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Troy Tarazon
Troy Tarazon (Republican Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent North Carolina's 9th Congressional District. He lost in the Republican primary on March 5, 2024.
Tarazon completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Troy Tarazon lives in North Carolina. Tarazon served in the U.S. Army from 2002 to 2022.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: North Carolina's 9th Congressional District election, 2024
North Carolina's 9th Congressional District election, 2024 (March 5 Republican primary)
North Carolina's 9th Congressional District election, 2024 (March 5 Democratic primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House North Carolina District 9
Incumbent Richard Hudson defeated Nigel Bristow and Shelane Etchison in the general election for U.S. House North Carolina District 9 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Richard Hudson (R) | 56.3 | 210,042 |
 | Nigel Bristow (D)  | 37.8 | 140,852 | |
 | Shelane Etchison (Independent) | 5.9 | 22,183 | |
| Total votes: 373,077 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
The Democratic primary election was canceled. Nigel Bristow advanced from the Democratic primary for U.S. House North Carolina District 9.
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. House North Carolina District 9
Incumbent Richard Hudson defeated Troy Tarazon in the Republican primary for U.S. House North Carolina District 9 on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Richard Hudson | 83.3 | 56,543 |
 | Troy Tarazon | 16.7 | 11,307 | |
| Total votes: 67,850 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Tarazon in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Troy Tarazon completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Tarazon's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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- America First - We are the greatest country and there is no shame in acknowledging this, lets continue fighting for our nation.
- Veterans Matter - 1% of citizens serve in the military and our gratitude needs to equally represent their service. No veteran should be homeless or without prosperity, they joined to serve and have admirable patriotism and ethic.
- Congressional Term Limits - No more career self-serving politicians - PERIOD.
Veteran Advocacy
Strong foreign policy
Military strength to deter and win
Sovereign and secure borders
Social Security stability for seniors
Affordable health care
Minimized government spending
Honesty
Grit
Strength
Loyalty
Duty
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign website
Tarazon’s campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
As Americans and inhabitants of the same amazing planet there is no shortage of issues, no two people are alike, and we all have our individual struggles. It is not possible to list every problem I see and want to fight in Washington DC but here is a list of some of the top priorities I will focus on Day 1 that are important to me and my fellow North Carolinians. The SOLE reason I am running for office is so I can be a voice for the rest of us, please contact me and tell me what you are going through. Tell me how our current leadership is failing you and what I can do to improve circumstances for as many of us as possible. VETERANS I want to highlight the veteran community and emphasize their value and equally their struggle. Veterans commit to unknowing circumstances that could end up costing them their lives. We give and we give, loyally following orders and serving a greater and higher purpose. The camaraderie and bond that establishes through service is the reason most join, stay, and consequently the reason most suffer when they part service. We deploy to austere environments and too many never come home alive, while there, we bond so tightly with those around because we share the unknown and solidarity to be able to succeed in our mission and return to home and our loved ones. And the bond is also because we get each other through the day, one day at a time. Its not all bullets and trenches, there are long boring days that seem to be the same and never end. It is difficult. But we lean on each other and share and connect, giving hope and joy to one another and solidifying a relationship like no other. This is why I say it is the reason we struggle when we leave service, and why I personally believe there is so much veteran suicide. When you leave you now integrate into a society of everyone, no longer is it just similar minded military sharing a journey. You now have to learn a new way of life, and sadly you won't get the bond and camaraderie you did while in uniform and more often than not you won't be part of serving a higher purpose. Veterans struggle with the loss of that purpose and connection, which leads to resentment, regret, loneliness, isolation, addiction, sadness and too often dark times from which some cannot recover. I have struggled while serving, I have and continue to struggle after being retired. Do I regret my service, absolutely not. I have zero regrets and will always reflect positively on my military service and I would not be the man I am today without the United States Army! I was 24 when I enlisted and was technically a man, but I will be honest and candid I was an adult boy. Choosing to join the military and face that unknown, jump in and commit and go where the nation needed me was one of the scariest things I've ever done. I faced it head on, I loved it, I thrived in it. Over my career there were so many times I questioned what I was doing, I am still a human. However, I knew I was serving my country and faithfully doing what was asked of me. This is the call to serve, this is what drives every single person in uniform and drives those of us who want to continue to serve. The Army equipped me with a strong mind, strong body and the ability to face adversity and succeed. They taught me how to stand tall and proud and do what needs to be done for the betterment of those around. Serving in the military is all about everyone else, it is never about you. This is what makes military service so powerful and what makes veterans the most amazing part of our society. You will never regret having a veteran as your confidant. Veterans also face extreme challenges such as homelessness, how often do you drive in whatever town or city and see a homeless man or woman, or family on the side with a sign and it says they are a veteran and anything helps? This reaches inside of us, inside the fabric of our country and pulls