LaKesha Womack unseats Tim Moore with felony charge pending

LaKesha Womack, a Democrat and first-time candidate, unseated Republican Rep. Tim Moore in North Carolina's 14th Congressional District on Nov. 3 while facing a pending felony charge accusing her of failing to return a rental car in 2019.

Womack took 51.1 percent of the vote to Moore's 48.9 percent, a margin of 6,415 votes out of 288,361 cast, according to unofficial results from the North Carolina State Board of Elections. Moore had won the same seat by roughly 16 points in 2024.

Her next court date is Nov. 10 in Mecklenburg County District Court, and she is set to be sworn in on Jan. 3, 2027, the Daily Caller reported. The case has not been resolved.

What the summons alleges

The charge is a Class H felony under North Carolina General Statute 14-167, which covers willfully failing to return a hired motor vehicle worth more than $4,000. Court records show Womack rented a 2019 Toyota Corolla from Budget, and the summons lists the car's value at $20,000.

The car was due back on Oct. 23, 2019, according to the summons.

Polk County Sheriff's Office deputies served Womack, 49, with the criminal summons on Sunday, Oct. 11, at a campaign event, WBTV reported. It was not immediately clear why the summons, which dated to 2020, had gone unserved until this year.

The criminal summons was first issued in January 2020 and returned unserved the following month, according to the Daily Caller. It was reissued and served in Polk County less than a month before voters went to the polls.

Sentencing guidelines for the charge run from four months to more than three years in prison, though a defendant with no prior record can receive probation.

Womack has acknowledged that she did not return the car on time. She said in a campaign video and in later interviews that she and her young son were homeless at the time and that she had no stable address at which to receive notices. She believed the matter had been resolved and amounted to money owed to the rental company, the Carolina Journal reported.

How the race turned

Moore served five terms as speaker of the North Carolina House before winning the seat in 2024. His defeat was one of the cycle's biggest House upsets, Alternet reported, and his role in redrawing the district in 2023 became a vulnerability that Democrats cast as a case against gerrymandering.

Womack raised about $59,000 through Oct. 14, against Moore's $2.1 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The district takes in Burke, Cleveland, Gaston and Rutherford counties and parts of Mecklenburg and Polk, including Gastonia, Shelby, Morganton and part of far south Charlotte, WBTV reported. Womack won all but two of the district's Mecklenburg precincts, and Mecklenburg and Gaston supplied more than three-quarters of her votes, The Charlotte Observer reported.

Moore's campaign ran ads on the charge, which Womack called an attack on an unresolved matter as she urged voters to wait for the courts, the Daily Caller reported.

Her residency also drew scrutiny during the campaign after she bought a home outside the district while the voting address she listed inside it was offered for rent, the Daily Caller reported. The U.S. Constitution requires only that a House candidate live in the state.

What Womack has said

In an Oct. 29 statement issued through her campaign and published by WBTV, Womack did not address the charge directly and instead criticized what she called deceptive attack ads from Friends of Tim Moore. She wrote that accountability must be grounded in "facts, fairness, and due process rather than speculation or sensationalism," and that Moore, an attorney, knew any ongoing legal matter should be addressed through the appropriate legal process.

Womack said in the same statement that she had been through a serious medical emergency that required hospitalization in intensive care, and she described herself as a single mother living with Type 1 diabetes who had to rebuild financially afterward. She has not publicly connected either circumstance to the unreturned car.

I can't talk about that because it is an ongoing legal case. But I will say that if it were something much more serious, then I probably would have been served and charged much quicker than a week before early voting started.

Channel 9 government reporter Joe Bruno asked Womack what happened to the rental car, and she declined to discuss specifics, WSOC reported. Before she was served, she had told supporters on Facebook that she experienced homelessness with her then 10-year-old son, saying, "At one point, I had a rental car, and I did not return the rental car on time."

The rental company recovered the vehicle, the Daily Caller reported, and Womack has retained a lawyer and is not commenting further on the case.

What the House rules allow

A felony conviction would not automatically remove Womack from Congress, and expelling a sitting member requires a two-thirds vote of the full House, the Daily Caller reported.

House Rule 23, clause 10, says a member convicted of a crime that can carry two or more years is expected to stop voting on the floor and to step back from committee business until the presumption of innocence is restored or the member is reelected. Class H felonies in North Carolina can exceed two years. The same rule asks a member formally charged with such a crime to give up committee seats and any party leadership post until the charge is dismissed or reduced below a felony, which would reach Womack on Jan. 3 if her case is still open and the new House keeps the rule.

Two Charlotte defense attorneys who are not involved in the case told local reporters that a conviction is unlikely. They said charging a felony by summons is unusual and that proving willful intent years after the fact is difficult, and they listed dismissal or a reduction to a misdemeanor as possible outcomes.

Whether the case affects the Jan. 3 swearing-in has not been established, and Womack is set to take the oath that day with the felony count still pending.

Womack's path to the seat

Womack moved to North Carolina in 2016 to work on Hillary Clinton's campaign and stayed. She has said she became unhoused with her young son after the move, when a medical emergency related to her Type 1 diabetes left her hospitalized in intensive care, the Carolina Journal reported.

Womack described her candidacy as proof of resilience. "I think this is the American dream that within 10 years, you know, I can go from being virtually homeless to running for Congress," she told WSOC.

Womack was one of more than 40 Democrats who flipped Republican-held House seats in the Nov. 3 elections, CBS News reported.

Womack is due in Mecklenburg County District Court on Nov. 10, one week after Election Day, a gap she called especially frustrating in her Oct. 29 statement. The felony case remains pending.