Adam Smith: Man on a mission
Chuck Edwards is in Congress thanks primarily to Thom freakin’ Tillis and his sketchy campaign finance tactics. Since knocking off a conservative incumbent, Edwards has established a voting record to the left of about 80 percent of the House GOP caucus.
Tillis is leaving Capitol Hill at the end of the year, and it would be mighty nice for him to take his little buddy from the mountains with him.
The Congress, the General Assembly, and the GOPe have cooked up a nausea-inducing dose of back-stabbing here in recent years. Never mind that we sent a clear message in 2016, 2020, and 2024 about our desire for radical change. That crowd’s favorite game appears to be (1) say “Trump” a lot, (2) continue to feather the nests of cronies, and then (3) ask us,” What are you gonna do, vote Democrat?”
They have more leverage with that scam during the actual general election. Here in the primary season, we have the power to replace these guys with other Republicans who have yet to be corrupted.
Testosterone is pretty scarce in the current population of elected North Carolina Republicans. This primary season, we have the chance to change that low-T status dramatically. There is the real chance to elect some much-needed conservative star-power: sheriff Sam Page to the NC Senate, sheriff Asa Buck to the US House 1st district, and judge Michael Byrne to the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
A fourth name for that list? Small businessman and former special forces operator Adam Smith in the 11th congressional district. Here’s the scuttlebutt on him:
Over the past decade or more, Western North Carolina Republicans have proven that the only candidates that can beat incumbent Republican congressmen are other Republicans. Adam Smith talks like someone who has already settled on that outcome and is now working backward to make it inevitable.
“What conservative voters in the United States want to see is Republicans have the intestinal fortitude to do what they said they were going to do,” Smith said.
Smith’s message blends urgency, grievance and a soldier’s sense of duty. To Smith, this race is not about ambition, but rather obligation — a mission he believes circumstances have assigned him.
Growing up in southern Indiana before enlisting in the Army, Smith spent nearly 17 years on active duty. Most of his service was with the 19th and 20th Special Forces Groups known as Green Berets, including a deployment to Bosnia and multiple tours in Afghanistan — some of them supporting operations tied to the Defense Intelligence Agency. His military career also took him throughout Southeast Asia, Central America and South America.
“I have learned that now more than ever before, the American people are very, very tired of politics as usual, and that the ‘great divide’ that continues to be broadcast is not a great divide in reality,” said Smith.
His challenge to two-term incumbent Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson) has been unusually confrontational for an intraparty race.
From the day he announced, he began publicly calling on the incumbent to debate and has repeated the demand daily on social media for more than three weeks now. He says constituents have echoed that request but that Edwards’ campaign has declined, citing fundraising reports. Smith argues the refusal is strategic, designed to deny him exposure and suppress scrutiny of Edwards’ voting record.
“The polling that we’ve gotten back shows that we are well within the margin of error when it comes to informed ballots,” Smith said.
And he may have a point — Republicans have complained of an enthusiasm gap with Edwards, which has been apparent since his first reelection campaign in 2024; Cherokee County challenger Christian Reagan, who didn’t have much of a public profile before taking up a Primary challenge to Edwards that year, pulled an astonishing 31% of the Primary vote against the incumbent Edwards despite being badly outraised.
Smith’s campaign critique focuses largely on Edwards’ time in Congress, particularly recent votes Smith characterizes as misaligned with conservative principles. He points to continued funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, support for what he describes as activist judges and approval of kill-switch vehicle technology he believes could bolster government surveillance and overreach.
Beyond individual votes, Smith emphasizes Edwards’ relatively weak ratings from conservative organizations as evidence of what he calls a pattern, rather than isolated incidents.
“His score card with the Heritage Foundation lifetime is 68%. The Freedom Index is 49%. Club for Growth is at 54% or 55% [for the last session],” said Smith. “These indices, they all have their own agenda based on their scoring and indicate a lifetime cycle of voting tendencies that don’t align with America-first values or what’s in the best interest of American voters.”
Medicaid expansion, which Edwards supported late in his tenure in the General Assembly, is another flashpoint. Smith does not oppose helping people access care but argues the policy was enacted without a sustainable funding plan and has contributed to fiscal instability.
