12 minute read
Congressional runoff will be predictably unpredictable
Low-turnout congressional and also refused to participate in an interview for this story.
“Really the worst part about my oppo
“It is an unusual race,” said Dr. Chris Cawthorn’s 20.4 percent with 22.7 percent AOC is just kind of a laughingstock, but you here and those tend to be Cawthorn territoCooper, “We got into it for unusual reasons.” of the vote. know, whenever I’ve seen her speak, her abilry,” he said.
On Dec. 19, 2019, after representing the That total, however, was far below the 30 ity to articulate and compel others to believe Mail-in voting started on May 8, and racially gerrymandered 11th Congressional percent threshold needed to advance to the the same is pretty amazing,” he said. “She’s a Cooper’s been tweeting about the running District for almost eight years, Meadows stunned the political establishment by announcing he wouldn’t seek re-election to his sprawling, rural, deeply red district. In person early voting schedule for select NC11 counties
His announcement took everyone by surHAYWOOD JACKSON MACON SWAIN prise — everyone except Maggie Valley real 81 Elmwood Way, Waynesville 876 Skyland Dr., Sylva 1288 Georgia Rd., Franklin 1422 Hwy 19 S., Bryson City estate agent Lynda Bennett. 600 N. 4th St., Highlands
The first in a series of shady moves that • Thursday, June 4..................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. drew anger and condemnation even from folks • Friday, June 5.......................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. in her party was her campaign website, regis• Saturday, June 6............................CLOSED...................................CLOSED...................................CLOSED...................................CLOSED tered months before Meadows’ announcement. • Sunday, June 7 ..............................CLOSED...................................CLOSED...................................CLOSED...................................CLOSED
Then, it was the quick 6 a.m. endorse• Monday, June 8 ....................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. ment by the Asheville Tea PAC that came • Tuesday, June 9....................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. just hours after Meadows’ announcement, • Wednesday, June 10.............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. before most of the country had even awak• Thursday, June 11................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. ened to the news. • Friday, June 12.....................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Once they did, 11 other Republicans • Saturday, June 13..........................CLOSED...................................CLOSED...................................CLOSED...................................CLOSED jumped into the race, including Sen. Jim • Sunday, June 14 ............................CLOSED...................................CLOSED...................................CLOSED...................................CLOSED Davis, R-Franklin, and real estate • Monday, June 15 ..................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. investor/motivational speaker Madison • Tuesday, June 16.................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. Cawthorn, of Hendersonville. • Wednesday, June 17.............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Bennett has also come under fire for • Thursday, June 18................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. audio recordings suggesting she’s a “never • Friday, June 19.....................8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ...............8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. ....................8 a.m.-5 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-5 p.m. Trumper” who spoke out against the presi• Saturday, June 20 .....................8 a.m.-3 p.m...........................8 a.m.-3 p.m...........................8 a.m.-3 p.m. .........................8 a.m.-3 p.m. dent during his campaign.
When early balloting started on Feb. 13, many Republicans were shocked to see volNovember General Election against retired very intellectual young woman.” totals. In his last update, on May 30, unteers handing out flyers listing Bennett as Air Force prosecutor, Asheville Democrat Young voters in the 11th Congressional Buncombe County had gone from representthe “official” conservative candidate. Col. Moe Davis. District runoff could be the ones to make all ing 25 percent of all votes cast in the first
A Smoky Mountain News investigation On March 30, Meadows abandoned his the difference; Cawthorn said he’s been primary to 37 percent of all votes cast thus found that the ballots were created by a twoseat, resigning to become President Donald reaching out to those demographics in the far in the runoff. Henderson County, day-old PAC with significant ties to Bennett’s Trump’s fourth chief of staff in four years, district’s two largest counties, Buncombe Cawthorn’s home county, had jumped from campaign. while leaving most of Western North and Henderson. Given that Cawthorn wasn’t 20 to 25 percent.
Other candidates said they hadn’t been Carolina without a voice in Congress amidst initially seen as a top-tier candidate, his Bennett’s home county, Haywood, had interviewed for the sham endorsement, with a global pandemic and the passage of Primary Election strategy may have worked. climbed from 7 percent of all votes cast to 8 some threatening legal action and others even unprecedented federal aid packages. “I think that the liberals have really corpercent. calling on Bennett to drop out of the race. A runoff election, called a “Second nered the market on young people with repCawthorn, who is confined to a wheel
Interestingly, the ballot doesn’t recomPrimary” in North Carolina, was scheduled for resentatives like an AOC and Ilhan Omar,” chair as the result of a devastating car accimend the Trump-endorsed U.S. Sen. Thom May 12, but concerns over the Coronavirus Cawthorn said. “The Republicans really need dent a few years back, thinks those numbers Tills, and volunteers were instructed to tell Pandemic pushed that back to June 23. to start reaching out to the younger generacould bode well for his campaign. voters, “Anybody but Tillis!” In the meantime, almost every one of tion or in a few years, a few short decades, “I’ve been burned alive and I’ve very
Cherokee County GOP leaders called the Bennett’s Primary Election opponents has we will have some very dark days in our nearly died. I’ve had to claw back from witheffort “sleazy shenanigans,” and even the endorsed Cawthorn, leaving the 24-year-old Republic.” in an inch of death. I’ve looked into the NCGOP’s 11th District Chairman, Aubrey with a broad base of support that also The pandemic could also play to abyss. I know what’s going to look back at Woodard, said that these “transgressions” includes almost every Republican sheriff in Cawthorn’s favor — he’s been campaigning me and I know who I am,” he said. “Many of shouldn’t have happened. the 17-county district. virtually, something he said comes naturally my opponents have said that we need some
The fact that some of those ballots ended Last week, Bennett was a no-show to a to people of his generation. That may be why one with a backbone of steel, but I can quite up in the Haywood County GOP’s office, “forum” hosted by The Mountaineer in he won the two largest counties in the disliterally say that mine is reinforced with titacoupled with social media messaging by the Waynesville, The Sylva Herald and the trict, both of which skew significantly nium. I will very well and very passionately HCGOP that appeared to favor Bennett — Cherokee One Feather. Bennett refused to younger than the rest of the district. and very aggressively defend this cause of county parties are to remain neutral, and answer questions from The Smoky Still, according to Cooper, Cawthorn’s conservatism, because I believe it is the best Bennett doesn’t have support from 100 perMountain News over why she didn’t attend got an uphill battle. thing for America.”