our hearts out. Why on God's green earth is a veteran that served our nation standing on the side of the road with no place to live, desperation in their eyes, relying on the salvation of man to keep them going just one more day. This has to end NOW. There are too many options available while serving to equip the service member to succeed on the outside. We have to do better in building the person while in to be a thriving member of society when they leave. Military members are assets, not tools. We need to ensure military leaders both civilians and uniform see their responsibility as not only winning wars first, but making sure those that win those wars can win the war at home and inside of themselves. Veterans are not disposable. I cannot form a reality in my heart or mind on why we are allowing them to be homeless. This is not an acceptable outcome, I will personally work with the entire country to find solutions to make sure this epidemic is eradicated from our society. We need people to serve our country, but we owe it to them to make sure when they get out of service they continue down a successful path of productivity and prosperity in their life as Americans. In order to serve our military members and ensure their continued success we have to take care and equip them, but first and continually we need to make sure their access to health care is #1. The military has a very powerful and strong culture, and it should. The military exists to win wars - period! They do a lot, but ultimately they exist so our country can remain the most amazing country and be a beacon for the world. If we don't make sure people are physically and mentally healthy we won't have that combat force to win, nor will we have the society that will be there to support and continue growing our beautiful nation. There needs to be a culture of acceptance for seeking treatment, no matter the reason. We need to encourage both military and civilians to seek treatment for physical and mental care. If you break a bone there is no stigma for getting it fixed through surgery or a cast. So why is there a stigma if you struggle emotionally and want help but are afraid to seek it? This needs to change now. I feel like more leaders are breaking this barrier but we can do more. We need more advocates for veterans telling them it is ok, there is help. You will get better. I will make it my priority to make sure veterans are seeking out health care while serving, and I will personally work with the Veteran's Administration to help fix backlogs, improve access for veterans, provide adequate funding, modern resources, modern treatment, better addiction and recovery facilities and a more robust mental health care system. There are a lot of challenges facing our military and our veterans, but as a country we can collectively identify why these challenges exist and put effort, resources and programs in place to get in front of the problems. The resources and programs that do exist need support, there are so many people out there already working to help veterans. I want to be part of this, I want North Carolina to continue to be a part of this. Our military stood up for us and continue to do so, lets stand up for them and make sure they are taken care of and know what they mean to our country. Lets continue to FIGHT for our service members. 2nd AMENDMENT / GUN RIGHTS Why isn't this declaration heeded, why are so many of our rights infringed by our elected and non-elected leadership of this country? A civilization without a means to protect themselves will fall, that is the truth and is proven throughout our history as a world. Disarming a population only works in favor of the one confiscating, not the other way around. Never forget this fact. Certain people use fear to work towards removing our right to protect ourself and our loved ones from harm, and from a tyrannical government. It is disguised as protection from violence, domestic violence, school shootings and other heinous crimes committed by criminals. Do we have a gun problem? Absolutely not, we have a Godless nation problem. We have a mental health crisis. We have a lack of patriotism problem. We have a lack of personal accountability problem. We have a crime problem. Don't blame an inanimate object for the fact that we as a Christian nation have moved away from our core values of God, Country and Family. When we accept anything we fall for everything. Blaming the outcome and using fear to remove an unalienable right, one as crucial as self-preservation from harm highlights what is wrong right now in America. I will always have one gun less than I need. I have a concealed carry permit and practice diligently using my self-defense weapons so I can be as proficient and safe as humanly possible. This is my obligation as a responsible gun owner. My children respect firearms, we shoot together, we hunt together, we learn and enjoy responsible gun ownership together. I'll never share a staged photo of me in the woods pretending to love my freedom the 2nd allows. I take this as serious as my life because that is what is at stake. As your Congressman I will never tire of protecting our Constitutional rights and our God given rights. The 2nd amendment is the only one that protects the rest, without it our Republic will not survive. I will not falter on this, there is no compromise to the 2nd Amendment. INFLATION / BUDGET / GOVERNMENT (OVER) SPENDING What about your wages? You put in the hours, you are a productive member of society working to have a comfortable happy life. But the government takes and takes, tax this, tax that, this wasn't enough so we are taking more. What can you do about it, it seems like absolutely nothing. You are penalized for making money, then you are taxed and taxed and taxed. Where does it end, when does it stop? It doesn't. How many times have you gotten a letter saying your taxes for your home are going up because the government feels like your house is worth more so you should pay THEM more? What! Why is our income taxed on every check then in April we have to go to the government altar and give more? What is our government doing with all this money? We need tax, otherwise our country wouldn't have an infrastructure, schools, first responders, military, social programs, and many many more essential services we need. The government's responsibility is to provide an environment where the citizens can succeed, this requires money. But lets be honest as a nation, we are greedy and take too much from our citizens and spend too much on things that don't help America. Where is the accountability for where our money is