Election Recap

After months of campaigning election season has come and gone and the Chamber is busy working on building relationships with our newly elected officials. November 4 brought a great deal of change to North Carolina and Buncombe County.

In the prize fight, North Carolinians saw incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan running against former NC Speaker of the House, Republican Thom Tillis. The election was close but Tillis came away with the win with a margin of 49% to 47%. The Chamber has a solid relationship with Senator-Elect Tillis from his days at the NC General Assembly and will continue to work on representing Western North Carolina with NC’s new senator.

Buncombe County saw no change in our Congressional delegation with both Representative Patrick McHenry (Republican, 10^th) and Mark Meadows (Republican, 11^th) winning reelection. The Chamber will continue to leverage our relationships with the Congressmen to encourage full funding of the Highway Trust Fund in the coming months.

Republicans maintained control of the North Carolina House and Senate; however Buncombe County saw a switch in our local representatives’ party affiliations. This occurred with Nathan Ramsey (NC House District 115) and Tim Moffitt (NC House District 116) losing their seats to Democratic challengers John Ager and Brian Turner. Representative Susan Fisher (NC House District 114) kept her seat as she ran unopposed.

The NC Senate saw no shake up in Buncombe County with Terry Van Duyn (NC Senate District 49) and Tom Apodaca (NC Senate District 48) both keeping their seats. 

The Chamber is working to educate our newly elected officials on our top priorities for the coming session that begins in January and will host a Legislative Luncheon on January 9 at the Biltmore to present the delegation with the Chamber’s Legislative Agenda.

There are seven members on the Buncombe County Commission, which is comprised of a Chairman and two representatives from each of the county’s three districts. This election saw one race taking place in each of the three districts. In District 1 Commissioner Brownie Newman (D) ran uncontested and retained his seat. District 2 saw incumbent Commissioner Ellen Frost (R) defeat Christina G. Merrill (D) to remain on the Commission and District 3 had Miranda DeBruhl (R) defeating Nancy Waldrup (Unaffiliated).

The Chamber commends all those that seek to represent the people of Buncombe County in elected office. We wish to thank all those that have given of their time and energy to represent the people and businesses of WNC. We look forward to working with all our elected officials in making Asheville a great place to work and live.