HENDERSONVILLE - With Democrats swamping Republicans in early voting, polls predicting trouble for GOP candidates and the Nov. 3 general election just two weeks away, Vice President JD Vance arrived at a Hendersonville warehouse Oct. 19 to help Republicans hold onto one of their traditional strongholds.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to think I know this state. I served here when I was in the United States Marine Corps. I came to love the great state of North Carolina," Vance said. "And I think you know, as I know, that the far left of the Democrat Party abandoned the good people of this state a long time ago. And I believe that you want real fighters who are hitting the pavement for you every
single day in Washington D.C."
The Republican urgency extends far beyond Western North Carolina.
President Donald Trump was scheduled to campaign in Kansas Oct. 19, where Republicans face the possibility of losing a U.S. Senate seat they have held for nearly a century. Trump is scheduled to appear in Greenville, North Carolina, Oct. 20 and Clemson, South Carolina, Oct. 21, where another unexpectedly competitive Senate race has Republicans scrambling.
In North Carolina, Democrats are showing signs of enthusiasm that Republicans cannot afford to ignore.
Through Oct. 18, registered Democrats had cast 240,206 early ballots statewide, compared with 102,845 by Republicans. Overall turnout was up 37% compared with the same point in the 2022 midterms, according to figures reported by Axios. Although party registration does not establish how anyone voted, Republicans accounted for just 20% of ballots cast, compared with roughly 30% at the same point in 2022.
The political landscape is particularly threatening in North Carolina's 11th Congressional District, where Henderson County Republican Jennifer Balkcom is trying to retain a seat that the party has controlled for more than a decade.
Balkcom's Democratic opponent, Fairview Farmer Jamie Ager, has turned what was once considered reliably Republican territory into a toss-up. An Oct. 19 election forecast from Decision Desk HQ and The Hill gave Balkcom a 51% chance of winning, compared with Ager's 49%.
Republicans rally behind Balkcom and Whatley
The stakes were evident inside the Hyder Warehouse on Chestnut Gap Road, where an assortment of Republican officials pleaded for votes before Vance took the stage.
North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek opened by emphasizing government accountability, citing his participation in the Southeast's federal-state anti-fraud partnership, part of a national initiative chaired by Vance. House Speaker Destin Hall defended Balkcom's legislative record on transgender issues before turning his attention to her opponent.
"He (Ager) goes out and pretends like he is just a good old boy from the mountains, and he's just like us," Hall said. "But if you look at what he supports, he might as well be AOC. Might as well be Bernie Sanders because he supports the same policies." AOC refers to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Congressman Addison McDowell portrayed Ager as a liberal who would raise taxes and fuel prices, and characterized Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper as soft on crime and immigration. Rep. Mark Harris offered a warning about Democratic control of Congress.
"They're going to launch investigation after investigation, impeachment attempt after impeachment attempt," Harris told a crowd of about 450 people.
Laurie Buckhout, the Republican challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Don Davis in North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, expressed support for Balkcom and characterized their races as critical to preserving Republican control of the House.
Balkcom spoke only for two minutes, but highlighted her efforts to restrict foreign ownership of agricultural land and transgender participation in women's sports while urging supporters to recruit more Republican voters.
Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Budd endorsed both Balkcom and Senate candidate Michael Whatley, offering an especially favorable assessment of Whatley's involvement in Tropical Storm Helene recovery.
"He's been behind the scenes. He's been making calls,” Budd said. “He's been cutting through red tape, and he's been showing up without even being paid.”
That assessment conflicts sharply with findings from a Citizen Times investigation published Sept. 25. Public records requests covering federal agencies, state departments and county governments revealed just six text messages and five telephone calls totaling 38 minutes between Whatley and Sharon Decker, a senior adviser to the Governor's Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, over roughly one year.
Broader searches found no direct communications between Whatley and leadership at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, North Carolina Emergency Management, the state Department of Commerce or any of the counties surveyed by the Citizen Times. The records could not account for every possible conversation or meeting, but they documented remarkably little direct communication with the government officials responsible for coordinating recovery.
Budd nevertheless assured the crowd that Whatley was prepared to become North Carolina's next senator, but for Whatley, the polling suggests a far more difficult path.
Whatley trails Cooper as Republicans pull funding
A RealClearPolling average of recent surveys showed Cooper leading Whatley by approximately 10 percentage points. An Oct. 1-7 SurveyUSA poll conducted for WRAL found Cooper ahead 54% to 40%.
