Republican officials in western North Carolina on Monday selected a candidate to replace Rep. Chuck Edwards on the November ballot. Edwards dropped out of the race last week after the House Ethics Committee documented his troubling conduct toward two young female aides.

The new candidate, state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom, will now have roughly 80 days to crisscross North Carolina’s sprawling 11th Congressional District and retain the seat for Republicans, who are vying to keep control of Congress in a challenging midterm election.

Even without scandal, Edwards had already been facing a competitive reelection contest. Jamie Ager, the Democratic candidate, has been making inroads in the district as a farmer with deep roots in a mostly conservative region that has shifted left in recent election cycles.

But after the House Ethics Committee recommended that Edwards be censured for “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” toward the women, he faced growing pressure to abandon his reelection bid.

Balkcom was selected to replace Edwards by the Republican executive committee of North Carolina’s 11th District. The committee includes dozens of members, such as local party chairs.

Balkcom, who has served two terms in the state House, had expressed interest in running for the district, saying in a statement Monday that she was eager to “work with President Trump’s administration to continue rebuilding western North Carolina, and make sure Washington never forgets the people who call these mountains home.”

Balkcom will need a crush of cash to be able to compete with Ager, who has raised more than $3 million. (Edwards had $940,000 in his campaign coffers.)

Western North Carolina, a mountainous and mostly rural area that is anchored by the liberal city of Asheville, has not elected a Democrat to Congress since 2010, when Heath Shuler, a former NFL quarterback, won his third term in the House.

But Democrats have felt optimistic about Ager’s chances, especially after Edwards’ scandal.

For many residents, the central issue is the slow pace of recovery from Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 100 people in 2024 and was the worst natural disaster to strike the state.

The Helene response has also hovered over North Carolina’s Senate race between former Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and Michael Whatley, a Republican who was named the Helene “recovery czar” by President Donald Trump.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Eduardo Medina/Kenny Holston
c. 2026 The New York Times Company