Two Republicans competing in N.C. 01 race

Mar. 1—HENDERSON — Two Republicans are vying to unseat incumbent Democratic Rep. Don Davis in Tuesday's primary — Sandy Smith and Laurie Buckhout.

The race is the only congressional election in the state considered a toss-up — it's not strongly blue or red.

Buckhout, a former Army colonel and combat commander from Edenton, is making her first foray into politics. After retiring in 2010, she founded Corvus Consulting, a defense firm whose primary goal was to reduce deaths and injuries from improvised explosive devices.

Her family has a military history stretching back to the French and Indian War, she said — service runs in the family.

"Frankly, I was planning on retiring," said the candidate. "I saw the state of the country and how bad it's gotten, and I felt inspired to stand up and do something."

Folks in small-town Edenton are concerned with "the open border" and its relation to the spread of fentanyl and terrorism. Inflation and higher energy costs are problems for families and farmers.

She praised Congress for its work in securing a border bill but noted that more needs to be done to unite conservatives. She also wants to look at stopping excessive government spending and money printing, which in turn drive inflation.

Buckhout wants put America first by cutting government spending on other countries and allowing for oil drilling and encouraging the construction of refineries to boost domestic energy production.

President Joe Biden, when he was campaigning in 2019, told an activist that "we're going to end fossil fuel." Buckhout said that disincentivized players in the energy market from increasing their capability. She wants to "give them a market again."

"We produce energy more cleanly and efficiently than any other nation on Earth," she said. "We should be doing that."

There's an opportunity to expand the GOP's majority in the House of Representatives, said Buckhout. The firm believer in American exceptionalism offers "actual experience" over her primary opponent, having grown up on a farm in the South and witnessed extreme ideologies firsthand during her military service.

But as Smith has pointed out on social media, she was here first. Buckhout has lived in the district for a few years, having been raised in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.

Smith has lived in Rocky Mount for some 15 years. She has several businesses under her belt and currently works as Green Power Construction's chief financial officer.

As for the issues, she supports former President Donald Trump's wall at the border with Mexico and opposes "socialist dreams" like the Green New Deal. She opposes defunding the police, access to abortion and decries "the left's cancel culture."

Her primary opponent, Sandy Smith, did not respond to a request for an interview.

This isn't Smith's first time around the ringer. She ran against then-incumbent G.K. Butterfield in 2020 and again against his heir apparent, Don Davis, in 2022.

In 2020, she won her primary race by nearly 70%. The next time around, she won by 5% over Sandy Roberson, her main competitor. Trump had endorsed her after the 2022 primary.

Trump's director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Tom Honan, however, has signaled his support for Smith. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, national security advisor under the former president, has endorsed Buckhout.

Smith is no stranger to controversy — she calls herself the state's "America First Firebrand" on social media. She calls her primary opponent "Lyin' Liberal Laurie" in several Facebook posts, a nickname reminiscent of the one Trump once gave his 2016 primary opponent Ted Cruz.

Two weeks before 2022's primary election, Roberson's campaign dropped a hefty list of documents accusing her of abusing her ex-husbands and daughter, claims Smith later denied on social media, saying she was a victim in her previous marriages, not the other way around.

At the time, a pro-Roberson campaign ad accused Smith of striking her first husband, Randy Auman, with a frying pan. Auman rebutted, saying she never hit him, but did raise a frying pan once or twice.

Near the beginning of February, her campaign posted to X an image of Sandy wielding a cast-iron frying pan. The caption read, "DC [sic] we are coming. I know how to use this thing."