National Republicans have already begun redirecting resources away from the contest. The Senate Leadership Fund, a major Republican political action committee aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, withdrew planned advertising support for Whatley earlier this month, shifting resources toward other competitive races, including Kansas.
The organization had previously committed $71 million to protecting the North Carolina seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
Whatley's Helene claims continue to contradict documented facts
Those developments haven't stopped Whatley from intensifying his attacks on Cooper, including repeating a demonstrably false claim about Cooper's whereabouts during Helene.
Whatley told the Hendersonville crowd that Cooper had abandoned Western North Carolina during the September 2024 disaster, claiming the then-governor was attending a climate change gala in New York City when the storm struck.
The historical record shows otherwise. Cooper attended a New York Times climate conference Sept. 25, 2024, returning to North Carolina by 3 p.m. that day, according to contemporaneous reporting and an Oct. 5, 2026, PolitiFact investigation. Cooper declared a state of emergency Sept. 25, held a storm-preparation briefing in Raleigh Sept. 26 and conducted another briefing in Raleigh Sept. 27, the day Helene devastated Western North Carolina.
The Sept. 27 briefing included updates on hundreds of National Guard personnel and swift-water rescue teams already deployed across the state. Cooper also requested an expedited federal major disaster declaration.
PolitiFact rated the assertion that Cooper was in New York when Helene struck North Carolina false.
Whatley also repeated a questionable account of his own background, claiming he grew up in Blowing Rock, a small mountain town where he said his parents worked as an accountant and librarian.
A June investigation by NBC News established that Whatley was born in Lansing, Michigan, and spent most of his childhood there. The reporting relied on birth announcements and high school yearbooks documenting his attendance at East Lansing High School as a freshman in 1983 before he appeared at Watauga High School as a sophomore in 1984.
Whatley lived in Blowing Rock for approximately three years before attending college. His campaign has defended his characterization of those years as formative, although his claim to have grown up there omits most of his childhood.
Budd went further during his introduction, incorrectly telling the audience that Whatley was born in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Whatley's attacks on Cooper also included allegations that the former governor had weakened public safety, released dangerous criminals and raised living costs.
He accused Cooper of creating conditions that contributed to the 2025 killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train, although Cooper had already left office when the killing occurred. PolitiFact previously rejected Whatley's assertion that Cooper bore direct responsibility for her death.
The Senate candidate also defended his performance as Trump's designated Helene recovery representative, claiming he had conducted hundreds of meetings and thousands of telephone calls related to recovery efforts.
He credited himself and the Trump administration with securing more than $11 billion in disaster relief for Western North Carolina. That figure, although substantial, represents less than one-fifth of the approximately $60 billion in damage and recovery needs estimated by state officials following the September 2024 disaster. The figures measure different things, however, and funding commitments do not necessarily mean money has reached affected communities.
Two years after Helene, recovery remains unfinished, with damaged roads, bridges, homes and businesses still confronting the region. The gap between federal commitments and money actually reaching Western North Carolina has been a persistent point of contention, particularly as local officials attempt to finance expensive infrastructure projects.
For a politician charged with overseeing the recovery, Whatley's lack of documented contact with those officials has become a central question about his effectiveness.
Vance attacks Cooper and Ager in Hendersonville
Vance, whose appearance was intended to bolster the Republican ticket, offered no indication that the party was prepared to soften its rhetoric.
Instead, he devoted much of his speech to attacking Cooper and Ager as dangerous liberals who would undermine public safety, raise taxes and follow Democratic congressional leaders.
The vice president argued that Cooper would take orders from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rather than North Carolina voters. He also accused the former governor of supporting transgender policies opposed by Republicans and releasing thousands of violent criminals from prison.
Vance sought to portray Cooper's moderate image as a carefully manufactured political identity, financed and promoted by national Democrats to conceal an ideological agenda.
Ager received similarly aggressive treatment; Vance repeatedly suggested that the Henderson County farmer and businessman was concealing extreme political views behind the appearance of a traditional Western North Carolina Democrat.
He accused Ager of being beholden to progressive members of Congress, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and suggested that Ager would abandon his campaign promises once elected.
The vice president also attacked Ager's family business, asserting that its operations had harmed North Carolina over several decades, although he offered no supporting evidence for the allegation.
