Talking With Rep. Foushee After a Close Primary Win

After some suspense in the March 3 Democratic primary, 4th Congressional District Rep. Valerie Foushee is set for a third term in Congress. By the time the final precincts reported results around midnight, just 1,200 votes separated Foushee and her opponent, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam. Allam initially said on election night that she would pursue a recount, before conceding the race the next day. 

The results don’t exactly add up to a ringing endorsement of Foushee. She won 49.18% of the vote to Allam’s 48.22%. Add in the 2.6% that went to dark horse candidate Mary Patterson, and that’s a majority of voters who did not pick Foushee.

When the INDY interviewed her in December, Foushee argued that “louder is not always better,” and said that “it is not, in my opinion, my role to elevate my work,” using the biblical analogy of “sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.”

But Allam’s media-fluent campaign (see: a barrage of selfie-style Instagram videos,  Reddit AMAs, clips of her children at a rally with Bernie Sanders, and a Hasan Piker Twitch interview) drove the conversation around the election and framed it as a referendum on Foushee, leaving the incumbent to defend a congressional record that, in an era of Republican control, is thin.

Perhaps because Allam put her on the defensive, Foushee ended up more vocally staking out some positions Allam had argued on the campaign trail that a representative for the super blue 4th Congressional District should take, like opposing a now-dead data center proposal in Apex and calling for ICE to be dismantled. By one of her final campaign stops the weekend before the election, Foushee seemed to have shed some of her misgivings about self-promotion.

“I’m not one who talks a lot about myself,” Foushee said on the basketball court-themed floor of Rivals Barbershop in Durham. “But it seems like in this race, I have to remind people what I have done, because the lies that you all see, incessantly on TV—they’re lies.” 

Nationally, the race drew attention (and over $4.4 million in outside spending) as a potential bellwether for the mood of Democratic voters in a second Trump era and as a proxy battle over issues like diversity in Congress, Israel and Gaza, and the role of corporations in politics. Would voters pick the more defiantly left-wing Allam or the measured, experienced Foushee?

But with only a 1% vote margin, the bellwether seems a bit disoriented. 

A day after Allam conceded the race, we spoke to Foushee about her reflections on the campaign, the $1.6 million that AI company Anthropic spent to support her reelection, and what residents should do now with all their political energy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

INDY: Where were you when you saw the results?

Foushee: So I was in downtown Hillsborough, at a small establishment that really has not done anything but soft opening. So I had my family, of course, including one of my granddaughters, my pastor, and other community members, several elected officials from Orange County, and that was pretty much it, because I wanted it to be smaller. Most of mine have been, you know, I’m not one for fanfare, but it was nice.

Do you feel like you learned anything in particular this cycle, or did the election change your perspective on anything?

I think if there was any change in my perspective, it was pretty much [on] how politics run now, but I guess, Chase, a lot of it had to do with me still trying to do my job while I was campaigning. And, you know, we’ve had some really tense times here, and so most of my attention went to my work, and now to see that the president has fired Kristi Noem, yeah, I spent more time doing the work [than campaigning].

I don’t know that I would do anything differently that I learned, except for—and I think you and I have talked about this before—how we reach people. And to a great extent, it seemed, at least from what I was hearing, people weren’t aware of the work that I have done over a period of three years, and so I probably would have done that differently in announcing the work that we’ve done and the work that has benefited the district.

You won but by a pretty slim margin, and between the votes for Allam and for Patterson, a majority of voters didn’t vote for you. Do you see that as a message about behaving or moving differently in the future?

I don’t think so. I don’t know that I would—I don’t think that that was a factor in how I behave as it relates to how I get out a message. And quite frankly, I don’t know that—well, I’ll just leave it at that, I don’t think so.

Do you feel like having this primary pushed you to take some stances that you would rather not be so public about? I’m thinking, for example, about the Apex data center. You said it was a local decision, and then later you clarified that you opposed it, but you didn’t want to be “a thorn in the side of the local officials.” 

I don’t think so. I think when that [data center] question was first asked of me, I answered it from how I felt, and because there seemed to be some miscommunication and misinterpretation of that answer, I felt a need to clarify.

And as it relates to data centers, I do believe that [Congress is] so far behind this that we haven’t given any kind of guidance to local or state officials about what should or should not happen. So the people who have been elected to make those decisions, yes, I respect them and I respect their responsibility, and I respect the voters for having chosen them, and so I don’t think I would change that.

We’ve spoken a lot about corporate and outside funding before, but how should constituents view the outside funding from the PAC associated with Anthropic, which dropped $1.6 million on your behalf the week before the election? And how should they see that especially in the context of your stances and your committee roles?

So why are we talking about the funding that was received to my campaign versus other funding that came from outside sources? I think what I would like to say is that until we reverse Citizens United, we need to make sure that local or district issues are considered and determined by folk who live in the district. I have always believed that I am a representative that does represent the values of the district. I am not in favor of any outside group influencing the decisions that are made for a district. 

What I believe is that campaign financing, our system, is broken. It needs to be fixed, and until then, people will do what they believe is necessary—I don’t collaborate with outside groups, and you all know that, what I saw, and I tried my best not to look at any of them, what I saw was that there was groups that were not known to me. You know, I would see, I’d say, “Who’s doing this?” And it says “not paid for by any candidate” or whatever. I didn’t have anything to do with that. 

So again, I wish that this had not been a nationalized race, because this was about the 4th District, and I am, again, still proud of the donations that came to my campaign that were from donors in this state and donors in my district in particular.

I watched at forums and town halls as people kept asking you about the AIPAC funding from 2022. What’s your case for why the Anthropic money shouldn’t define your third term for people like [AIPAC did]?

I will go back to the statement I just made. I don’t coordinate with outside groups. My work on AI has centered around establishing guardrails and holding large corporations accountable. And that hasn’t changed. It will not change. 

I know it’s early, but have you thought at all about 2028 and what’s in your future?

I have not. I hope to be living then. But right now, Chase, what I think about most is where we are as a nation now, particularly as it relates to dismantling ICE, bringing down the cost of living, the war in Iran. 

I’m thinking about the fact that Democrats need the opportunity to govern, to show the American people that we care about all of the issues that they care about. And so right now, most important to me is taking back the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, because until then, we’re not going to be able to make the impacts on daily living that we want to and what the American people are asking for.

You know, the truth is, I left my watch party at around midnight or 12:30, I didn’t get to sleep until after 3:30, and first thing Wednesday morning I was on a plane coming back to D.C. so that I’d be here for voting, so I haven’t had a chance to think about much else.

And there was all this energy, of course, around campaigning in the primary. Especially in this very blue district, what can people do now with all that energy if they’re worried about the Trump administration and all of the things that you’ve mentioned?

What they should be worrying about is making sure that we elect Roy Cooper to the U.S. Senate, that we get Anita Earls back on the North Carolina Supreme Court, that we help the North Carolina legislature elect members to that body to ensure that we are moving forward to, for one thing, getting rid of how we redistrict every two years.

Is there anything that I didn’t ask about that you think is important about this election, about your tenure, or about anything at all?

Well I would like to just say how honored I am and humbled that so many people believe that I should be representing them in Congress. And for people who would have wanted someone else to be that representative, I would just want them to know that I will continue to serve their best interest, as I’ve done over the last three years.

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