Name: Eugene F Douglass
Age: 69
Party affiliation: Republican
Campaign website: https://www.gdouglass.us
Occupation & employer: Retired, Chemistry Consultant – Self
Years lived in the area: 21 in North Carolina, 3 in Wake County
1. What are your primary concerns for the State of North Carolina?
“Electricity prices, federal overreach, and a Congress that will not stop spending money it does not have. Balance the budget. End federal rules that only copy what the state and the counties already enforce.
The federal government has two main jobs: regulate interstate commerce, and protect this country from enemies foreign and domestic — terrorists, rogue governments, and their agents who promote lawlessness inside the United States. I am running for the U.S. House, not the General Assembly. Interstate commerce, the debt, energy that actually makes electrons, and keeping federal agencies out of Wake County. Not another member who turns every local problem into a program.”
2. What in your background qualifies you to represent the people of this state effectively? What would you cite as your biggest career accomplishments?
I am a retired chemist and college professor. Doctorate from N.C. State. I taught chemistry for decades here, in Texas, Micronesia, Hawaii, Kazakhstan, and Iraq. The biggest accomplishment is the classroom — students who could work a problem when they left. Biology departments called the chemistry “too hard.” I did not water it down. That is decades of real public service, not a hack law practice for Planned Parenthood. Deborah Ross spent her career as counsel for an organization that has spent years trying to pull federal dollars past the Hyde Amendment. I recognize a rat when I see one — in a lab, in an agency, or in Congress. I will point to the vote and the member, including senators, when the vote is corrupt or the dollars are laundered. This district gets someone who can read an energy hearing without cue cards and who will not pretend a title makes a thief honest.
3. If elected, what three policies would you prioritize and how would you work across the aisle to enact those initiatives?
“One: nuclear power, and large loads including data centers bring their own firm generation so the household does not eat the upgrade. Two: end federal rules that only duplicate state and local law, except real interstate conflicts. Three: merit at NSF and in federal education — end DEI and CRT as grant screens; keep men out of women’s sports, which is what Title IX actually meant; state and local boards set lawful school priorities, not a D.C. bureau writing the standard.
I will vote with anyone who will license reactors and keep the plant off the family bill. I will not vote for a Green New Deal with a new title. I will not sit in a “negotiation” whose only goal is to drag a Republican onto a Democratic bill. If a Democrat wants to join legislation the Republican conference already supports, I will work with that member. That is bipartisan. The other version is conversion.”
4. Federal cuts to Medicaid are expected to cost the state $50 billion over the next decade, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. How would you address Medicaid funding to maintain coverage for the millions of North Carolinians enrolled?
“That $50 billion figure is NCDHHS’s estimate of matching changes, provider-tax limits, and work rules after H.R. 1 — not a debt Congress must refill. Medicaid in this state has nearly doubled in a few years. Able-bodied adults should meet work and eligibility rules. The disabled, elderly, and children are the core. I will not write Raleigh a blank check off a $40 trillion national debt.
Before anyone demands more federal match, look at what State Auditor Dave Boliek has already put on the record. Autism-therapy billings in North Carolina Medicaid went from about $1.4 million to more than $660 million a year in five years — the spike he called out as tens of thousands of percent. He told lawmakers his office is in the middle of that review: overlapping providers billing the same child in the same hours, lax DHHS rules, and whether some billed facilities even exist. That is the Minnesota pattern showing up here. The children who need ABA should get it. Phantom clinics and stacked claims should not. My job in Congress is to make the federal statute and the federal match so clear that North Carolina cannot run that game anymore — eligibility, site, and service have to be real, or the federal dollar does not move.”
5. How would you address the rising costs of housing, childcare, and basic necessities facing North Carolina families?
“Housing, childcare, and grocery aid are not federal products Congress can mint. Childcare is a family duty. The tax code should help a parent stay home with preschoolers, then work when the children are in school. No federal money to farm infants out or to make the father optional. Housing costs fall when you let people build and when power is cheap — nuclear and gas until the next reactors run. Ross’s model is more programs and green-only power. That raises the bill.
Scarce help has to go to citizens and legal residents first. Under Cooper, county and DHHS bureaucrats bent or broke verification on SNAP and on Medicaid services — including the autism and ABA slots families in this state wait for. People who were not supposed to be on those rolls got in. Mixed households and “don’t ask the parent” practice treated a federal prohibition as a suggestion. That is not compassion. That is cutting in line in front of a North Carolina child already on a waitlist. Congress should fund Americans. It should not refill a system that will not check who is in it.”
6. Thousands of North Carolina workers lost their jobs in 2025 due to federal budget cuts—RTI and FHI 360 alone have laid off hundreds of employees, while Duke and UNC face massive funding cuts and hiring freezes. How would you address both the human toll and the long-term economic impact of these federal funding changes on our state?
“Grant shops shrink when the grant shrinks. I am sorry for the people who lost jobs. I will not treat RTI headcount or a university freeze as a reason to keep spending money we do not have. NSF and NIH fund merit and national needs, not advocacy offices. The state’s economy is power, trades, and firms that sell something besides an earmark.
A lot of what disappeared in the Triangle was not a lab bench. It was NGO payroll for agenda work Congress would never have appropriated on the floor as a clean line item — climate theater, equity offices, “democracy” shops, and contractors who laundered policy through a 501(c). That money was siphoned through grants and cooperative agreements because it could not survive a recorded vote. No federal taxpayer dollar should go to partisan NGOs. In the worst of them, most of the allocation — I have seen shops where sixty to ninety percent — never leaves the office as the service they advertised. It stays in salary, consultants, and the next proposal. Those empty parking lots on my morning walk were not a tragedy of science. They were a subsidy ending.”