Ager is the co-owner and CEO of Hickory Nut Gap Farm, a family agricultural business in Fairview that has developed a regional reputation for pasture-raised livestock and locally produced food.
Vance criticized the farm for having hosted a drag performance, characterizing the event as offensive to Christian beliefs and inappropriate for children. The criticism echoed an attack Balkcom had made earlier in the afternoon when she questioned why Ager's farm had hosted drag performances.
Despite repeatedly invoking Ager as a threat to Republican control of Congress, Vance had difficulty pronouncing his opponent's name.
Ager's surname rhymes with "wager." Vance repeatedly pronounced it as though it rhymed with "lager," further mangling the name during his extended attacks.
Vance defends Trump administration's economic record
The vice president's comments also focused on economic issues that have become central to the midterm election.
Vance touted the administration's tax policies, including provisions affecting tips, overtime compensation and older taxpayers. He argued that Republican energy policies would ultimately lower fuel prices and reduce household expenses, and blamed Democrats for restricting domestic energy production — despite Republicans now controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress.
The administration's handling of affordability has become an increasingly serious political liability as voters confront elevated fuel prices and uncertainty surrounding the war with Iran.
Vance nevertheless insisted that Republicans offered the only credible path toward economic improvement.
"The solution to our problems isn't to hand the shovel back to the party who dug the hole in the first place," he said.
Vance announces $858 million in Helene aid
The vice president also used his visit to announce an additional $858 million in federal disaster relief funding intended to rebuild eight major transportation corridors damaged by Helene.
Among the projects he identified was Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River Gorge, where catastrophic flooding and landslides destroyed sections of the highway near the Tennessee state line.
The vice president credited Trump, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Whatley with securing the funding.
He also claimed the Federal Emergency Management Agency had committed $7.5 billion toward rebuilding after Helene, acknowledging that recovery would continue for years.
Federal recovery began while Cooper was governor and Democrat Joe Biden was president. The initial federal disaster declaration was approved in September 2024, and subsequent recovery programs have continued across both administrations.
Congressional appropriations, federal agency approvals and state-administered programs have all played roles in financing recovery, making it difficult to assign credit for the entire funding total to any single official.
The $858 million announcement nevertheless provided Vance with atangible achievement to present to a region still struggling with the storm's consequences.
Republicans warn Democrats could take Congress
For much of the speech, the vice president treated the election as a referendum on national Democratic policies rather than the records of individual candidates. Vance warned that Democratic control of Congress would mean higher taxes, weaker immigration enforcement and government spending directed toward people he described as fraudsters and illegal immigrants.
He repeatedly characterized Republicans as defenders of ordinary American families and argued that Democrats had abandoned those voters.
The remarks reflected a broader Republican strategy aimed at energizing the party's base rather than winning over voters who have already rejected Trump.
With registered Democrats accounting for a disproportionately large share of early ballots, the urgency of that effort was apparent.
Republican speakers throughout the afternoon returned to the same message, warning supporters that staying home on Election Day could surrender control of Congress to Democrats.
Vance closed his prepared appeal by urging North Carolinians to reject candidates who campaign as moderates but, he alleged, would embrace progressive policies in Washington.
Epstein files heckler disrupts Vance rally
The afternoon's most unusual political confrontation, however, came from someone sitting directly behind him.
During Vance's remarks, a man seated in the VIP section behind the vice president began shouting about releasing the files associated with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — a risky act, considering a woman was punched by Trump supporters and mocked by Trump last week after speaking out at an Ohio rally.
The interruption briefly disrupted the speech before security personnel removed the man. Vance responded by turning the episode into an immigration joke.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to have to amend something I said earlier," Vance told the audience. "I said that we have had zero illegal border crossings in the United States, but one isn't bad, right?"
The remark effectively compared the heckler to an immigrant entering the country illegally, drawing on one of the administration's favorite political themes rather than addressing the demand concerning the Epstein files.
Vance then suggested that the man had been instructed by political opponents to disrupt the event, although he provided no evidence to support that characterization.
Two other people seated near the original heckler were subsequently removed from the VIP section. All three were escorted from the event.
Cory Vaillancourt is the Helene Recovery/Investigations Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Find him on X at @The_CoryV or on Signal, via email at cvaillancourt@citizentimes.com or at 912-508-5640.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Vance rallies Hendersonville Republicans amid Democratic surge
