J. Scott Applewhite/AP
- Four-term incumbent Rep. Richard Hudson will face Democrat Patricia Timmons-Goodson in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District.
- The district is located in central North Carolina and includes the Montgomery, Moore, Hoke, and Stanly counties.
- Timmons-Goodson is the first Black person to ever serve on the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Democrat Patricia Timmons-Goodson looks to unseat four-term Rep. Richard Hudson in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District.
The candidates
Hudson is the former president of Cabarrus Marketing Group, a marketing and consultation firm that was dissolved following his run for Congress. Hudson was first elected to his position in 2012, where he defeated incumbent Larry Kissell by 7.8 percentage points, and has won all subsequent elections with relative ease.
He currently sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and is the chairman of the Agriculture Policy Group. As the congressman representing the Fort Bragg US Army base in Fayetteville, Husdon has heavily focused on military and veterans issues in Congress in addition to work on energy policy.
Timmons-Goodson is a former attorney who is the first Black woman to join the 12th judicial District Court in North Carolina, later becoming the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court of North Carolina in 2006.
In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Timmons-Goodson to become the United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, but her nomination was never approved and expired at the end of the 114th Congress in January 2017.
Timmons-Goodson’s campaign platform revolves around expanding Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, racial equality in the justice system and schools, and investing in rural communities. Her campaign was recently endorsed by 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The district
North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District is located in central North Carolina, encompassing a swath of the state stretching from the suburbs outside of Charlotte east to the city of Fayetteville.
The boundaries of North Carolina’s eight district was recently redrawn after a court ordered the North Carolina legislature to redraw its entire congressional district maps in 2019, ruling that the previous map drawn by the GOP-controlled legislature was unlawfully gerrymandered to favor Republicans.
While North Carolina’s previous 13-district map had 10 districts that favored Republicans and three that favored Democrats, the new map contains eight districts that favor Republicans and five that favor Democrats.
As the University of Virginia Center for Politics described it last December, the district is “bookended by Cabarrus County in the west, a blue-trending suburban county in the Charlotte region, and Cumberland County in the east, a reliably blue county that includes Fayetteville.”
In the 2016 presidential election, the district under its current lines voted for President Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in a 56-41 percentage point split of the vote, according to Daily Kos.
The money race
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Hudson has raised $2.3 million for his campaign, over twice the amount of Timmons-Goodson with $1 million. Hudson also has a considerable cash on hand advantage over his opponent, with $1.78 million left to spend compared to Timmons-Goodson’s $619,000.
What some of the experts say:
The race between Hudson and Timmons-Goodson is rated as “leans Republican” by Inside Elections, the Cook Political Report, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
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