As Democrat Mark Burrows looks to unseat Republican Anna Ferguson, appointed to the state House in April to finish the late Mike Clampitt’s term, November’s results may prove more of a toss-up than the last several cycles
Ferguson, with entrepreneurial and public service experience, made history as the first enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to serve in the North Carolina General Assembly when appointed to represent North Carolina’s 119th House District, made up of Swain, Jackson and Transylvania counties. Despite having already served several months, this is her first campaign.
Having already run once for the seat in 2024, Burrows is a familiar face, but he’s competing for district seat that since 2020 has been reliably red. Clampitt beat him last go-round by about 9 points.
This year’s General Election will offer a new test for Republicans: without a strong incumbent like Clampitt amid a state political environment seeming to favor Democrats more than in 2024, can the party maintain its grip on the district?
The Smoky Mountain News talked to Ferguson and Burrows about their candidacies and where they stand on key issues.
Anna Ferguson
When Ferguson retired from a career as a small business owner, she envisioned what she called a “quiet life” replete with vacations and the continued management of her Qualla Boundary bookstore.
“Honestly, there’s a little game I like to play where it’s, ‘What was I doing a year ago?’” she said with a laugh.
She never believed her future would be in Raleigh. But then EBCI Vice Chief Alan Ensley asked if she’d be interested in making a bid for election in the N.C. House Republican Primary. Ferguson was adamant. Politics wasn’t for her; she found it too “contentious.”
“I told him, ‘Absolutely not,’” she recounted.
Ensley tried her again. Even Principal Chief Michell Hicks called. She didn’t budge.
Two major developments — the One Big Beautiful Bill’s passage and federal recognition of the Lumbee tribe — eventually convinced Ferguson to consider filing as a candidate. She was worried about how the OBBB would impact Cherokee healthcare outcomes. Research from the University of North Carolina shows the policy’s cuts to Medicaid and Medicare payments could cause the reduction or elimination of services at 300 rural hospitals, including Angel Medical Center in Franklin and Spruce Pine’s Blue Ridge Regional Hospital. “We can’t afford to lose our hospitals. Those are literally a life and death issue,” she said.
Her opposition to Lumbee recognition wasn’t personal but rather grounded in a desire to uphold what she believes is the proper process. Tribal sovereignty, she said, should not be awarded through the likes of an omnibus defense bill. The Lumbee recognition despite EBCI’s outspoken objection was Ferguson’s wake-up call, she said. The Qualla Boundary needed greater political representation.
“Everyone who lives here is aware we’re kind of the forgotten corner of North Carolina,” she said.
Ferguson ran on self-described “lofty ideas” in the Primary Election against Clampitt regarding the likes of education and Medicaid. Although she lost that race, she was appointed to the seat several weeks after his March 18 death following a battle with cancer. Ferguson was selected from the nominee pool through a weighted vote of the GOP Executive Committees from Swain, Jackson and Transylvania counties.
Ferguson mentally tabled prior goals upon her appointment, quickly realizing water and sewer would comprise the majority of House discussions.
“It’s funny because it’s not sexy,” she said.
Regardless, she said she realizes revamping infrastructure is crucial. In Swain County, for example, there’s not much room for private land development and any new projects must contend with the area’s notoriously antiquated water and sewer lines. School buildings are “crumbling,” she said, adding that sustainable development and planning can help communities create a long-term vision.
Ferguson serves on six committees, including Emergency Management and Disaster Recovery and Appropriations. She is the vice chair of Federal Relations and American Indian Affairs, which has only convened once during the General Assembly’s more fiscally focused short session. In that meeting, committee members discussed a petition by the Tuscarora Indians of Kahtenuaka Territories, who are seeking state recognition. All voted in favor of that designation except Ferguson and John Lowery (R-Robeson), member and chairman of the Lumbee.
“It’s just that they don’t have enough settled within their own community,” she said. “I know a lot of people look at that, and they think it’s a race issue. It isn’t. It’s a sovereignty issue.”
What’s more, she noted, the Tuscarora bypassed the N.C. Commission of Indian Affairs, which typically awards state sovereignty. It’s a case that seems similar to the Lumbee, albeit on a state level — following a primary NCCIA denial, the tribe, rather than petitioning again, opted to go through the House.
