About 20 supporters gathered at the Laurie Buckhout campaign headquarters in Edenton last weekend to watch the first-time candidate kick off her bid to flip North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District from blue to red.
Buckhout, who is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., arrived for a brief pep talk, one of many she planned to give to supporters across the 1st District on Saturday, June 1.
Standing before a sign that read “Col. (Ret.) Laurie Buckhout,” and flanked by North Carolina and U.S. flags, Buckhout said she’s a 26-year retired soldier and businessperson who has a desire to serve and is running to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
“I’m a constitutional conservative. I have always been one,” Buckhout said. “When I swore to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, that was a lifelong commission, and as the years went by, one thing I learned about was the Constitution .… It became more real to me. When people say it’s a living document, that doesn’t mean it changes. It means that it breathes life into America every single day. Those are the principles that we live or die for.”
Buckhout said the Constitution is not her only guide.
“I’m very comfortable with two books. I’m comfortable with the document of the Constitution, and I’m personally comfortable with the Bible. With that, I don’t think you can go wrong,” she said.
Buckhout said a recent survey by The Hill newspaper shows North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District as open for Republicans to flip from blue to red. She said the survey indicated she has a 53% chance of winning the district. North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District includes Rocky Mount, Wilson, Goldsboro, Henderson, Roanoke Rapids, Edenton, Hertford and Elizabeth City.
As a conservative Republican, Buckhout said she is a supporter of former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s presumptive presidential candidate.
“He’s the Republican nominee. I’m a Republican,” she said. “The country needs to support (him) for the economy, and it needs to get back to some fundamentals.”
Trump was convicted last week by a Manhattan jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, which is a felony in New York. The charges stemmed from $130,000 in “hush money” payments Trump’s then attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 presidential election. State prosecutors said the payments to Daniels were authorized by Trump to keep voters from finding out about Daniels’ allegation that she and Trump had sex in 2006, an allegation Trump denies.
Buckhout said she agrees with Trump, who claims that his trial in New York was unfair, but she did not say whether the jury’s guilty verdict will help or hurt the former president’s chances in the fall election. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.
“I will say that most Republicans are looking at the state of the country, and they are more concerned about electing a Republican who can make a difference. That happens to be President Trump,” she said.
When asked if Trump’s felony conviction could deter some voters from casting their ballot for him, Buckhout said she’s focused on her own race.
“You know what? I’m focusing on my own race right now to tell you the truth: people are going to do the right thing when it comes to voting to save America,” she said.
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