When Jackson County Democrats reached out to Marcia Almond encouraging her to run for county commission chair, she considered what motivates her and what could motivate voters.
The national climate weighed on her mind — the high cost of living, the war in Iran, and the excesses of the Trump administration. However, some of the local issues emerged as things that upset residents most.
The county withdrew from the Fontana Regional Library System in July after commissioners voted to begin a year-long waiting period in 2025. While there was a good deal of debate ahead of that decision, commissioners heard no public comments during the June 2025 meeting. The hasty decision has since drawn further criticism as the county’s new library system finds its footing.
“The thing that has inspired me most was … that there was so much hate and spite toward the citizens that were speaking up for the library, and they were completely ignored,” Almond said.
While Almond had previously served as mayor for the small village of Forest Hills, she’d lost her 2025 re-election by 56 votes to 36, something she attributes to being sidelined during the latter part of that campaign by a prolonged illness. This go-round, she secured almost 9,000 votes to defeat her Republican opponent, David Rogers.
“We were all inspired to make things better,” Almond said.
Almond wasn’t alone. The two other Democrats running for commission seats, Casey Walawender and Sean Bridgers, also won their races, meaning that for the first time in about four years, Republicans will no longer hold the majority. Like Almond, Walawender said she heard from voters who were concerned with the performance of Republicans at the highest levels of government in Washington, D.C., but were even more interested in local issues, including what she considered an overarching lack of accountability.
“Most of us felt like there was an overarching lack of transparency and that they weren’t listening,” Walawender said of the current commissioners.
Pundits have used any manner of blue-hued oceanographical phenomena to describe Democrats’ massive victories nationwide that can also apply to Jackson County. It had the largest swing left of any county west of Charlotte. Like Republicans around the country, GOP leaders in Jackson have been asking themselves a simple question: was the commission flip a Democratic victory or a Republican failure?
Experts analyzing polls expected that Democrats would see overwhelming success, but no one seemed to expect what transpired. Statewide, former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper ran away with a victory in the U.S. Senate race, outrunning even the most generous of polls. The party swept the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals races and flipped the state’s House of Representatives.
More locally, Jamie Ager won his race to represent Western North Carolina in Congress, the first Democrat to hold the seat since Heath Shuler in 2012. Although there were no reliable public polls for that race, Ager’s 16-point victory seemed to catch everyone off guard.
Perhaps equally impressive were the Democratic sweeps to flip commissions in Jackson and Transylvania counties. That momentum also worked to bring Democrat Mark Burrows an almost five-point victory in his House race against incumbent Republican Anna Ferguson. Although Sen. Kevin Corbin, expected to be a popular incumbent candidate, won his race, he lost Jackson County to Democrat Tom Downing by over nine points.
The enthusiasm gap
Jackson County’s sweep means that even if commissioners Michael Jennings and Jenny Lynn Hooper can defend their seats in 2028, the earliest Republicans can reclaim the majority and commission chair is 2030. In 2024, Hooper and Jennigs won their seats with 52.81% and 54.24% of the vote, respectively.
Western Carolina University (WCU) Political Science Professor Chris Cooper said that when comparing the 2022 mid-term election that brought Ted Budd into the Senate to the 2026 election, Jackson County had the sixth largest Democratic swing of North Carolina’s 100 counties. He believes the same things that motivated Almond to run for commission chair also motivated Democrats to turn out at the polls and perhaps made some Republicans and conservative unaffiliated voters to stay home. Those sentiments may have been lumped into a broader dissatisfaction with the status quo.
“If you’re in Jackson County, you are represented by Republicans on the county commission, Republican General Assembly members in both chambers, a Republican in Congress, and a Republican for president,” Cooper said. “All the way up the line, you’re represented by Republicans, so if you’re mad at the status quo, you can swing blindly, and they came for Republicans,”
He also said that the controversy over closing WCU’s early voting spot and instead using one a mile-and-a-half away may have influenced voters, even if that decision had nothing to do with the Republican-led county commission. Ajaylah Hicks, a senior at WCU, volunteers at WCU’s Center for Community Engagement and Learning, where she works to help students become more civically active by registering to vote. While many, like Hicks, voted absentee in their hometown, those who wish to can register to vote in Jackson County, which she believes many did. Hicks felt like some college voters were energized by the county board of elections’ vote to move the polling place.