7. Climate disasters are intensifying: Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina in 2024, Tropical Storm Chantal flooded the Triangle in 2025, and coastal erosion threatens the Outer Banks. With much affordable housing located in flood-prone areas and FEMA resources stretched thin, what is your plan for climate resilience and disaster relief?
“Helene and Chantal were disasters. The answer is culverts, honest flood maps, firm power, and a FEMA that rebuilds once instead of running a climate seminar. Bjørn Lomborg’s cost curve is the chemist’s version: climate change is real; the crusade that wrecks cheap energy returns pennies on the dollar compared with adaptation and innovation. The Great Lakes were carved by glaciers. The Sandhills of North Carolina were the beach. Shorelines move on geologic time. That is not a license to ignore a flood. It is a license not to ban natural gas pipelines and nuclear fission power generation and call it resilience. Ross’s green-only stack makes the grid weaker when the storm hits.
FEMA under the Biden administration was also used to house and feed people who were in the country illegally — people that administration had the power not to admit. An agency stretched that way is slower when a mountain county is underwater. After Helene, private rescuers and churches did the first days of work while official air assets and coordination lagged. Cooper and that FEMA did not make private aid easier. Republican legislatures had already stocked the State Emergency and Disaster Relief Fund and the Savings Reserve. Cooper’s instinct was a $3.9 billion new ask, not first using the emergency money that was already sitting there. Resilience starts with a government that can tell a disaster from a migration program.”
8. Last year, federal agents arrested more than 250 people in immigration enforcement operations across North Carolina, creating fear in immigrant communities and disrupting businesses and schools. How do you view the enforcement actions, and how would you address their impact on North Carolina’s economy and communities?
“Enforcing the law is the job. Two hundred fifty arrests in a state of ten million is not a purge. Illegal presence is not a business model. Legal immigrants and citizens — including families I sat with on Cafe Con Hispanos — are the ones whose wages fall when the border is a rumor. I represent the whole district, not a contractor’s labor pool.
Illegal entry is a crime. Much of the statute people are breaking was written when Democrats ran Congress, in the 1980s and earlier. The people being removed jumped a line that legal applicants waited years to stand in. That is not “disrupting the community.” That is cutting in front of people who did it the hard way.
Those here illegally are free to leave. The federal CBP Home channel pays a plane ticket and an exit bonus of more than $2,000 — currently about $2,600 to $3,000 — and lets family leave together. That is cheaper for the taxpayer than a forced removal. Interior enforcement should stay targeted at criminals and recent illegal entry, not theater. A contractor who built a payroll on people who cannot be here does not get a veto.”
9. Federal contractors are no longer required to maintain non-discrimination policies, and many DEI-related programs have been eliminated across sectors in our state. What is your view on recent changes to DEI and anti-discrimination policies?
Good that the DEI offices are going. Civil-rights law already forbids discrimination by race and sex. DEI was a new discrimination with better letterhead. Hire and fund on merit. Non-discrimination does not mean a new office that ranks people by grievance.
10. Federal education funding faced significant delays and cuts in 2025, affecting Title I programs, teacher training, and after-school services in North Carolina. How will you work to ensure stable federal education funding for our state’s schools?
I will not treat Title I as a sacred entitlement. Federal money comes with federal strings. Parents and local boards run schools. Congress can appropriate on time. It should not nationalize curriculum because a grant was late. Ross campaigns as a friend of public education and voted no on the PROTECT Kids Act. That is the education record.
11. President Trump has dramatically expanded executive power through emergency declarations, the use of federal agents in cities without local coordination, and the initiation of a war in Iran without Congressional approval. What role should Congress play in checking executive power?
Congress should check every president. Article I does not take a holiday because the president is a Republican. War powers belong to Congress. Emergencies should sunset. Appropriations are the leash. Immigration enforcement inside the United States is not a coup. Declare war or do not. Pass a law or do not.
12. Both Democrats and Republicans are experiencing severe internal divisions. How would you navigate disagreements within your own party while still effectively representing North Carolina’s interests? Or, if you are running as an Independent, how will you work effectively with both parties?
I am a Republican. I will vote this district’s electric bill, not a faction. Nuclear, borders, and the debt are not hard. I am one of maybe 220 House Republicans. I cannot write Raleigh a custom statute. District first. Whip second.
13. Give an example of an opinion, policy, vote or action you changed based on constituent feedback. If you have not yet held elected office, describe a time when you changed your position on an issue after listening to those affected by it.
I have not held this office. I tightened the data-center line after people said they did not want Loudoun’s power bill. I still want the jobs and the compute. The condition is now public: they bring their own firm power and do not socialize the plant onto a North Raleigh retiree. I did not become the ban candidate. I became the ratepayer candidate.
14. Are there any issues this questionnaire has not addressed that you would like to address?
Life, parents, and the grid. Conception to natural death; punish the rapist, protect the child. Ross is the Planned Parenthood politician in this race. Parents, not the clinic, are first over their children; she voted no on PROTECT Kids. She supports only “green” sources and has opposed nuclear, gas, clean fossil, clean coal, fracking, and new oil and coal leases. Those three facts are why I am on the ballot.
