ROCKINGHAM — Congressman Richard Hudson defeated three challengers in Tuesday’s Republican primary election for the 9th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Records from the North Carolina Board of Elections show Hudson carried more than 70% of every county in the newly drawn district, which now comprises Scotland, Hoke, Lee, Chatham and Randolph counties in addition to northwest Cumberland, western Harnett and a sliver of eastern Richmond.
“I am grateful for the tremendous outpouring of support shown to me tonight,” Hudson said in a statement released Tuesday night. “Renee and I look forward to the work ahead earning the chance to represent all people in our community for the next two years. Under one-party rule, the country is on the wrong track. But together, we can restore common sense, conservative leadership.”
Hudson received 383 votes in Richmond County — 156 from one-stop early voting and one from an absentee ballot — for 86.85% of the vote, according to the Richmond County Board of Elections. Overall, Hudson garnered 37,972 votes.
Even with Fort Bragg in the district, Hudson beat out Army veteran Francisco Rios of Charlotte, who was stationed at the base while in the 82nd Airborne Division.
Records show Rios had 1,866 votes throughout the district — the fewest of all the candidates.
Asheboro’s Jen Bucardo had the second-highest number of votes overall with 4,153 and performed the best in her home county of Randolph with 12.8% of the vote there.
The other challenger, Mike Adriani of Fayetteville, had 3,931 total votes, pulling in 11.95% in Chatham County, 8.17% in Lee, 11.77% in Harnett, 9.61% in Hoke, 8.49% in Cumberland, 7.08% in Scotland and 8.16% in Richmond.
Hudson, who has represented Richmond County in the past, and Rios both live outside the district.
The U.S. Constitution allows for members of the U.S. House of Representatives to not live in the district they represent. During a special election several years ago for the 9th District, half of the 10 Republicans in the primary were outside the district.
Hudson will go on to face state Sen. Ben Clark, D-Hoke.
According to the biography on Clark’s campaign website, he was born at Womack Army Hospital at Fort Bragg to a helicopter pilot and teacher and raised in Fayetteville with his two siblings, graduating from Seventy-First High School.
Clark studied industrial technology at N.C. A&T University, where he was also in the ROTC program. He joined the U.S. Air Force as a second lieutenant and retired 20 years later as a lieutenant colonel.
Clark has been elected to five terms in the N.C. Senate and his district includes Hoke and part of Cumberland County.
When legislative maps were finally approved late last year, Richmond County was split between the 8th and 9th districts.
Rep. Dan Bishop faced no challengers in the primary for the 8th District and has no competition from the Democratic or Libertarian parties in November.
The 8th District includes the western two-thirds of Richmond, Anson, Union, Montgomery, Stanly, Davidson, Rowan and eastern Cabarrus.