Hicks was part of two efforts to get out the vote. For one, she talked to people walking around campus about filling out voter registration forms. The other was an event with the same aim at her sorority. While there was energy among many of the students, not all felt that it was worth the time and effort to cast a ballot.
“The issue that I was facing was people aren’t willing to vote or don’t feel like their voices are heard,” she said. “And then the process of getting registered is kind of difficult.”
Hicks believes that the impressive turnout by younger voters won’t be a blip on the map but is instead the beginning of a trend that will repeat itself in Jackson County and beyond.
“I think the Gen Z energy has substantially increased,” she said. “(In) the 2024 election or previous midterm election, we didn’t feel included in the conversation. We didn’t feel like it really was affecting us at all. Now, with a lot of Gen Z being in college and joining the adult world, these economic decisions are going to affect our futures.”
Jackson County GOP Chair Justin Castle said that while turnout in Cullowhee was a significant factor in his party’s losses, local Republicans ran the numbers and determined that even if that precinct had performed as it did in 2022, the commission still would have flipped.
For his part, Castle acknowledged how the issues that affected nationwide results impacted Jackson County’s elections, especially the war in Iran and the cost of living. He also said that the decision to withdraw from FRL, climbing property taxes, and education-system issues also likely worked against the Republican slate. He believes messaging on these issues worked as much to his party’s detriment as the issues themselves.
“If one party isn’t getting things done the way you want them to, people say, ‘Maybe I need to change the party, change the leadership,’” he said.
Castle senses greater enthusiasm from Democrats, who were energized and galvanized by these issues and have consistently turned out in larger numbers at county commission meetings to voice their opinions. With that in mind, Castle feels like the results weren’t a blanket rebuke of conservative policies or ideals, considering in Jackson County and across the state, all three of the Republican General Assembly’s constitutional amendments easily passed. While he doesn’t believe compromise on all issues is necessary, he thinks that in the future, the party should look for “common sense” things that both sides may agree on, perhaps like Roy Cooper did by staying focused on cost-of-living issues in his campaign.
“If [voters] see a party doing things that helps them, that benefits them, they would like to keep that party in power,” he said.
Getting to work
For the next four years, the Democratic-led commission will be able set policy and possibly even reverse previous commission decisions.
Almond and Walawender both said that once in office, they are interested in restoring full public access to the community rooms at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva and the Albert-Carlton Cashiers Community Library after commissioners voted to restrict it to library and government use only in July.
Otherwise, the two commissioner-elects plan on researching the issues they care about — the library, the education system, potential grants — so they can determine their course. One item the board could consider is bringing the quarter-cent sales tax increase before voters, something current commissioners denied voters.
Chris Cooper noted another item that generated a good deal of controversy a couple of years ago.
“I’ll also be curious to see what, if anything, they do about Sylva Sam,” he said.
Walawender said that with the messy legal situation swirling around the Fontana Regional Library system and the efforts already undertaken to stand up Jackson County’s own library system, including hiring a director, that perhaps rejoining the FRL wouldn’t be the best course of action. Also, she considers that a new commission, which could be Republican in four years, may just reverse whatever action they take. However, that option is on the table.
“I don’t know where that’s going to land … the thing that I feel more focused on is, how do we set something in place so that we’re preserving our libraries long term, so that every four years isn’t like some form of whiplash?” she said. “If Democrats don’t hold a majority again after four years, what does that look like? What I would like is to establish something that feels strong for Jackson County, so that this isn’t just a back-and-forth based on who’s in office.”
Walawender, who has several years of experience working in Jackson County public schools, said she wants to consider not only addressing the backlog of capital projects and infrastructural improvements but also possibly teacher supplements. She also wants to spend time with the school board to hear their needs to gain a better understanding of the big picture.
“I really want a big county staff survey that’s looking at employee satisfaction … I think it’d be really helpful as a county to have a big picture,” she said. “How are our county staff across the board? How do they feel like they’re being treated? Do they like working for Jackson County? Is it worth it to them? How are we doing as a county, and what do we need to be doing better?”