MAGA Republican and Democrat Air Force Vet Battle for Open NC Seat

North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District—safe for black Democrats for 30 years—no longer is.

Redistricting gave Republicans a better chance to win it as they seek to regain control of the House. The open seat promises to be a real fight this fall.

Democrat Donald Davis, a state senator, faces Republican challenger Sandy Smith, who lost but made a strong showing against a longtime incumbent in 2020.

Democrats want to tie the Trump supporter to the Jan. 6 rally and march on the Capitol but haven’t shown proof that she was ever inside.

The GOP, meanwhile, is fielding a candidate known to appeal to the district’s rural Republicans.

G.K. Butterfield, the Democrat representing this district since 2004, opted last fall not to run for reelection. A federal appellate court in 2016 ruled the district had been racially gerrymandered in violation of the Constitution.

That lawsuit grew out of the 1992 redistricting that put more black Democrats in Congress, often at the expense of white Democrats. It also created more suburban Republican districts, enabling the GOP’s big sweep in 1994 to gain a House majority for the first time in 40 years and make Newt Gingrich Speaker of the House.

Republican candidate Sandy Smith tweeted that she was marching to the Capitol at the Jan. 6, 2021 protest. (Steve Baker/For The Epoch Times)

First redistricted in 2019—and twice more as North Carolina’s Congressional maps got redrawn—the district kept only a narrow Democratic majority, according to national political analysts.

Real Clear Politics now rates the race a toss-up.

Butterfield, a former North Carolina Supreme Court associate justice, announced he would not seek reelection in November 2021, three months before the court he used to serve on finalized the latest redistricting in February 2022.

Once chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Butterfield had won

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