Worlds Apart, Living Right Next Door

Chapter Three. The Democrat Candidate.

Judy Major had to be persuaded to run for county commissioner in Madison County, North Carolina. She is 75. If she is successful, she will be 76 when she assumes the role, 81 when her term ends. “That’s pretty old,” she says.

Madison County is rural and predominantly conservative. If North Carolina is part of the Bible Belt, Madison County is, as was described to me, the “buckle of the Bible Belt.” Many signs indicate how true this is. Literally, billboards. Driving along the interstate I pass a billboard which expounds, in all capital letters, “Heaven or Hell,” and in even bigger caps, “You Choose.” Another on a local highway, again in all caps: “In the Beginning, God Created” with the standard symbol for evolution, the image of the ape developing into man, crossed out with a large red X.

Evolution is in question here.

Judy has lived in Madison County for 48 years. Throughout her career she has focused on public health, both in Madison County, neighboring Buncombe County, and the surrounding region. In the eighties, when it became mandatory for children to use car seats, she was the one to secure a grant so that parents in Madison County who couldn’t afford to buy a car seat could take the loan of one instead. “We had so many families, Lucy, that didn’t have the money to buy seats.” She worked for Buncombe County’s mental health center in their substance abuse department. “Every person who got a DWI in Buncombe County had to come through my program,” she says, “eight years of working with addicts and alcoholics.” When the intensity of that role became too much, she resigned, and went on to work at Mission Hospital, where she was responsible for a region-wide infant mortality review.

Infant mortality rates in the state were high. Judy met with “as many families who had babies die at birth or just before birth as would be willing to meet with me.” This led to her participation in a regional birth defect study run by the US Centers for Disease Control. She spearheaded the region’s first folic acid campaign. “Are you familiar with how useful [folic acid] is to prevent certain birth defects?” she asks me. I am. She was central to the statewide expansion of the folic acid campaign in North Carolina.

Judy is a rower (a bumper sticker on her car reads, “Master Rowers: The older we get, the faster we were”), and she can easily succumb to a drugstore ice cream. Out canvassing in Madison County she has a gentle, unassuming manner. Currently, all five county commissioners are men, and they are all Republican. (Matt Wechtel is her competition). “We are not represented,” she tells a woman on the doorstep. “There are no women on the council.” We meet Austin. He has been a teacher for 21 years, and tells us that the difference in salary between what he earns, and what a teacher just starting their career earns, is a mere $10,000. He works three jobs: he teaches, he drives the school bus, and he drives for a charter bus company. “The penalty for poverty is lack of access,” another woman tells us on her doorstep.

Bob owns an insurance company in the local town. On this hot Saturday afternoon we find him taking a quick break at home before going out to mow four more yards. He’s an independent voter - the majority of voters in Madison County (and indeed the state), identify as unaffiliated.

One issue Judy has been campaigning on is questions raised by a new county-wide property reevaluation, the findings of which came out in late June. Many households were surprised - and alarmed - to find that the value of their property had risen, which could mean a higher property tax bill. A University of Chicago/Harris Public Policy study which examines property taxes across the country, found that, in Madison County, 75% of the lowest value housing was over-assessed, and 35% of the highest value homes was over-assessed, which suggests that lower income families are being asked to pay more. Whether there are legitimate oversights in the report remains to be seen but Judy is determined, if she is elected, to ask for a do-over.

She brings this up with Bob and he tells her that the property reevaluation was pretty good for him. His sister, Nancy, who lives right next door, and is also a registered independent, tells Judy that she is voting on values this year. “It’s encounters like this that make the difference,” she adds.

At another house another unaffiliated voter. A dog barks from the window. On the porch swing, a blanket has been discarded. The Bible had been left on a porch table. Nobody comes to the door.

Women come up to Judy and ask if she thinks “it’s okay for a woman to kill a baby.” Her standard answer is that abortion is a private matter and something that will not cross her desk in her role as commissioner.

“It’s a topic I choose not to address in a red county,” she tells me.

This doesn’t necessarily satisfy potential voters who sometimes tell her that if she isn’t willing to say she is anti-abortion, she’s not getting their vote.

“It's just like, well, if you aren't a member of a church, you are not getting my vote,” she says.

“Are you a member of a church?” I ask her.

“I am not,” Judy says, “so that’s been a little tough.”

Judy became a doula - a birth companion - late in her career. It’s been a lifelong passion for her, the chance to offer women an alternative to a hospital environment to bring their children into the world. During her retirement, she spent five years working to open the first birthing center in the region, which she finally did in 2016. “It's been a real privilege to do that doula work,” she says, softly, “and to know that all those one thousand some mamas that had their babies at the birth center had the kind of experience that they wanted, that they didn't have to be in a hospital.”

She is optimistic for her campaign. She thinks Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have brought a new energy to the election and one she hopes will rub off on her. She is, and she quotes an oft-used phrase from another campaign that was full of possibility and hope, “fired up.”

Judy lives in a beautiful home. You drive along a country road, a tree-shaded stream dappling in sunlight, and take a turn up a gravel lane. Rural. I meet her here on a summer’s evening to photograph her in the evening light. It’s a Thursday, and she will be watching Kamala make her pitch to America at the DNC convention that night in Chicago. I take her photo and I leave. As I drive back down the road, less than two minutes from her home, I pass another, and as I drive slowly by, I see a confederate flag hanging front and center on the barn, literally at the entrance to the driveway. You can’t miss it.

Judy’s neighbors.

Right down the road.

Addendum: Since meeting Judy in Madison County in August, and writing this piece, the county has been ravaged by Hurricane Helene. Judy was isolated in her home for 4 days, without power, without water. She says she was one of the lucky ones, and describes the devastation around her as “beyond comprehension.” She thinks the disaster will affect the election in a number of ways. New polling sites will need to be found. Post offices that are out of service may impact voting by mail. And she has stepped back from canvassing. “It just feels strange to expect people to focus their attention on anything besides addressing the devastation around them,” she wrote. Instead, she is volunteering, not as a candidate, but as Judy, the “doer and helper,” which, she writes, “has always been the driving force of my life.”

On the question of whether Hurricane Helene will alter people’s perceptions on the climate crisis, Judy does not believe it will. “Sadly,” she writes, “I suspect that issue will continue to follow party lines. Democrats will quote the science that climate change is driving the frequency and intensity of weather events like our recent hurricane and the one expected to hit Florida tomorrow. Many Republicans will continue to insist that these are natural events, acts of God, over which we have no control.”

Please consider supporting Madison County and the people who live there. A GoFundMe has been set up through the Downtown Marshall Association to support residents and business owners in the town. This would be a good place to send your $$. Thank you.