What did you do on July 4, the 250th anniversary of our Independence Day? Did you enjoy baseball, hot dogs and apple pie as the jingle for a once-popular American car intoned? Did you ponder for a moment the Declaration of Independence or reflect on our nation’s history — its triumphs and shortcomings, its ideals and disgraces — and proudly fly the Stars and Stripes?
If you live or visit Franklin, the charming county seat of Macon County, about 70 miles southeast of Asheville, you could have taken in the parade down Main Street to celebrate this anniversary by visiting the park across from the courthouse. It’s where the beautifully maintained space is presided over by the white-marble statue to …
The Lost Cause. To white supremacy. To an America that never was. To a time when many (white and Cherokee) men and boys from this mountain town joined the Highland Rangers commanded by William H. Thomas in the spring of 1861 in rebellion against the United States of America. A block away from where the statue stands, in May 1865, Thomas and his battered followers surrendered to the Union cavalry more than a month after Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.
It took that intervening month for word of Lee’s defeat to reach this “most inaccessible portion of the Confederacy,” one of Thomas’s officers wrote.
And so it came to be, perhaps against the locals’ will, that Macon County today anchors a western slice of North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District — that’s in the U.S. Congress — just a couple hours’ drive from Asheville and Buncombe County.
Though the two counties share a congressional seat now held by Republican Chuck Edwards, Macon could as well be the unBuncombe. And forgive me for stretching the metaphor, but the statue of “Johnny Reb” — bearing his rucksack and standing with his rifle ready to march — is a reminder of the deep differences remaining among the voters who comprise this district.
For those like me who live in Buncombe County, solidly locked within the deep-blue and leftward gravity of Asheville, congressional elections for more than a generation have been reminders that our neighbors in the western Carolina mountains are different. And not only are they different in the historical icons they honor and their partisan leanings, they are dominant.
Let me repeat: They are dominant. Remember that as we head into the midterm election season and the eyes of the nation turn toward us for an indication of where things are headed.
While Buncombe County and Asheville loom large in population over our neighbors in NC-11, we aren’t the majority. Just 36 percent of the district’s voters live in Buncombe, which means that 64 percent don’t. We’re outnumbered by nearly 2-to-1 as we go into the midterm elections.
A journey into the unBuncombe
To try to understand what that means, I needed to get outside the blue bubble where I live, and to try to see this campaign from a place representative of the district at large. Macon County is such a place.
Consider the contrasts: Macon’s population is about 40,000, about one-seventh of Buncombe’s of just under 280,000. Macon’s statistically average person is older by seven years (about 50 to 43); less educated (28% with a bachelor’s or higher degree in contrast to Buncombe’s 47 percent), and has a lower household income (about $59,000 per year to our county’s $75,000).
These differences are commonly shared by other measures contrasting urban counties with rural ones. Relevant to me when looking at the upcoming elections is the equally marked contrast in its politics, which are nearly mirror opposites.
Buncombe voters are among North Carolina’s most Democratic, where about 40% are registered in the party. Macon voters are among the state’s most Republican, where 45% have chosen the GOP. (A near equal 35% in each county are unaffiliated.)
The reverse is equally true. Just 22% of Buncombe’s voters are in the GOP, while 20% of Macon’s are Democrats, giving the dominant party about a 2-to-1 edge.
These lopsided ratios show up in the election results. There are no Republicans on the Buncombe County Commission or on the Buncombe County School Board. And there are no Democrats on the Macon County Commission nor the Macon County School Board. The sheriff of Buncombe County is a Democrat; the sheriff of Macon County is Republican. The legislative delegation from Buncombe County is composed entirely of Democrats; the delegation from Macon County (one House and one Senate member) is Republican.
To look at the 11th Congressional District race between incumbent Republican Chuck Edwards and Democratic candidate Jamie Ager from the contrasting perspectives of Buncombe County and Macon County would be like viewing a distant object through opposite ends of a telescope.
That’s why I needed to drive over to Macon County to speak with people who could explain its politics, its mood, its culture, and even why I could still find a statue funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. My thesis was that an understanding of the Macon County mood would balance my understanding of Buncombe’s and the result might be a clearer vision of where things are heading.
And what have I concluded? A coin toss.
As goes Macon County, so goes the 11th Congressional District
But given the history of the district, including the six-year interim when conservative Democrat Heath Shuler of tiny Swain County held the seat until 2013, a coin toss may bode ill for Republicans. And if Republicans lose in November, swapping Ager for Edwards, the explanation for the defeat can be found in Macon County.
Let me quickly qualify here that I’m not predicting that Ager will beat Edwards in the county. But the margin matters. The key to Ager’s victory is to run up a disproportionately high vote in Buncombe County and left-leaning precincts in Henderson and Transylvania counties, while Edwards gathers a lower-than expected vote in Macon and other rural and Republican-dominated counties.
That’s a big swing. Edwards clobbered his last two Democratic opponents by double digits.
But things have changed, and dramatically so, since Edwards’s reelection in 2024 where he rode Donald Trump’s coattails to a 13-point landslide. Several new factors are in play today and they weigh heavily on the mood in Macon County as elsewhere.
Atop the list of changes is Trump’s unpopularity as measured in plummeting approval ratings in every credible poll. Among the most recent is the June poll by the Catawba College-YouGov Survey where 55% of North Carolina voters disapproved of Trump’s performance and 42% approved, a level of unpopularity that appears to be holding steady.
