley.
The same goes for 2028, when Republicans will get their first crack at Democratic Gov. Stein and will again attempt to deliver the state for a Republican presidential nominee while also seeking to reclaim a state legislative supermajority, to retain the council of state seats they won and to reclaim the ones they didn’t.
“All those things are so important,” Wright said. “It’s why you need to drive every single message you can out there, because it just may not keep a Republican in NC-11, but by God, you just never know where you’re going to need those other votes.”
Sankey thinks he knows who that messenger should be.
“I think Michele should run again, if she wants to,” he said. “It’s a tough job. It’s a hard job, but I think she’s up to it, and I’ve seen her in action before, and I think she should run again.”
The Primary Election will be held on March 3, 2026, with the General Election taking place on Nov. 3, 2026.
