As the man behind the controversial North Carolina-based American Muckrakers PAC, David Wheeler’s had an outsized impact on at least one recent congressional campaign, but in 2024, he’s looking to have that same impact on a race of his own.

North Carolina’s known as a purple state where fierce partisan divide is the norm, but after two high-profile politicians — one a former NC-11 candidate and the other the current lieutenant governor — prompted outrage with recent vulgarities, their respective parties are stuck in a tough spot and facing difficult decisions over how to respond. 

Retired Air Force Col. Moe Davis may have lost to Madison Cawthorn in last year’s General Election, but that doesn’t mean he’s done speaking out against the young conservative firebrand. 

Some people will say a gay woman who’s a Christian minister just can’t get elected in the South.

Those who hadn’t learned through backchannels a day or two beforehand found out early on a cold mountain morning late last winter that Mark Meadows was out. 

The major party candidates seeking the NC11 congressional seat recently left vacant by former Rep. Mark Meadows spent much of the first two debates attacking each other and defending themselves against those attacks, but now that controversial tweets by one of them have resurfaced, there’s even more focus on how the current partisan discord is turning modern political discourse into a war of words that can never be won. 

Around 30 demonstrators affiliated with a group called Sunrise North Carolina showed up to a congressional forum held by Southwestern Community College in Sylva on Sept. 9, but they weren’t there to watch — they were there to sound off against the environmental positions of Republican candidate Madison Cawthorn.

Congressional candidates’ claims rated for truthfulness

By Sally Kestin and Peter H. Lewis
AVL Watchdog

In their first public face-off, the candidates vying for the increasingly competitive 11th district congressional seat, Republican Madison Cawthorn and Democrat Moe Davis, touted their differences on just about all issues and hurled accusations, with each calling the other “fast and loose” with the facts. Who was telling the truth? AVL Watchdog fact-checked some of the claims made at the Sept. 4-5 debates at Western Carolina University and rated them as true, false or misleading.

Congressional candidates Moe Davis and Madison Cawthorn clashed last week in a pair of debates spanning two days and three hours, covering everything from health care and economics to gun rights and race relations. 

Keep electing people who are ideologically too far left or right to reach across the aisle, and we’ll have the same kind of Congress we have today: divided, ineffective, laughable. So despite Madison Cawthorn trying to brand himself as a new face of conservatism, many of his statements since winning the 11th District GOP primary reveal a young man with a narrow, hard-right world view that may make him the darling of a certain segment of his party but will do little to help those in his district or help get Congress moving in a positive direction.