Story co-produced/ written with Liam Bridgeman
Since 2013, the NC district 11 seat has been held by the Republicans and with voting just around the corner, it has been shown that the republicans have a solid hold on the seat.
This seat is part of the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The elected official for this race will represent 16 counties in North Carolina from as far west as Cherokee, all the way east to McDowell County.
Vote count of the primaries
The Democratic primary in this race was a landslide victory by Jasmine Beach-Ferrara. She gained 59.7% of the vote, around 32,200 votes.
The Republican primary vote was a tight race. The incumbent, Madison Cawthorn who has held the seat since 2021, despite a term filled with controversy, gained 31.9% of the Republican vote. Chuck Edwards, Cawthorn’s challenger in the primary gained 33.4% of the vote, winning the Republican nomination. He now challenges Beach-Ferrara and Libertarian David Coatney for the District 11 seat.
In the video below, we dive deeper into the candidates views on the topic of student loan forgiveness and college affordability
Read more about the candidates stances on other topics impacting the American public below.
Jasmine Beach-Ferrara (D)
Ferrara is a commissioner for Buncombe County. The Western Carolina Journalist reached out to Ferrara for comment on important issues facing the American public but did not receive any word back. She has raised $2,234,709 for her campaign, spending a total of $2,080,473.
The following information is from the debate, as well as her campaign website which can be found here.
Higher Education:
Ferrara believes in loan forgiveness because she does not agree with saddling young people with large amounts of debt and that the stress of paying back loans makes college feel less accessible.
2nd Amendment:
Ferrara supports common sense gun laws rather than blanket restrictions and wants to balance protection for the second amendment as well as gun control.
Immigration:
Ferrara expressed that we have a broken immigration system, and we need our federal agencies to be ready to investigate things such as sex trafficking and high-level drug trafficking. We also need to have people in congress that are willing to come together on immigration reform and an amnesty program.
Abortion:
She believes that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a mistake and, if elected, would work to codify it into the constitution. She also supports allocating resources to help young parents as well as children.
Chuck Edwards (R)
Edwards is a former state senator from Henderson County. WCJ reached out to Senator Edwards for questions regarding his stance on many hot-button topics. He agreed to answer questions but did not agree on a time to be filmed answering said questions.
On his website, Edwards has five main areas of position: securing the border, balancing the budget, being energy independent, improving education and his pro-life values.
He has raised $1,497,778 and he has spent $1,276,910 toward his campaign.
Higher Education:
Higher Education was not discussed in the WLOS debate, nor can the issue be found on Senator Edwards’ website.
2nd Amendment:
In the WLOS debate, Edwards solidified his stance on the 2nd amendment, “I believe what we should do is protect that second amendment at every cost,” he said. He continued by saying he supports no restrictions on the amendment.
Immigration:
Edwards believes that the proposed wall between the U.S-Mexican border should be completed, and to do this, funding to the project needs to be restored. He believes that there is a crisis and the border needs to be closed. He added “We should be a place that welcomes immigrants, but they need to come in here legally.”
Abortion:
Senator Edwards is a pro-life candidate. In the debate, Edwards said he supports the life of unborn children and will continue to do so. Edwards added to his answer by saying that resources need to be in place for mothers leaning toward abortions so that they can have the child. Specific resources were not given.
David Coatney (L)
David Coatney is the owner of Sleek Web Marketing, a marketing firm that aims to help small businesses grow. He joined the race to fight against the polarization in congress from the two-party system.
Information on Coatney’s spending was not available.
Higher Education:
Coatney believes that rampant over regulation has made it where tuition costs too much but also believes that blanket loan forgiveness is not the way to go about relieving debt from students. He proposes that there be zero interest loans to take some burden off of students without disincentivizing scholarships or shifting debt around.
2nd Amendment:
Believes that more funding toward mental health programs would help deal with people with mental health issues and help keep guns out of their hands.
Supports the movement “Don’t Name Them”, that strives to get police and the media to not name shooters who are seeking notoriety.
Coatney said to WCJ in an interview, that he disagrees with the Gun-Free School Zones Act and that it has made schools and children less safe in recent years. To combat this problem, he would like to allow staff in schools to carry a firearm if they take classes on gun safety in the school as well as concealing it on their person so a student would never know about the firearm. He believes this would lead to a safer situation in schools.
Immigration:
As the spouse of an immigrant, he is looking to introduce immigration reform making it to where channels for immigration are more streamlined and accessible.
Abortion:
He believes that whether or not to get an abortion is between a woman and her doctor and that it’s not the government’s role to interfere on personal healthcare decisions.
According to BallotPedia and several race trackers, Edwards is projected to win the race by a large margin and has been since the start of October.
