WILSON, N.C. — Speaking at a political barbecue here on a recent Thursday, Democratic House candidate Raymond Smith Jr. barely mentioned the high cost of living, the cornerstone of his party’s midterm strategy.

He never uttered the name of his Republican opponent, Rep. Greg Murphy, nor did he invoke President Donald Trump.

Instead, the 65-year-old Gulf War veteran, former state representative and the Wayne County school board’s first Black at-large member recalled growing up in the segregated South. He noted that he didn’t make his first white friend until the fourth grade.

“Where was I going to meet him?’’ said Smith, who grew up in nearby Goldsboro, about an hour southeast of Raleigh. “We didn’t go to the same school. We didn’t play in the same park, we did not swim in the same pool.”

America, Smith told the crowd at the Wilson County Democratic fundraiser, is still reckoning with segregation, racial injustice and the dilution of Black political power through the Supreme Court’s weakening of the Voting Rights Act.

“Here we are in 2026, having those same conversations all over again,’’ he said. “I’m tired of it.”

Smith is running for the 3rd District, a low-lying patchwork of small cities, piney woodlands and tobacco and cotton fields in Eastern North Carolina. Last year, state Republicans drew a new congressional map that shifted red-hued coastal communities out of the district and into the neighboring 1st District, with the aim of helping unseat Democratic Rep. Don Davis.

But redistricting is a complicated balancing act. Shoring up the Republican vote in the 1st District turned the 3rd several shades bluer by weaving in four counties that lean Democratic. The new map splits the state’s Black Belt, and boosts Black representation in the 3rd District from 20% to 29%, according to an analysis by the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Those Democratic voters had to go somewhere. They don’t just disappear,” said Christopher A. Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University.

Still, even after the redraw, Murphy remains heavily favored. Trump would have carried the 3rd District by 14 points in 2024, and Smith has struggled to raise money, bringing in just $367,000 to Murphy’s $2.9 million. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Solid Republican.

A ‘challenging’ climate

Sustained high prices and broad discontent with the war in Iran have put Republicans on defense in deep-red terrain across the nation, from northern Nevada to central Kentucky.

North Carolina is home to several hard-fought races this year, including the expensive and acrimonious 1st District contest between Davis and retired Army Col. Laurie Buckhout, and the battle for the open 11th District in Western North Carolina, which Inside Elections rates a Toss-up.

Downballot Democrats are counting on a boost from former Gov. Roy Cooper, who has consistently polled ahead of Republican Michael Whatley in the open Senate race. Meanwhile Republicans have called in the cavalry. Last week, Trump made a campaign swing through Greenville, where Murphy lives. And on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance will hold a rally in Kinston.

National Democrats added the 3rd District along with several other red-leaning North Carolina seats to their target list of longer-shot races, though flipping Murphy’s seat would require a “Democratic tsunami,” according to East Carolina University political science professor Peter L. Francia.

Murphy, who didn’t even face a Democratic opponent two years ago, is nevertheless taking the threat seriously. A surgeon and former member of the North Carolina House, he spent a recent Friday crisscrossing the new portions of the expansive district in his quest to win his fourth full term.

Outside money has filtered into the race, even though it sits well off the main House battleground.

“The political environment is challenging,” Murphy acknowledged during a lunchtime visit to McCall’s BBQ & Seafood in Goldsboro, midway through a marathon day on the campaign trail that began with a diner stop before sunrise in Seven Springs and concluded with an early evening meet-and-greet at GOP headquarters in Goldsboro.

“The president’s party always has a challenge in the midterms. But I’ve done well in taking care of the people here, and I know there’ll be a lot of split tickets,’’ Murphy said.

He noted that he continues to see patients and cited his support from Democratic-leaning Black voters in the area.

“They know I’ve taken care of them as patients for years and years,” Murphy said. “I’m not about a title … and I don’t put labels on people. I just take care of everybody.”

Goldsboro pastor Anthony Slater, who is Black, said Murphy connects with voters “across the color barrier.” Slater said he struggles with the values of the Democratic Party, “especially the cultural issues, like abortion and alternative lifestyles.”

For his part, Trump is reaffirming his support for Murphy. In a social media post Monday, the president praised him as a “tremendous champion” and labeled Smith a “Radical Left Democrat.”

Dismayed Democrats

The 3rd District sits at the convergence of two trends shaping the midterm election cycle. One is the Trump-initiated redistricting push that has reshaped congressional maps from Florida to California.

The other is a larger effort to dismantle majority-Black districts across the South. Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama approved new maps that each targeted a Black-held seat following the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling this spring.

The North Carolina gerrymander, approved last year before the Supreme Court decision, angered Democratic activists.

“We are mad, because it was done with intentionality,’’ said Cassandra Conover, the Democratic Party chair in neighboring Nash County, which remains in the 1st District.

Speaking at a canvassing event for Cooper in Rocky Mount, Conover, with her hair tinted blue and wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Unapologetically Blue,” said the congressional redraw was firing up voters: “We are frustrated, but we took that redistricting as a call to action.’’

Statewide figures from North Carolina suggest that early voting is surging, particularly among Black residents.

Over barbecue and sweet tea at the Wilson County Democratic event, many in the crowd said voters were confused by the new lines.

“Last year at this time, they were in a different district,’’ said Rena Spellman, who is running for district attorney. “And it puts them at a disadvantage … if they don’t know that.”

“Republicans had a plan to split the minority vote and people are upset about that,’’ said John Joyner, a retired educator who leads the Wilson County Democrats.

Smith expressed confidence that he can tap into voter energy and pull off an upset on Nov. 3. He pointed to his deep roots in the district, invoking his days playing high school football against two “very tough” teams from Wilson.

“I am a fighter, been one my whole life,” he told the crowd. “Don’t start ’em, but I doggone sure finish them.”

In an interview, Smith brushed off Murphy’s towering financial advantage, noting that he won the Democratic primary over well-funded former campaign and congressional aide Allison Jaslow by more than 13 points.

Over two terms in the state legislature, before his seat was redrawn to favor the GOP, Smith found occasions to break with his caucus and work with the Republican majority, such as on legislation to help farmers in agriculture-rich Eastern North Carolina.

He declined to call himself a centrist but won an endorsement from the political arm of the center-left New Democrat Coalition earlier this month.

Smith is “exactly the kind of candidate who wins tough races,’’ Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton, the chair of the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund, said in an email, noting his status as a decorated Army combat veteran in a region that’s home to several large military installations, including Camp Lejeune.

“Republicans in Raleigh redrew this map thinking they could finally take out Don Davis. Instead, they’re going to get Don and Raymond.”

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