Editor’s Note: The Ocracoke Observer will report on candidates who visit the island to meet its residents.
By Connie Leinbach
Combat veteran Laurie Buckhout of Edenton, who’s running as the Republican candidate for the District 1 Congressional seat, said she wants to translate her fighting experience to fight for what Eastern N.C. needs.
A retired Army colonel and veteran of the Iraq war, she is on the November ballot opposite incumbent Don Davis, a Democrat.
District 1 comprises 25 counties, stretching from Onslow up to the Virginia border, a diverse area with beach tourism along the coast and agriculture on the interior.
Buckhout, 65, visited Ocracoke July 8 and talked with island business owners.
“I like to fight and I understand money,” she explained to a small gathering of island business owners on the Ride the Wind Surf Shop porch. “I understand economics. I’m a relatively quick study and there are things I want to do.”
One of her chief goals is to see more jobs in the district.
“We’ve got to start pushing businesses and industry down here,” she said. “I think that’s part of the thing your elected representative has to do: bring businesses down here, look for incentives to make them stay and to open up plants, businesses and factories here in the district to put people back to work. In some of the coastal areas you got tourism to back you up. In other parts of the district, it’s a huge challenge.”
Better roads would help.
“People do not move to communities unless you’ve got a decent road, decent emergency facilities: fire, EMS and schools, and, of course, a job,” she said.
Without these municipal services, locales lack a tax base.
“So, build the roads, build the jobs to have a tax base so you can start to provide for these communities internally,” she said.
Transportation to and from the island was a big topic as was the recently passed state budget, which requires tolls on all the ferry routes, including Hatteras.
Justin LeBlanc, executive director of Ocracoke Access Alliance, noted that more revenue from additional tolling makes sense for long-term sustainability of the ferry fleet because there should be a revenue source to replace those ferries over time.
“But we did feel that fulltime residents should have gotten an exemption,” he said. “In the current version (of the budget), we do not.”
“You’re looking at the only people in North Carolina that have to pay to go to the doctor; pay to go to the dentist; pay to go to Food Lion; and pay to get home,” said Bob Chestnut, owner of Ride the Wind. “Every customer that comes into our shop has to pay to get here and that makes us unique.”
Erosion on the north end was discussed.
LeBlanc said the Cape Hatteras National Seashore has approved beach nourishment at the north end and through the sandbag area.
Paying for that would require an appropriation from the federal government.
So, for any congressional representative of this area, it would be good for them to get on appropriations committees.
LeBlanc said not a single member of the North Carolina delegation to Washington is on appropriations, nor are they on the Transportation and Public Works committees.
“Some of this district has been ignored for so long and everyone will admit it,” Buckhout said.
“But there’s no one in DC that frightens me. I’m ready to get up there and do the good fight; get in the committees and bring money to where it’s needed; bring influence to where it’s needed.”
Last year, the state’s Republican-controlled General Assembly redrew the congressional map, moving all of Hyde County out of District 3 and into District 1.
The 2024 redistricting was intended to make the seat more favorable to Republicans, part of a broader national trend of partisan gerrymandering.
It began when Texas, at the urging of President Trump, redrew its districts to benefit Republicans.
California followed and redrew its maps to favor Democrats.
In April, Virginia voters approved new congressional maps that were seen as more favorable to Democrats. However, these results were challenged in court.
The Virginia Supreme Court invalidated the maps, stating they did not follow the state’s constitutional process. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to intervene in this matter. Until the end of the year, Ocracoke and all of Hyde County will remain in House District 3—Greg Murphy is its representative—but will vote for the District 1 candidates in November.
