The lawmaker who led Republican efforts to keep the House loses his re-election bid

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, lost his re-election bid Tuesday, NBC News projected. Hudson fell short to Democrat Richard Ojeda in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. Ojeda bested Hudson by about 2 percentage points. Republicans have held the district since 1963. The National Republican Congressional Committee is the official party organization tasked with winning or maintaining the House majority. Hudson is the second party campaign chairman to lose re-election in the last two midterm cycles. In 2022, then-Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, lost his re-election bid in New York’s 17th District. Hudson was defeated after Republicans largely stopped investing in North Carolina’s high-profile Senate contest with weeks to go after Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper built a seemingly insurmountable advantage over Republican Michael Whatley, Trump’s handpicked candidate who was previously Republican National Committee chairman and head of the North Carolina state GOP. As of 10 p.m. Tuesday, Cooper, whom NBC News projected as the victor, led Whatley by nearly 20 points, boosting multiple downballot Democrats.