Rep.-elect Ojeda posts tribute to father who died after midterms: ‘He held on’

Democratic North Carolina Rep.-elect Richard Ojeda on Friday posted a tribute for his late father who passed away following the Democrat’s win in the midterm elections.

“For years, my dad battled Parkinson’s disease. On Election Night, I got to tell him, “Pop, we won.” This morning, he passed away,” Ojeda wrote in post on social platform X on Friday.

“A part of me believes he held on just long enough to see his son make it to Congress. He won’t be there when I’m sworn in. But I know he’ll be standing right beside me,” the newly elected congressman added.

Ojeda defeated Rep. Richard Hudson (R), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), in a close race for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District which includes Hoke, Moore, Randolph and Alamance counties, along with portions of Guilford, Cumberland and Chatham counties.

The Democrat eked out a victory with more than 51 percent votes while the Republican incumbent secured a little less than 49 percent of the votes, according to Decision Desk HQ . His victory marks the first Democratic win in the district since 1963.

North Carolina’s flipped seat in the 9th Congressional District was in line with the Democrats’ sweeping victory in the midterm elections where they took control of both the House and the Senate, securing major wins in battleground states across the country.

In another post on Friday night on social platform X, said his father, “Richard Neece Ojeda lived an extraordinary life” and he “traveled the world and lived a life of service that started in the US Air Force and continued after graduating from the Mayo Clinic where he was commissioned as an officer in the US Army.”

He noted that his father spent 55 years after his military service practicing anesthesia and was the “first man in Logan County history to perform an epidural at Logan Regional Hospital in Logan, WV.”

In his morning post, Ojeda dedicated his Congressional victory to his father saying, “Rest easy, Daddy. I’ll take it from here. These next two years are for you.”