Lauch Faircloth

Duncan McLauchlin "Lauch" Faircloth
United States Senator for North Carolina
In office January 3, 1993 – January 3, 1999
Preceded by	Terry Sanford
Succeeded by	John Edwards
5th North Carolina Secretary of Commerce
In office 1977–1985
Governor	James B. Hunt, III
Preceded by	Donald R. Beason
Succeeded by	Howard Haworth
Born	January 14, 1928 Sampson County, North Carolina.
Nationality	American
Political party	Democrat-turned-Republican (1990)
Spouse(s)	Nancy Bryan Faircloth (divorced)
Children	Ann Faircloth Dufour Two grandchildren
Residence	Clinton, Sampson County[1]
Military Service
Service/branch	United States Army

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Duncan McLauchlin Faircloth, known as Lauch Faircloth (pronounced LOCK) (born January 14, 1928), is a former one-term Republican United States Senator for his native state of North Carolina. His term was sandwiched between Democrat Senators Terry Sanford and John Edwards. Faircloth served as Secretary of Commerce in the administration of Democratic Governor James Baxter Hunt, Jr. (born 1937). In 1984, Governor Hunt ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate against conservative Republican Jesse Helms in the nation's most high- profile Senate race that year.

Before his Senate service, Faircloth was a prominent hog farmer in Sampson County in southern North Carolina.. He had entered the political realm as a Conservative Democrat because he opposed regulations targeting large hog farmers. Years earlier, he worked as a driver for Democratic Senator William Kerr Scott (1896-1958), who helped him to gain a hardship discharge from the Korean War. An early supporter of Terry Sanford's 1960 gubernatorial bid, Sanford named Faircloth to the state highway commission. Faircloth helped Robert Walter "Bob" Scott (1929-2009), a son of W. Kerr Scott, in Scott's successful bid for the governorship in 1968 over the Republican U.S. Representative James Carson Gardner (born 1933) of Rocky Mount. Scott named Faircloth chairman of the highway commission, and he subsequently servedas Secretary of Commerce in the Hunt administration.

Faircloth aspired to the governor's office himself, buthe lost the Democratic primary in 1984. He also considered running for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Senator John Porter East in 1986, but he was discouraged from doing so by the entry of Sanford, who went on to win the race against appointed James Thomas "Jim" Broyhill (born 1927), a part of the Broyhill Furniture Company, who had served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1963 to 1986. After Broyhill won the Republican nomination to succeed East, who committed suicide in June 1986.Then Republican Governor James Grubbs Martin (born 1935) appointed Broyhill to fill the remaining six months vacated by East. Broyhill then lost the general election to Terry Sanford.

In 1990, after forty years as a Democrat, Faircloth switched his party registration and began preparations to seek the Republican Senate nomination in 1992. He carried the support of Senator Helms's political organization, and defeated Charlotte Mayor Sue Myrick in the primary. His opponent in the general election was former ally Terry Sanford, whom Faircloth then branded as a tax-and-spend liberal even though Sanford had helped Faircloth raise money for Faircloth's failed gubernatorial bid in 1984, when Hunt ran for the U.S. Senate against Helms. Faircloth was said to have become agitated after he learned that Sanford had dismissed Faircloth's chances in a statewide contest.^[2] Faircloth beat Sanford, 1,297, 892 (50 percent) to 1,194,015 (46 percent), a margin in excess of 100,000 votes in an otherwise Democratic year nationally.

Faircloth lost his bid for a second Senate term in 1998, a Democrat-leaning year that prompted the resignation of Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to Democrat wealthy trial lawyer John Edwards, 1,029,237votes (51 percent) to 945,943 (47percent). Faircloth told supporters on election night that he felt "that I let you down...because we should have won."^[3]

Faircloth married the former Nancy Bryan (c. 1930 – January 20210), a native of New York City who was reared in Greensboro, North Carolina. They had a daughter, Ann Faircloth Dufour and two grandchildren. They later divorced, and she moved from his city of Clinton to the capital city of Raleigh.^[4]