App State’s College Democrats held a rally Wednesday afternoon against the congresswoman from North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District, Republican Virginia Foxx, for her inactivity in her home district. Foxx’s challenger in the upcoming 2026 election, Democrat Chuck Hubbard, took the opportunity to make the first public appearance since announcing his campaign on March 3.
“We have great support on ASU’s campus,” Hubbard said. “I can’t think of a better place to kick everything off.”
Hubbard, a former journalist and publisher at the Wilkes Journal-Patriot, ran to unseat Foxx in the 2024 election, but lost by about 76,000 votes.
Although those numbers were discouraging, Hubbard said he is confident that the 2026 election will pan out differently because of President Donald Trump’s recent actions with tariffs and criticism of his decisions’ effects on human rights.
“Donald Trump is not on the ballot in 2026,” Hubbard said. “A blue wave is coming. Congress needs to do its job, and that’s a fact.”
Junior English major and Vice President of App State’s College Democrats Charlotte Isenberg said the goal of the rally, which had a crowd of about 40 at its peak, was to get Foxx to reevaluate her priorities as congresswoman.
“Even if she doesn’t change her policies, she’ll realize that she’s working for us,” Isenberg said. “If this rally results in a town hall meeting, that’s real change.”
Hubbard said his biggest reason for running was giving people in his district a reliable representative that would listen to and act on their concerns.
“I want to give people a voice,” Hubbard said. “They don’t have a voice under Virginia Foxx. She needs to go. Along those lines, I’m going to help her to go.”
Since being elected to congress in 2004, the last town hall Foxx held was in 2006. She described town halls in a Fox News interview earlier this year as “an opportunity for people to yell at their members of congress.”
The rally began around 12:30 p.m. with a speech from the College Democrats President Liza Constable, a political science graduate student.
Isenberg, who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, went on to read a land acknowledgement, which App State removed from their website last month, according to College Democrats. After the land acknowledgement, a representative from App State’s chapter of March For Our Lives spoke, followed by a representative from Indivisible Watauga, the group that organized the “Hands-Off!” rally on April 6. This was followed by a speech from Isenberg on her own experience with reproductive rights, and Hubbard’s speech announcing his candidacy publicly.
“I believe in truth and I believe in integrity,” Hubbard said during the speech. “If you have no integrity you have nothing. That’s my bottom line. I will not lie to you, I will not manipulate you and I will try to do the work we have ahead of us.”
Hubbard said during the speech he intends to be reachable and upfront with constituents during the campaign and going forward.
“Tell people to call me or text me,” Hubbard said. “You can cuss me out if you want. I was a journalist for 25 years, I’ve been called everything but a gentleman.”
After Hubbard’s speech, the rally continued with Edward Pacheco, a political science graduate student, who spoke about immigration rights; Ari Romaldini, a senior sustainable technology major from the Revolutionary Communists of America who spoke on labor rights for campus workers and student employees; and Campbell Overby, a senior political science major and member of College Democrats, who spoke about desensitization in media.
Senior political science major Taylor Carnevale-Somersett, who is on the College Democrats executive board, said the Department of Education has been under attack by the Trump administration and its supporters, including Virginia Foxx. She said the role of the department is misunderstood by Republicans.
“The states and local school systems retain most of the decision-making power when it comes to setting the curriculum and how schools run,” she said. “The Department of Education oversees larger, more systemic functions that aid and smooth operation.”
Ascher Denton, a sophomore history education major, spoke last about the lack of funding in education and representatives supporting vouchers for private schools.
“I implore all of you, learn what your representatives are actually saying about education,” Denton said. “Learn about their stance on charter schools because they will take away our public education if this continues.”
After the speeches concluded, Constable invited attendees to write messages on Sanford with sidewalk chalk. Messages included “Free Mahmoud Khalil,” a student activist from Columbia University who was arrested by ICE, “Y’all means all” and “No kings in America.”
In an interview after the rally, Denton said he attended the “Hands Off!” rally and was inspired by the participants there to get more involved.
“I met people from Virginia, South Carolina, from Tennessee, all people who came here because they didn’t think there would be enough support,” Denton said. “I got to meet wonderful people who told me their stories of how their states are suffering, and it broke my heart.”
Deborah Bragg is a Boone community member who was also at the “Hands Off!” rally. She said she came to the rally because she wanted to support students.
“When I was in college, we were boycotting Reagan, his policies, his war on El Salvador, on Central America,” Bragg said. “Then this showed up on my feed, this rally, and I said, ‘I’m gonna go support them and just encourage them.’”
Bragg said community is extremely important in the current age and those who fight for a cause need to be there for each other.
“We can reach out and recognize each other, and we have a common cause, we can support each other. I read a silly meme today, it said ‘fear is contagious, but so is courage,’” Bragg said.
Correction: A previous version of this article misquoted Virginia Foxx’s quote to Fox News. The wording of the quote has been corrected in the article.
