Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the House GOP’s campaign arm, lost to Democrat Richard Ojeda in North Carolina’s 9th District, CBS News projected.
The defeat is both personal and institutional: the official charged with protecting the Republican majority could not hold his own seat in a wave election.
Ojeda, a former West Virginia state senator who later moved to North Carolina, framed the race as a rebuke of Washington Republicans’ priorities.
NRCC aides privately described the map as collapsing faster than models predicted once early-vote margins and youth turnout became clear.
Hudson’s loss will intensify leadership recriminations over spending, messaging, and candidate recruitment heading into the minority.
Democrats highlighted the result as proof that even “safe” Republican operators were not insulated from affordability anger.
For Ojeda, the win caps a long political journey that included earlier unsuccessful runs for higher office before relocating.
House Republicans now enter January without the campaign chair who was supposed to steward their majority through a difficult cycle.