“Bennett would be the odds-on favorite, and I say that because she got the most votes in the first primary. So all else being equal, the runoff election will be nent is that without a script, without cue cards, without having a prepared statement, my opponent is unable to defend the cause of conservatism,” Cawthorn said on May 28. person who gets the most votes in the first primary is the person who wins in the second primary. That happens in North Carolina about 75 percent of the time,” Cooper said. “With predictably unpredictable “Right now, we are at a precarious moment in our country where we could very well see our country fall to the likes of socialism.” that said, I mean, this is as close to unpredictable as we can get. This is going to be a low turnout election. It is, again, taking place Cawthorn admits there’s not a lot of ideoduring COVID-19 so we’re unsure on exactly BY CORY VAILLANCOURT cent of the HCGOP anyway — landed logical difference between him and Bennett, what the patterns are going to look like.” S TAFF WRITER HCGOP Chairman Ken Henson in hot water but Cawthorn’s a polished and prolific Cooper does note, however, that there A year ago, few would have predicted that with higher-ups in the party. speaker who’s appeared on Fox and Friends some “interesting geographical cleavages” a crowded field of Republicans would Bennett has refused to speak with major twice and has earned comparisons to young that could dictate the outcome of the runoff. eventually whittle themselves down to media outlets since the publication of the upstart Democratic Congresswoman “The population centers — Buncombe two, in a runoff, competing for the U.S. sham ballot story on Feb. 22 but did manAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez for his passion, if County, which is of course home to House seat of Asheville Republican Rep. age to place first in the heavily-fragmented not his politics. Asheville, and Henderson County — make Mark Meadows. March 3 Primary Election, edging “A lot of people like to oftentimes act like up about 41 percent of the eligible voters
Waynesville protest march concludes peacefully
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT S TAFF WRITER A group of almost 100 demonstrators hoping to draw attention to racial injustice marched through Waynesville on the night of June 1, but unlike protests in other parts of the country and the state, this one ended peacefully, with no arrests or injuries to marchers, onlookers or first responders.
“It went very smoothly,” said David Adams, Waynesville’s chief of police.
The march began at Walmart in West Waynesville around 8:40 p.m., after Waynesville Police Department lieutenants Brandon Gilmore and Tyler Trantham helped marchers determine a route to the Historic Haywood County Courthouse and gave them an escort.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Trantham told them. “We’ll put a car in front of you and a car behind, so you can do what you want to do.”
Protest organizer and Waynesville resident Zach Nbach, 20, told Trantham he’d make an announcement calling for a peaceful march, and told The Smoky Mountain News that emulating the mayhem in other cities like Asheville wasn’t his goal.
“I’m trying to prove that not only can you get your point across by being violent, but you can also do that by being peaceful,” Nbach said.
The point Nbach and fellow organizer Dylan Davis, also of Haywood County, were trying to make is that systemic, institutional racism has no place in the county, or the country.
“It has to end,” said Nbach. “It’s just as bad as in Martin Luther King’s day. It got better — it did. But then somehow it’s gone back downhill again.”
Nbach was referring to far more than the recent murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin while handcuffed, face down in the street with two other officers sitting on his legs and back.
Around dusk, the column of protestors made its way though Hazelwood, past the sheriff ’s office and Waynesville Middle School, chanting “No justice, no peace!” and “I can’t breathe!”
Those who showed up to the protest, including Waynesville resident Cameron Eastman, 18, said they were there for good reason.
“His name was Jaquyn Light,” Eastman said. “Back home in Burlington, Alamance County, he got shot by [Graham, North Carolina] police. That’s why me and my brother came out here. And I had two people killed by police last year.”
Haywood resident Meli Lambert, 17, learned about the event on Facebook and voiced similar concerns.
“We want justice for George [Floyd] and for this not to happen to anybody else,” Lambert said. “Just because you have a badge on does not mean you’re above anybody else.”
Addison Fox of Black Mountain and Claire Ayala of Asheville learned about the Waynesville protest on Snapchat and said they were there to promote racial justice.
“People can literally be in their own homes and not feel safe, and I think that is just absolutely ridiculous, especially in 2020 as we’ve been fighting the war on racism for so long,” Ayala said. “I definitely support the Black Lives Matter movement, and we just want to do our part because white silence is violence.”
Marchers engaged in one verbal altercation with a homeowner along the way, but other than that, their trip to the courthouse was uneventful. After marching down South Main Street under heavy police presence, protestors chanted and took a knee on the courthouse steps, and began to disperse peacefully around 10 p.m.
Eastman said he felt like the demonstrators had been heard.
“The color of somebody’s skin shouldn’t affect how you look at them,” Eastman said. “It should be the inside, know what I mean?”
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Protestors march on Waynesville’s South Main Street behind a Waynesville police vehicle.
Cory Vaillancourt photo
— Zach Nbach, Waynesville
Waynesville police officers Brandon Gilmore (left) and Tyler Trantham speak with protestors
prior to their June 1 demonstration. Cory Vaillancourt photo
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