Richard Ojeda declares victory over GOP campaign chief Richard Hudson in North Carolina

Democrat Richard Ojeda declared victory on Tuesday against National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson (R-NC) in a race that was deemed too close to call.Ojeda trailed Hudson in every poll conducted across the 2026 election and saw an influx of Democratic spending backing his candidacy in the final days of the campaign. Ojeda himself purchased his first ad space in mid-October, knocking Hudson for being the “biggest recipient of big pharmaceutical dollars.”“I spent 24 years in the Army, and I’ve been in some hard fights. This is the one I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” Ojeda told the Washington Examiner. “The people of NC-09 looked at the guy running the entire Republican money machine, and they fired him.” The Associated Press has not called the race, but as of 10:56 p.m., Ojeda was leading Hudson 51% to 49% with 96% of the vote counted.“This win belongs to every teacher, every nurse, every veteran, every family at Fort Bragg and every working person who’s sick and tired of watching the billionaire class take everything from us,” Ojeda added. “They deserve better. Starting in January, they’re going to get it.”Hudson had held his seat since 2013 and put $200,000 into his own first television ad campaign just last week. President Donald Trump carried North Carolina’s 9th District, which stretches from Fayetteville to Greensboro and includes Fort Bragg, by 15 points in the 2024 general election.Republicans had viewed the race as non-competitive, but Democrats moved the district to “in-play” after Ojeda’s internal polling showed the Democratic challenger closing the gap on Hudson. A poll conducted by Lake Research Partners on behalf of Ojeda’s campaign in early September found him trailing Hudson by just 4 points. The Cook Political Report still listed the district as favorable to Republicans in the final days of the campaign.DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE TAKES FIRST SWING AT NRCC CHAIR IN NEW TV ADOjeda and other Democrats appeared to benefit from the strong showing of Democratic Sen.-elect Roy Cooper, a former two-term governor in the Tar Heel State.Cooper led Republican nominee Michael Whatley by such a wide margin that Republicans began pulling ad reservations from the state earlier this fall and shifting that ad spend to states such as Texas, Iowa, and Kansas.