LaKesha Womack, a community organizer and ordained minister, believes her faith and her politics go hand-in-hand. She’s also the mom of a 20-year-old son concerned about his future in a harsh economy, and the daughter of aging parents worried about their Social Security benefits.
Next week, she’s hoping to unseat Tim Moore — one of the most powerful North Carolina politicians and former speaker of the state House — in a congressional district he voted to redraw before running for it.
“I'm not going to discount myself and [only] try to run in what some people would consider an easy seat. I’m up for the challenge,” Womack said.
North Carolina’s sprawling 14th congressional district includes Gaston, Cleveland, Burke and Rutherford counties, and parts of Polk and Mecklenburg counties, including Charlotte. Besides left-leaning Mecklenburg County, the rest of the district tends to reliably vote red.
But before the Republican-led General Assembly voted in 2023 to redraw the congressional lines, the district was more Democratic-leaning. It included the southern half of Mecklenburg County, including Charlotte, and three-quarters of Gaston County, and was represented by Democrat Jeff Jackson.
The North Carolina Supreme Court gained a Republican justice in 2022, and in 2023, the court decided along party lines to throw out its earlier decision that had outlawed partisan gerrymandering. This cleared the way for Republicans in the General Assembly to carve Democratic representatives like Jackson out of their districts.
“People call this district a gerrymandered district, but I like to think of it as a diverse district. When you look across the 14th, we have rural areas, we have urban areas, we have manufacturing, we have farming, we have a little bit of everything,” Womack told The Election Hub. “My thought was, ‘If I can bring the people of the 14th together…what are the things that we all share in common?”
Candidate platforms and controversies
This is Womack’s first run for political office, but she has been elected to a leadership position before. In 2012, she became the national chairperson of the AME Zion denomination’s young adult ministry. The experience gave her her first taste of politics, and she later managed Tennessee Rep. Harold Love’s campaign, then worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016.
She says her faith heavily influences her political beliefs, and her 2024 decision to run for Moore’s seat.
“I can't preach about the hungry if I'm not willing to advocate for policies that will eradicate poverty. I can't preach about people being homeless if I'm not willing to advocate for policies that will actually solve that. I'm crazy enough to believe that what my preaching should be should impact the policies that I support,” she said. “And unfortunately we have an administration right now who claims to be Christian, but when you look at a lot of the policies that they support, it doesn't really read like anything that I've seen in Scripture.”
Womack, who now works as a consultant, says that as she travels throughout the district, she’s noticed its voters’ main priorities are consistent: having good schools to send their kids to, better and more affordable healthcare, and lower prices so they can keep more money in their wallets. She’s using that discontent to fuel her campaign on a message of “affordability and accountability.”
Her plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis includes making healthcare more accessible and affordable; protecting Social Security, Medicare and other programs; supporting small business and raising the minimum wage; and bringing housing costs down.
But her platform also goes hand-in-hand with accountability, which she says mainly concerns responsible use of taxpayer dollars.
Moore served in the General Assembly for 22 years, including 10 years as speaker — the longest-serving North Carolina Speaker of the House — before coasting to victory in his congressional race in 2024. He’s running for re-election on his legislative record, which includes controversial measures like outlawing sanctuary cities and the notorious 2016 bathroom bill that had a resounding impact across the state. He also was a key persuader in Rep. Tricia Cotham’s decision to switch her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, which gave the GOP the supermajority it needed to enact the 12-week abortion restriction he championed.
He has defended President Donald Trump’s tariffs, saying if they create jobs, “maybe we ought to pay a little more for a product made by Americans,” and supported the SAVE Act, a proposed bill that would require individuals to show documented proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. He’s also backed the war in Iran and defended the additions to the national debt it required.
“I know it’s tough, I know the American people are tired and like, ‘Why are we paying so much for gas?’ I’m right there with you, but we need to get it done,” Moore said in an interview in July.
On the campaign trail, Moore has been touting tax cuts that were in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, like the expanded child tax credit and limited taxes on tips and overtime.
Moore is also a major proponent of voter ID, which has sparked a series of lawsuits since 2018 from civil rights groups who said those requirements could disenfranchise certain groups. Oral arguments in NC NAACP v. Moore — now called NC NAACP v. Hall, since Destin Hall is now Speaker of the House — were heard before the North Carolina Appeals Court on Thursday morning less than one week before Election Day, but it could be months before the court rules.
