2 North Carolina House Races Democrats Are Contesting
Two North Carolina congressional races sit at the center of Democratic efforts to flip the House in the 2026 midterms. In the 1st District, Democratic Rep. Don Davis is running on a map drawn to push him out. In the 11th, Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards faces a well-funded challenger, NC Newsline reported.
Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics wrote that President Donald Trump’s unpopularity has created headwinds for Republican candidates as voters sour on the party in power.
NC-1: Redistricting Backfires on Republicans
North Carolina’s 1st District race puts Republican redistricting strategy on trial. The new congressional map passed by the Republican-controlled legislature was drawn explicitly to push out Rep. Don Davis, the Democratic incumbent. A Davis win would make that effort look like a miscalculation. In 2024, under the old lines, Davis beat Buckhout 49.5% to 47.8% (Ballotpedia).
Davis faces a rematch with 2024 Republican challenger Laurie Buckhout. A Libertarian candidate is also in the race, which Democrats say will split the non-Davis vote. Kondik noted that Davis “has already won a pair of tough races in different, albeit less red, versions of this seat in recent years.”
NC-11: An Incumbent With an Ethics Problem and a Fundraising Gap
Rep. Chuck Edwards faces a harder road in the 11th District. Edwards is under a House Ethics Committee inquiry over an alleged affair, which he denies. He has also struggled to raise money compared to his Democratic challenger, Jamie Ager.
Ager has strong ties to the region. His grandfather held a version of the 11th District seat in the 1980s, and he has posted strong fundraising numbers backed by a surge in small-dollar donations.
The 11th backed Trump 54.2% to 44.7% in 2024, and Edwards won the seat that year 56.8% to 43.2% (Ballotpedia). That makes it a steep climb for Ager. But Kondik wrote that the national environment “could sand down some of that generic Republican lean.”
In the U.S. Senate race, former Gov. Roy Cooper (D) led Republican Michael Whatley in fundraising and in the polls as of July, NC Newsline reported.
What You Can Do Now
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Donate directly to Jamie Ager’s campaign at jamieager.com or Don Davis’s campaign at dondavisforcongress.com. Both races are now defined by fundraising gaps, and the filing window for 2026 is already closed.
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Call the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at (202) 863-1500 and tell them you want maximum resources invested in NC-1 and NC-11. National party investment in these districts directly affects field staffing and ad buys in the final months before November.
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Contact your county Board of Elections to confirm your voter registration is current. North Carolina requires voters to be registered at least 25 days before Election Day. Find your county board at ncsbe.gov.
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Volunteer for voter registration drives in Buncombe, Henderson, or Haywood counties in NC-11, or Pitt, Edgecombe, or Halifax counties in NC-1. Both districts have low-propensity Democratic voters who could shift the outcome. Contact the NC Democratic Party at ncdp.org to connect with local organizing.
Update, October 14, 2026: An earlier version of this brief reported race ratings from Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report. Resist Now does not publish election forecasts, so the ratings and the headline built on them were removed.
Since publication, Edwards suspended his reelection campaign on August 5. Jamie Ager (D) now faces Republican state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom and Libertarian Travis Groo in the 11th District. A Public Policy Polling survey of 520 registered voters for The Bench, taken September 10-11, had Ager at 47% and Balkcom at 44% (Ballotpedia). In the 1st District, Davis faces Buckhout and Libertarian Tom Bailey.