Tenth district GOP congressman, Chief Deputy Whip in the U.S. House, and craft beer enthusiast Patrick McHenry has his first Democratic challenger. Financial planner Andy Millard of Tryon says he’s tired of the divisiveness in Washington and it’s time McHenry got a real challenge. Millard says he has the money and the resources to do just that.
It will be quite the uphill battle. The 10th is located in the Foothills region of the state, a working-class and very socially conservative area. McHenry should be able to win just by tying his Democratic opponent to Obama. Crafty Republican legislators also drew his district to take in Asheville and the southeast quadrant of Buncombe County, where the bulk of the district’s liberal population lives, but their numbers are not enough to put a Democrat over the 50% mark.
Perhaps in time Asheville’s influence will become so strong that the district becomes competitive, but probably not this decade. To his credit, McHenry has worked to reach out to the part of his district, opening an office near there and supporting the city’s burgeoning craft beer industry.
Millard says he’ll focus on jobs and education and contrast his experience with that of Rep. McHenry’s, who he apparently plans to define as a career politician. That won’t be enough. In 2012, McHenry won reelection over Patsy Keever (now NC Democratic chair) by 14%. In 2014 he defeated community activist Tate MacQueen by 22%. If electoral history is any indication, even getting within double-digits of the incumbent will be a coup for Mr. Millard.
John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.
McHenry and powerful Republicans have already chosen the voters for the 10th district and deliberately disenfranchised the votes of those they disagree with. Stacking the deck to win in every election lacks any resemblance of Democracy and is dishonest. We should fight to protect the legitimacy of elections by getting every progressive registered to vote and aware of the dates of early voting. If we have to scare them with reminders of the harm RepubliCons have done to get progressives to vote, that’s acceptable–and necessary.
Andy Millard is a serious challenger who has got an early start on his campaign. If the numerous robo calls McHenry is suddenly sending out are any indication, Millard has his attention.
Too bad he wasn’t in the Catawba Valley supporting the furniture and textiles industries as they were running to Mexico and then overseas to China in the late 90’s when the void began to open to take advantage of cheap labor. But Patty lad was right there with the people of the Catawba Valley at election time rallying them to his aid at the polls as the unemployment rate climbed to 15% or more at the height of the ‘Great Recession’; one of the most blighted regions of the State during that time and demonstrable of what his “Social Conservatism” is all about.
Oh wait…he was supporting the corporate leviathans shifting those jobs and seeing that they did not do without as they supported him financially for continual returns to Congress.
Those same pious people kept returning the pariah and detriment to their existence to office term after term, against their own interests, because they’re “social conservatives” too. So God will look after them. I hope so, Patrick McHenry isn’t going to. If there is any validity to the phrase, “you reap what you sow”, that area of the State is certainly getting their fair share of what they’ve sewn.
“To his credit, McHenry has worked to reach out to the Asheville part of his district, opening an office there and supporting the city’s burgeoning craft beer industry.”
Hardly! His office is not in Asheville, but in Black Mountain. When he holds town hall meetings, they are not in Asheville (where even Republican Charles Taylor would hold town meetings) but in Swannanoa. When he even bothers to set foot in the city limits (which is seldom) it is to speak to friendly business audiences highly sympathetic to him.
What’s more he does not respond — at least not in a timely manner — to his constituents in Asheville. It took him literally six months to respond to an e-mail I sent him. By contrast it took Ricahrd Burr 3 months, and Kay Hagan 3 or 4 hours.
All Asheville is to McHenry is that liberal urban area that causes the winning margins he had before it was gerrymandered into his district to be knocked down 2 or 3 percentage points. It is irrelevant to him and to say he has “reached out to the Asheville part of his district” is absurd.