When The Election Hub requested an interview for this story, Moore’s campaign team pointed to the questionnaire he had already filled out, and asked what other questions the Hub had for the congressman. In that questionnaire, he shared his stance on topics like federal spending, data centers and artificial intelligence, and Social Security and Medicare programs. His team did not respond to an additional list of questions and an interview request.
At candidate forums, Womack has spoken about her desire to see “accountability” in politics, especially within the Trump administration, which she calls “the most corrupt administration in American history.” She also points to some of the provisions of the Big Beautiful Bill — which she calls the Big Brutal Bill — to draw a contrast between herself and Moore, like incoming cuts to Medicare and tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
She’s built a strong coalition of supporters among Democrats and even some Republicans who want to see change.
One constituent wrote in a Facebook comment that he had reached out to Moore on issues like the tariffs, the war in Iran and the federal debt, but never heard back, prompting him to support Womack instead.
“We need checks and balances with this current administration. As a registered Republican, I am voting for your opponent next week in early voting…I hope you start holding this administration accountable so I can vote for you again in the next election,” he wrote.
Scandals, scrutiny and summons
Moore has also faced scandals, both personal — like an affair that resulted in a lawsuit — and political. His wealth has grown as his political career did. One initiative he directed that involved millions in state dollars had such specific criteria that it exclusively qualified his home county, Cleveland.
Last year, he also came under scrutiny for missing a disclosure deadline after he bought and sold stock (and appeared to profit from it) immediately before and after Trump’s tariffs were announced last year.
“It's great that he has brought dollars back to the community, but he's also enriched himself along the way, and he doesn't hold town halls. He's not listening to the needs of the community,” Womack said.
While attending a Democratic Party rally in Polk County on Oct. 11, Womack was served with a felony summons related to a rental car that was allegedly not turned in on time in 2019. The charge is pending and is not a conviction.
The summons alleges that Womack willfully did not return a 2019 Toyota Corolla on time. Failure to return rented property valued at $4,000 or more is a Class H felony under North Carolina law. The summons was filed in January 2020 and returned unserved later the following month.
Womack said in a video that she and her son were experiencing homelessness at the time, and that she initially did not know there was a case against her since she did not have a mailing address. She said that she later thought the matter had been resolved.
In the same video, she addressed another issue that has been raised during the campaign: whether she lives outside of the district she is hoping to represent. She said that when she found her “dream home” that happened to be outside District 14, she bought it. In North Carolina, candidates for U.S. House are not required to be a resident of the district they’re seeking to represent, just a resident of the state.
Moore and his team quickly used the rental car incident in his campaign, saying in an ad that Womack’s charge was related to “stolen property” and that she could not be trusted to handle taxpayer dollars.
Womack has retained an attorney and told The Election Hub that she “cannot discuss the details of an ongoing legal matter.” But she said the timing was “questionable,” and pointed to Moore’s own controversies.
In a written statement, she said:
“I will not allow headlines, speculation, or questionable timing to define my character, my record of service, or my commitment to the people of North Carolina. I recognize that candidates for public office should be held accountable and that the public deserves transparency. However, accountability should be grounded in facts, fairness, and consistent standards, not speculation or sensationalism. I find it troubling that questions about my ability to lead have become such a dominant part of the political conversation while serious questions about the ethical conduct and public record of my opponent, Congressman Tim Moore, deserve equally rigorous scrutiny. Throughout this campaign, I have shown up in communities across the district, listening to families who are struggling with rising costs, access to healthcare, housing, education, and economic uncertainty. Those concerns have not disappeared because of a headline.”
Early voting is until 3 p.m on Saturday. Election Day is Nov. 3.
Additional reading from The Election Hub on notable races in the region:
- In southern Mecklenburg, a Gen Z-er hopes to unseat an incumbent he once admired
- In pivotal south Charlotte Senate rematch, Bradley and McGinn clash over records
- In Gaston County’s Riverbend Township, an unlikely candidate is making waves
Rachel Black is a reporter and writer for The Election Hub. Reach her at rachel@theelectionhub.org.