Republicanos eligen a Jennifer Balkcom como sustituta del diputado Chuck Edwards

Republicans in North Carolina selected state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom (R) as the new GOP nominee in the state’ s 11th Congressional District, after Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N. C.) dropped out of the race last week.

Members of the state GOP’ s executive committee for the 11th district selected Balkcom just 85 days before Election Day in what projects to be a tightly contested race in the western North Carolina district. She will face Democrat Jamie Ager, who won his party’ s primary in March.

Edwards, who has represented the district since January 2023, said last Wednesday he was ending his bid for a third term — two days after the House Ethics Committee recommended lawmakers to formally censure the North Carolina Republican after he violated the “ spirit” of the chamber’ s policies on sexual harassment against staff.

The 25-page report said Edwards engaged in “ highly unprofessional” conduct with two female members of his staff that made them “ feel uncomfortable, and/or gave the appearance of a sexual or romantic advance.”

Edwards, according to the report, wrote poems for a staffer, told a staffer he left early from an event because she brought a date and paid for a staffer’ s massages and spa treatments, among other actions that fostered a “ hostile work environment.”

The two-term representative’ s conduct did not rise to sexual harassment, nor did it call for lawmakers to remove Edwards from his committee, the report noted. But despite “ the absence of an explicit proposition,” the report said a “ reasonable person could interpret” the actions of Edwards “ as thinly veiled advances.”

The report stated, “ That Representative Edwards did all these things to two young staffers, repeatedly over a sustained period, was beyond inappropriate.”