That alone is worrisome for Macon Republicans as they try to motivate the vote for Edwards in November. Paradoxically, even more worrisome is that Trump won’t be atop the ticket to excite remaining Trump loyalists to vote. Instead, the GOP ballot will be led by Michael Whatley, the former party leader with no campaign experience. Edwards will be on the second line, though carrying some baggage related to a U.S. House Ethics Committee investigation into an allegation that he sexually harassed a former staffer and ran a toxic office environment resulting in unusually high staff turnover.
A worrisome mood for Republicans
This isn’t my thinking; it’s that of Tom Coley, the Macon GOP’s vice chairman whom I met during my visit. Trump’s “impact and sway [on turnout] is historic,” Coley told me as we met in the party’s headquarters a few blocks outside of Franklin. “We’re resigned to the fact that he isn’t going to be there to help.”
He said the hope remains that the President will campaign for the ticket as his endorsement continues to carry weight within the party. In fact, it’s all that Whatley may have going for him. And Edwards has complicated the issue by scrubbing Trump’s earlier endorsement from his campaign literature and website. Coley said he recognized Edwards may be distancing his campaign from the president as his endorsement outside of a party primary is problematic.
“It will generate some votes, but it will also alienate some voters,” he said.
Ager, a farmer with deep, multi-generation roots in the western mountains, also presents a challenge the Macon Republicans haven’t faced in more than a decade. “If somebody is on the fence, he has more for people here to relate to than Democrat candidates in the past,” Coley said.
As for Whatley: “His challenge is to get his message out. The rank and file don’t know who Whatley is,” Coley said.
The polls showing majority disapproval of the president’s handling of the Iran war, the economy, and high gas prices, also weigh down the get-out-the-vote plan. “We have to counter that with the nuclear threat the country may have faced had President Trump not intervened. As for inflation and high gas, this is the price we have to pay. This is for our safety,” Coley said.
Democrats energizedby ‘potato supper’ and strong candidates
The challenges weighing on the Macon Republicans are catnip to Democrats despite being outnumbered. I was invited to observe a gathering of local Democrats as they planned their own voter-turnout operation heading into the midterm election. More than a dozen party activists crammed into the new headquarters to create multiple committees to work on the congressional and local campaigns.
The energy this year is in stark contrast to prior years, party vice-chair Karen Smith told me. For the first time in two election cycles the Democrats will be challenging Republican incumbents on the county commission and school board. Volunteers are showing up at local events, such as the annual “potato supper,” a combination of covered dishes provided by the attendees and a variety of prepared potato offerings. The event drew 300 attendees this year, one of the most successful ever held.
Anne Hyder, president of the Macon Democratic Women’s Club, told me that five years ago the membership was about 20. Today it’s nearing 100 and she expects it will grow as the election approaches. Why? I asked. “I think it’s because we have a full plate of wonderful candidates.”
The Democrats also appear energized by community concerns over struggles to maintain a local hospital — an affiliate of Asheville’s Mission Hospital owned by HCA — and a decision by the Republican county commission to cut funding to the regional library system based on claims that it provided books to children on such topics as homosexuality and gender identity.
“I must say that there is a lot of enthusiasm and the morale is certainly being affected,” Hyder said.
Voters ‘don’t want politics’
The outcome of the Nov. 3 elections, however, won’t turn on the numbers or the mood of the Republican or Democratic parties. The number of voters who remain unaffiliated with either party outnumber party voters throughout the district and within both Buncombe and Macon counties.
The mayor of Franklin, Stacy Guffey, told me that these voters share the broader electorate’s concerns over health care, war and the economy. But many of them are looking for something else: “People want their government to be people centric and not party centric. They want government to be functional.”
He said Ager has yet to make his case on delivering policies that are aimed at well-managed government, though his background as a successful farmer and businessman works in his favor. Edwards was well-regarded in the recent past for putting a focus on serving constituents with whatever their needs may be in dealing with the federal government, Guffey said as we had coffee a block away from the Confederate memorial.
But he has stumbled in recent weeks after promising to deliver $4.3 million from the federal Environmental Protection Agency for an $8 million water-treatment plant. A photo of the ceremony depicting Edwards giving the mayor and other city officials a giant $4,320,000 check is displayed in city hall.
A photo of U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, who represents western Western North Carolina, and government officials from Macon County, as Edwards presented a ceremonial government check for $4.3 million from the federal Environmental Protection Agency toward an $8 million water-treatment plant. Just as work was to begin, the Republican-majority congress slashed the EPA award by $1.7 million, forcing the town to make up the difference. // Photo from Macon County website
Just as work was to begin, the Republican-majority Congress slashed the EPA award by $1.7 million, forcing the town to make up the difference. Edwards’s office said the original award was a mistake.
“That’s a lot of money for a town our size,” Guffey said, adding he felt personally humiliated.
Although Guffey said he can’t predict whether an issue like this will directly affect Edwards in his reelection bid, he believes it has an effect on how voters perceive government.
“If Republicans are concerned about their prospects in November it’s not because Democrats are popular,” Guffey told me, “but because Republicans are seen as dysfunctional.”
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Tom Fiedler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter and dean emeritus from Boston University who lives in Asheville. His Democracy Watch column appears every other Wednesday. Email him at tfiedler@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication.