The Liberty Daily 
(The Daily Caller)—The Chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm, failed to win reelection in his own safe red seat as members of his party lost across the country Tuesday night.
Republican North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson fell to Democratic challenger Richard Ojeda in North Carolina’s Ninth District, which President Donald Trump won by 16 points in the 2024 presidential election. Ojeda won 51.1% of the vote to Hudson’s 48.9% with 99% of ballots counted, according to NBC News and Decision Desk HQ.
The outcome was a major upset as the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rated the race as “Likely R” heading into Election Day.
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The NRCC is a Republican Party Hill committee whose role is to elect Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives through direct financial contributions to candidates, voter turnout programs, and other campaign-related assistance. Hudson has been chair of the NRCC since January 2023, and has been serving in the U.S. House of Representatives for North Carolina since 2013.
Ojeda, a U.S. Army veteran and perennial candidate, went into the race as a heavy underdog. After serving one term in West Virginia‘s State Senate from 2017 to 2019 and failing to win a House race in the state, he made a brief longshot presidential run in the crowded 2020 Democratic primaries. He moved to North Carolina that year. Ojeda was a keynote speaker at a “No Kings” rally in Fayetteville in March 2026.
Ojeda’s victory comes on the same night North Carolina’s Senate seat flipped blue in a landslide, with former two-term Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper easily dispatching Republican nominee Michael Whatley to succeed retiring Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.
It also comes after Republicans in North Carolina’s state legislature redrew the state’s House map with the intention to create one more GOP seat.
