Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Kathy Manning Comes Up Short In North Carolina House Race

Former Jewish Federations of North America chair Kathy Manning is projected to lose her North Carolina congressional race by a margin of 52%-45%.

Manning, one of many Democratic Jewish women to run as first-time candidates this cycle, long trailed in the polls against one-term Republican Rep. Ted Budd but had managed to narrow the gap as election day drew nearer.

Manning out-fundraised Budd leading up to the election, but Budd, a local gun store owner, made hay of the fact that more than half of Manning’s donors came from outside the state.

The heavily-gerrymandered 13th district stretches from Charlotte’s northern suburbs to Greensboro. A federal judge ruled in August that the state’s electoral districts were unconstitutionally drawn to favor the Republican Party, but that it was too late to change the maps before election day.

Budd won his race 56%-44% in 2016. But the nature of the maps, designed to protect the GOP, left them susceptible for a massive wipeout if Democratic turnout (or Republican apathy) vastly exceeded their expectations. In addition to turning out Democratic votes, Manning would have needed to flip wealthy and college-educated voters in the district’s suburbs who typically vote Republican.

EXPLORE ALL THE RACES WITH JEWISH CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES IN OUR INTERACTIVE MAP

Manning was the first woman to chair the JFNA, and was the founding chair of Jewish day school network Prizmah. She has been an active philanthropist and community leader in Greensboro for 30 years. She says she was inspired to run because of concerns about health care — one of her daughters has a pre-existing condition.

She was also inspired by her Judaism. She cited the rabbinic compilation Pirkei Avot in an interview with JTA last year: “It’s not our obligation to complete the work, but neither are we free from the obligation to get it started.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.