He extends that critique to Congress’ reliance on continuing resolutions, which he says postpone hard decisions and erode trust.
In Smith’s telling, Edwards’ most consequential failure has come in disaster recovery. He faults Edwards for claiming credit he believes belongs to residents and volunteers, and for championing reforms only after outside pressure mounted. Under Edwards, less than 15% of the $60 billion needed for full recovery has been delivered in the 16 months after Hurricane Helene, despite Edwards’ position on the House appropriations committee.
If elected, Smith says his first priority would be changing how disaster dollars flow, bypassing layers of bureaucracy that slow recovery. He advocates direct block grants to counties with strict spending rules, allowing local governments to act quickly without losing funds to administrative overhead. He’s not the first to propose such an arrangement.
That emphasis on decentralization extends to his broader governing philosophy. Smith repeatedly returns to the idea that Congress should restrain itself, acting as a steward rather than a manager of daily life.
Affordability is a dominant issue for voters across party lines, Smith said, and he acknowledges that immediate relief will be difficult to achieve. Instead, he argues for transparency, coalition-building and confrontation with entrenched interests.
“I don’t think a single member of Congress can do anything to fix that problem in the face of a massive number of individuals in Congress that continue to vote in their own self-interest,” Smith said. “However, I think a single member of Congress has the opportunity to use their platform to spread a message of awareness to the American people, provide a level of transparency that we haven’t seen before — and piss off the right people.”
Taxes and property rights are central to Smith’s economic worldview. He frequently questions the concept of ownership in a system where failure to pay taxes can result in property seizure, arguing that Americans increasingly rent their property from the government.
That critique informs his interest in alternative revenue models, including tariffs and bonds.
Smith proposes incentivizing the return of trillions of dollars held overseas by offering bonds dedicated to debt reduction and program solvency, an approach he says would strengthen families while stabilizing federal finances.
He also holds a nuanced view of tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump, supporting their use as a temporary bargaining tool against unfair trade practices, but opposing their permanence and the way costs have been passed on to consumers. He says tariffs should never be a substitute for a serious conversation about spending.
The conversation, he says, must include the national debt and the future of Social Security.
Immigration and enforcement are areas where Smith’s rhetoric sharpens. He supports deporting people in the country illegally, prioritizing violent offenders, and strongly defends Immigration and Customs Enforcement against criticism. At the same time, he says accountability must apply to everyone involved in enforcement actions and that investigations should determine responsibility when violence occurs.
Arguing that opposition to ICE in some cities represents a coordinated effort to obstruct lawful operations, Smith draws comparisons to tactics he says he witnessed overseas.
“Let’s define it — ‘terror’ is the use of violence or the threat of violence and/or intimidation in order to advance a religious, political or societal ideology, and that’s what we’re seeing firsthand right now in Minneapolis,” he said. “A large group of people using the threat of violence and intimidation against anyone they suspect to be in support of — or be members of — ICE, in all my experience around the world, we would call that terrorism. We would call them insurrectionists.”
Looking beyond the Primary, Smith expresses confidence that in the face of stiff Democratic competition, a Republican can hold the 11th Congressional District seat — but not Edwards.
In his view, unaffiliated and conservative voters still form a majority in Western North Carolina, but turnout depends on whether they believe promises will be kept. Citing recent Democratic gains in traditionally red areas across the country as evidence that complacency carries consequences, Smith says the NC-11 Republican Party apparatus must reengage disillusioned voters, even though its current party officers have fallen short.
“The [NC-11] Executive Committee and the leadership of the party in the region, they don’t care about the party growing. They’re not actively pursuing educating voters, holding conservative events, holding conservative rallies in order to mobilize the base,” he said. “It’s a good-old-boys’ club, and there’s a fear that if [the party] grows, they’ll lose their seat of influence, and ultimately their position of significance.”
If he wins the nomination, Smith says his message to the electorate would emphasize rebuilding, both physically and institutionally. He rejects the idea of personal credit for legislative achievements, arguing that elected office exists to amplify the will of constituents, not replace it. […]
