Ads in northeastern NC congressional district focus on gender policy to lure voters

New ads supporting and attacking North Carolina U.S. Rep. Don Davis are rolling out in prime time, attempting to draw voters’ attention to his stances on transgender policy — a strategy by both sides to attract moderate and conservative voters in a competitive district. 

The Democratic incumbent is heading into a November rematch with Republican Laurie Buckhout in northeastern North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, which was redrawn last year by Republican state lawmakers in a way that was expected to give a GOP candidate a better chance of winning. 

Two years ago, Davis beat Buckhout by 6,000 votes. Recent polls show a close race this year, giving Davis an edge — even though his home was drawn out of the district. 

“Last time, she was considered obviously the challenger because she was someone who was behind because he was the incumbent,” said David McLennan, a pollster at Meredith College in Raleigh. “This year, again, she started with an advantage in the district because of the new voters, but polling has said that he's kind of running a few points ahead.”

McLennan said the results in this year’s race could be similar to the 2024 race, despite the new district lines that favor the GOP. That could prove problematic for Republicans who are hoping to retain their narrow control of the U.S. House. 

Davis has developed a reputation as a moderate willing to vote with Republicans at times. That has helped him win the support of moderate and conservative voters in his district. 

GovTrack, a private website that assesses politicians’ voting history, ranked Davis as the most conservative Democrat in Congress—with a voting record that’s even to the right of some Republicans, according to its methodology.

CongressVoteTracker, another similar website, tracked a smaller sample of 40 high-profile bills and found Davis voted with the Democratic Party 62% of the time. By contrast, outgoing U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis—who many in the GOP, including Republican President Donald Trump, view as insufficiently loyal to the party—voted with Republicans 97% of the time, according to the same metrics.

National conservative groups hoping to flip the district seat are spending millions of dollars to paint Davis as a far-left politician. Davis didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

“Don Davis has been voting with the woke crowd,” proclaims one ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.

A new ad focuses on transgender issues — which have moved front and center for Republicans in races across the country.

The ad says: “Don Davis allowed taxpayer-funded sex-change operations and supported men in women’s bathrooms. It’s no wonder that Davis sponsored the bill allowing men in women sports. Don Davis, fighting for they/them, not us.”

The ad could leave some viewers with the belief that Davis supported the “Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which sought to clarify that Title IX is based solely on biological sex at birth. But Davis didn’t vote for or against the bill. He was the only House member to vote “present” on the legislation that sought to clarify that Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination, is based solely on biological sex at birth.

Davis has released his own ads on the issue. In it, he is seen standing on a football field, where he assures voters that he supports existing state law, which prohibits transgender North Carolinians from competing in women’s sports in public schools and universities.

“Let's be honest, there's real concerns about fairness and safety,” Davis says in the ad. “That's why I believe states should decide what's right for protecting women and girls, and North Carolina has decided.”

Transgender issues have been a key talking point for Republicans in recent years, and the stance could help Davis with moderates in the tight district, analysts say. Davis’s response ad is worded in a way that could enable him to address the attack and appease moderate voters without putting off liberal support.

“He says he supports fairness on the playing field, which is code for ‘I'm okay with the state of North Carolina law saying that transgender people can't participate in women's sports,’” McLennan said. “So he's kind of trying to blunt the Republican attack, even though he's not really open to that kind of attack anyway. He's sort of always been in the middle on this issue.”

Republican groups are running anti-transgender ads in at least 10 competitive Senate races and nine swing House districts, according to Punchbowl News. Since Sept. 1, Republican candidates and super PACs have spent $225 million nationwide, according to AdImpact.

Gender issues have featured prominently at campaign rallies in this and previous election cycles. “For Republicans, it comes down to two issues: crime and anti-trans,” McLennan said. “That's the material of their ads because they're not going to talk about too many other things. Economic issues are not in their favor. Certainly, the war is not in their favor. So, you know, it comes down to a lot of cultural issues.” 

Republican Jennifer Balkcom  — who is running for the 11th Congressional District seat in western North Carolina — brought up the issue during a speech at a Trump rally last month in Gastonia. She praised Trump for supporting bans on transgender women playing girls’ sports, noting that she led the charge for the same policy in North Carolina several years ago.

Balkcom was the primary sponsor of the 2023 state law on transgender athletes. The bill was initially vetoed. “But we didn't stop,” Balkcom told a cheering crowd. “We overrode that veto, and today protecting women's sports is in law in North Carolina.”Buckhout, Davis’s Republican opponent, didn’t share her position on transgender athletes. In a statement to WRAL, she attacked his position on the issue: “He's on TV lying about his record on men in girls' sports because he knows his radical votes are indefensible,” said Stephen Gallagher, Buckhout’s campaign manager, to our requests for comment on the negative shift in the campaign.

While transgender issues might resonate with the base, the association with Trump might hurt some candidates with voters outside the GOP base. 

Inflation has continued to climb due to elevated gas prices following President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran earlier this year. That has put some pressure on Republican candidates, particularly those who have strong ties to the president.

“Republicans have long recognized that a midterm election is going to be very challenging for them because of the president's popularity,” McLennan said. “So they have raised a lot of money for this election cycle, and they are spending it. And they are spending it in districts where they need to protect because, you know, if they lose District 1, that makes for a very slim advantage in the House in Washington.”