The commission’s 2019 decision was grounded in the belief that Tuscarora petitioners were a Lumbee splinter group.
“I think we need to be very, very careful when it comes to native sovereignty,” said Ferguson. “That’s something we do not need to be inserting ourselves into unless it comes to dire circumstances.”
Though the bill was approved in committee, Ferguson doubts it’ll pass in the Senate. Many senators, she said, believe in adherence to NCCIA-based recognition.
Ferguson has introduced several bills during her short time in office, including the bipartisan DWI Modernization Act of 2026, for which she was a primary sponsor alongside Rep. Eric Ager (D-Buncombe). Clampitt made a name for himself as an advocate for stricter DWI measures prior to his death. Ferguson’s legislation seeks to bolster DWI enforcement, strengthen consequences for some offenses and streamline administrative procedures for certain defendants in honor of the late representative.
Ferguson has also cast dozens of floor votes, some of which she’s found rewarding, like supporting salary raises for teachers and law enforcement.
“That felt like I was signing someone else’s homework because I haven’t been there to build these bills, but to be able to vote on them was wonderful. It really was,” she recounted. On education, Ferguson noted it’s important not only to attract teachers but also to retain them.
The State Board of Education recently criticized Republicans for the opposite practice — instating what it claims are policies devaluing veteran educators. While the General Assembly’s most recent budget increased starting teacher pay, it maintained an existing salary schedule structure in which educators between years 15 and 24 do not receive a raise.
Ferguson, meanwhile, voted to override Gov. Stein’s veto of a bill that would opt North Carolina into President Trump’s up-to-$1,700 tax credit program for donations made to scholarship-granting organizations, which some public education advocates have argued is a nationwide scheme to privatize education by offering tax breaks to wealthy families. Supporters say the program could bring extra dollars to public schools, but since detailed federal regulations haven’t been released, much is unknown. Stein vetoed the bill with a wait-and-see justification: He’d consider the program if donors to public education-supporting nonprofits could also receive the credit.
When questioned about her vote, Ferguson said the intensity and passion of learning at charter schools truly inspires her — and that it has been denied to the public school system.
“We have public schools that are literally crumbling down around us because the money that they’re receiving per child isn’t enough to maintain the buildings,” she said, admitting that she needs more information on voucher programs and is hoping to dig in during long session.
Conversely, Ferguson’s most difficult day in office involved another set of veto overrides.
SB153 mandates several state agencies, including Highway Patrol, to work alongside border enforcement officials. It also prohibits local governments from adopting sanctuary policies and UNC-system schools from becoming sanctuary universities, requiring the Office of State Budget and Management examine social service programs to determine if “benefits are being provided to authorized aliens.”
When discussing the measure with SMN, Ferguson appeared a hesitant supporter.
“Our hands were kind of tied. If we don’t agree to it, we lose a lot of federal funding, and we can’t afford to lose that funding right now,” she explained.
Nowhere does the bill cite federal funding; it states that the goal is to “[continue Trump’s] promises to protect our southern border and ensure immigration laws are followed and enforced.” Ferguson criticized the mechanism of said enforcement, especially in Minnesota.
“It’s supposed to be if you arrest someone, if someone has already committed an offense, then you find out that they are here illegally, then you deport them, rather than actively going out and just picking up people off the side of the street. So, I hear those stories as well, and that I don’t agree with,” she said.
Ferguson was, however, more enthusiastic about the other overrides, all of which eliminate “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)” from either state agencies or public K-12 and higher education settings. She resents DEI because of how often she’s been called a “DEI hire,” an insinuation that her success is solely due to being Indigenous.
Many believe that the term “DEI hire”connotes the position that only heterosexual, white men are unquestionably qualified for important leadership positions. But these same people benefit often from cultural bias.
“Your (employability) factor should be your ability, your intelligence, and what you can do, not your skin color,” she said. “And there was a time it was needed because people actively would not give us chances, but we fought for those chances.”
She admitted while there are still real, legitimate obstacles faced by minority applicants, “if you’re determined enough, you can do it. Everyone has that ability in them.”
The Trump administration in November 2025, calling the Office of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People a “DEI initiative” removed missing and murdered Indigenous persons information from federal websites; Ferguson, a strong MMIP advocate, doesn’t see the movement as DEI and questioned the trend of adding such a label to unrelated projects.
SB 227, Eliminating “DEI” in public education, makes compulsory “the impartial discussion of the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, or geographic region.”
Ferguson, however, said it’s impossible for the past to be unbiased because it’s written by humans, adding that it should neither “whitewash” nor “villainize.”
“[Colonialism] was bad for some people. It was good for some people. You can’t take the moral judgment out of it, but you can present facts and then let people come to those moral decisions on their own,” she said.
If elected, the newly minted representative would prioritize Medicaid as an issue, which lands on a personal level given the needs of her district.
“I’ve not talked to a single person who isn’t affected in some way with Medicaid or relies on it,” she said.
Most of all, Ferguson wants voters to know that she’s learned where she’s most effective as a servant throughout the past few months.
“I’m not going to come in and overhaul everything, but I’m going to be the person who can help connect you with what you need to make your community stronger,” she said, adding that even if she personally cannot answer a constituent’s question, she’s surrounded by colleagues to guide her response.
She said she’s pursuing this path because she loves the place she calls home — because it deserves more than to be overlooked.
Mark Burrows
A retired Transylvania County employee with over 32 years in local government, Mark Burrows has participated in economic and community development initiatives while working alongside elected officials nearly as long as he’s been employed.
The fact he ran two years ago in what he said was a “very gerrymandered district against a very tough opponent like Clampitt” and achieved 1.7% above the Democratic baseline can give Democrats cause for hope.
“I think that the opportunity is there. The experience of having already run, having a group of people, what I call a team, to help, (and) a desire to see things improve,” he told SMN.
Burrows’ entrance into politics was informed by what he’d witnessed more than two decades ago in Norway, where his wife Betsy, a professor at Brevard College, was working as a Fulbright scholar. Though short-lived, their time abroad in 2002 became a reminder of how much the United States had to work on.
“You saw people trusting people, trusting systems and trusting their government. And when we came back, we both said, ‘It just doesn’t make sense here,’” he recounted.
But Burrows isn’t one to just focus what this country is doing wrong. To him, decrying political corruption and incompetence isn’t sound political strategy.
“[People] want to talk about themselves and their family and Western North Carolina and how to make things better, and so that’s what this campaign is about,” he posited, describing himself as someone who will “show up” for constituents.
“You have to be there, and you have to be available to not only the elected officials but to citizens and to the community,” he said.
Even when Burrows knows how a meeting will unfold, he said he still attends, listening with an open mind to better inform his perspective. He contrasted that mentality with the Republican-led General Assembly’s 2023 law exempting legislators from North Carolina’s public records policy. Having been on the receiving end, Burrows contended public records inquiries are vital to a functioning democracy, though a “pain” to fulfill.
And since legislators do not have to, upon request, provide correspondence between themselves and campaign contributors, he said even when a candidate like Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger raises millions but suffers a Primary Election loss, it’s nearly impossible to investigate a possible “quid pro quo.”
Berger in 2020 sold a home mortgaged by campaign contributions to a major lobbyist at a significant price point. And he’s not the only legislator whose finances raise questions about campaign spending.
The Democratic District 119 candidate alternatively, said he is committed to transparency — and working directly with stakeholders while in office.
“I have done a very good job of, during my career, bringing people together and then trying to make sure that everybody is at the table who needs to be there,” said Burrows.
The subsequent step would involve identifying and tackling the issue. After retiring from the county in 2018, for example, Burrows helped lead the Blue Zone Project in Brevard, which looked at determinants of health like movement, socialization, purpose and diet to promote longevity and higher quality of life.
BZP worked with the City of Brevard and N.C. Department of Transportation to enact leading pedestrian intervals, which allow walkers to enter a crosswalk between three and seven seconds before the traffic light turns green, so they’re more visible to vehicles. Other safety mechanisms included lighted crosswalks and multi-use paths walking and biking paths like greenways.
Burrows resides in downtown Brevard. Pre-retirement, he could get to work, drop off his child at school and eat lunch on campus with his wife — all without getting into the car. “The more that we can encourage people to be active, to be mobile, and then make the infrastructure safer for pedestrians, for cyclists and for motorists, the better off we are,” he said.
He helped create a county comprehensive plan, which won the American Planning Association’s 2018 best comprehensive plan for a small jurisdiction, in collaboration with mostly Republican Transylvania planning board members and commissioners.
His idea of sound infrastructure follows the 8-80 rule: plan for those under age 8 and over age 80, and you have a strong, vibrant community.
He has also had lengthy experience with economic development.
“Most of the major businesses industries that we have in Transylvania County now, I either recruited or I assisted when I was working for the county,” he said.
In 2002, various plant closures caused 2,200 people in Brevard to lose their jobs. His team helped attract nutraceuticals like Gaia Herbs and outdoor retailers like SylvanSport. Hundreds of small businesses came to Brevard through Blue Ridge Community College and Senior Resource Network programs.
With recruitment comes the consideration of both economic development and environmental protection, but Burrows said District 119, with large swaths of federal land and unique outdoors tourism opportunities, is fortunate. Each depends on the other. “Trying to preserve, protect the natural environment, I think, is key for our economic development success,” he said.
While obtaining a master’s in environmental management from Duke University, Burrows grasped a principle applicable to multiple areas.
“From an environmental standpoint, the healthiest communities are communities that have the greatest amount of diversity, plant and animal species, even fungal, and so I look at that analogy and tie that in with the economy,” he explained, adding that this informed his decision to recruit a variety of economic sectors.
To Burrows, the concept of diversity as a strength also applies interpersonally.
“Diversity just helps us all in the long run,” he said. “I think that’s true just in the way we treat each other and how communities are able to thrive.”
He spearheaded an initiative called Project Empathy during the county’s comprehensive plan development focused on not only diversity of identity but also of thought. In service of promoting dialogue across difference, folks affiliated with various community spaces — law enforcement, faith-based groups, the NAACP — discussed their worldviews and how each was informed.
Consequently, Burrows does not believe in eliminating DEI from workplaces and classrooms, though he said this stance is expected given his party affiliation. Referencing how anti-DEI policy has been used to target LGBTQ+ — and specifically transgender — individuals, he said, “As long as you’re not bothering me, who cares?”
“I think this whole issue of wokeness, it’s at best silly. It’s divisive, and I think there are people in politics who really do focus on divisiveness and trying to divide people rather than building upon all the strengths we have,” he said.
Transgender and nonbinary youth suicide attempts have risen up to an additional 72%. A litany of research has demonstrated anti-DEI policies threaten patient care quality, disease prevention in marginalized communities, and the mental health of students and health workers.
Another top-of-mind issue is public education. According to Burrows, public schools in North Carolina — and especially in rural areas with few private institutions — are only hurt by voucher programs, wherein a government provides funding directly to families to use for private school tuition. The General Assembly’s voucher program, called Opportunity Scholarships, disproportionately benefits wealthy families, according to a report by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.
Burrows said through this “egregious policy,” Western North Carolina taxpayers are financing tuition for private schools concentrated in the Piedmont.
“We’re giving money to large urban areas for private schools. Doesn’t mean that we don’t have some (private schools here). Doesn’t mean that private schools can’t work for some. That’s fine, but it should not be public money paying for it.”
He also criticized the way the country did and continues to handle immigration, arguing ICE agents should face repercussions for how they’re treating green card- and visa-holders as well as U.S. citizens. Although, he sees regulation as a duty of the federal government.
“It’s really up to Congress, both the House and the Senate, with the president, to come up with a comprehensive bill that looks at immigration and says, ‘This is how we treat people,’” he noted, adding that the United States is for the most part a country of immigrants.
That said, Burrows, who shows up weekly at the Transylvania County Courthouse for a protest led by religious progressives known as Moral Monday, would vote according to his values were another immigration bill considered by the House.
“I think as a state representative, I would be looking at if there’s anything that comes across, I would be looking, saying, ‘How do we make sure that we’re representing the best of this country — best of North Carolina?’” he said.