actually spent? How much government fraud waste and abuse is happening with our money? I know there is enough that if we as a government cared for our citizens we would focus on spending less and cutting back where we can in order to lower how much we take. Every bill Congress moves is bloated with over-spending, billions of dollars for ridiculous efforts that will ultimately not make any American's life better. We can't keep printing money to fight high costs of living, consequently this is part of the reason things get more expensive. I am not a finance expert but we all know the more money the government prints the less our dollar is worth. That is "common sense." I used quotes because common sense isn't common and that is especially true with the way the government spends our money. They aren't being good stewards of our finances. We can't keep giving money to foreign countries with no end in sight, and no accountability of what that money is actually being used for. Does everyone need money, yes. Is it always the answer, no. How many fiscal audits fail in the government, how many don't even exist? Is our leadership actually taking the time to understand where all this bloat is going? NO, they aren't. I know there are government organizations that get penalized for saving money, yes they get in trouble if they don't spend the millions and millions of dollars they were given. Give an inch, take a foot. This is where we are fiscally as a country. The government over-spends and takes too much from us because they can, and because they always have. When I am your Congressman I will demand audits of our government organizations if they don't exist. I will demand to see the outcome of audits that do exist. I want to know who is failing, why can't they account for the billions they were given? Where did they spend our taxpayer money? People will be put in the hot seat, they will answer to us for what they are doing with our money. I will personally make it my priority to force the uncomfortable and very unpopular question, "where is our money?" Are we taxed too high, YES. Let's fix it. Does the government spend too much money on things that won't help American's, YES. Let's fix it. Is there accountability on where our money is spent, NO. Let's fix it. Does the average American citizen know where their taxes are spent, NO. Let's fix it. When I'm in Congress I will tirelessly FIGHT for accountability and limiting spending. Imagine if we actually passed a budget that was fiscally responsible and not full of bloated spending on the backs of working Americans. Well imagine it and make it happen with me as your voice. I will be LOUD on this issue. CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS Let's amend the Constitution to limit how many terms Senators and Representatives can serve. We have too many career politicians that are in this for themselves, not for the service of the citizens. This has to end NOW. Serving in Congress needs to return to the original intent, take up the call to serve, do as much good as you can for your fellow man and go home and be a productive citizen and let the next Patriot take up the call. SOUTHERN BORDER Right now there are thousands of illegal immigrants crossing our border daily, a task that DHS cannot currently handle nor are trying to fix. Our agents are doing the best they can with what they have and the orders they are given. However, there are millions of illegal people that have escaped into the United States, hundreds of known terrorists apprehended, thousands of unaccompanied minors shipped across without care and less we mention the influx of deadly drugs to include fentanyl. Right now people are being shipped across the United States to try and accommodate the increase but if you think about the resources required we aren't equipped. There are second and third order effects when sending massive migrant caravans across the country. The places they end up don't have adequate housing, supplies, health care, education, nothing to sustain life the way it should be. So by allowing this to happen we firsthand have created a massive humanitarian crisis in our own country. There are criminals also crossing our border uncontrolled, there will be immeasurable things that happen for a very long time because of our negligence. Now the drugs. We all know there is a serious problem with fentanyl being smuggled into our country and one of those avenues is our southern border. Fentanyl kills in one dose, it comes so concentrated it kills without the person willingly ingesting. This is a crisis that will continue killing until we make it cease to exist. In order to fix the serious damage being done to our country through the border we need action. The first order of action needs to be secure the border. We have to keep people from casually walking across the border or being delivered through other methods like watercraft. Stop the influx, force everyone to remain in Mexico. What this is also doing is diluting and negating our legal immigration process and laws. We are mostly all immigrants or immigrant descendants, our country will only continue to be great if we foster the right growth through regulated immigration. We should never stop anyone lawfully from entering our country, living here as a free citizen and achieving all the success they set out to achieve. What we must stop is massive caravans of people flooding our borders, saturating our already weak infrastructure, stop illegal drugs from coming into the border and stop the humanitarian crisis we are allowing to unfold before our eyes. As Congressman I will work diligently to enforce lawful border policies of restricted entry, scrutinized screening of immigrants and humanitarian relief of the existing crisis at hand. We need lawmakers willing to do what needs to be done to secure our country and return us to the beacon of freedom where people are encouraged to come and be successful. HEALTH CARE EDUCATION I support school choice for the near term and an enduring solution. You shouldn’t have to be in a certain school district just because of your zip code. What if that school is too crowded, or impacted by gangs or violence, drugs, and CRT? Parents should be allowed to let their children earn an appropriate education to help them succeed in life. An education free from crime, poor policies, overcrowded student population, underfunding, low test scores, and just a substandard environment. Competition is healthy, that is something we also learn in school. Competition to provide children with an education will improve standards and therefore improve the education of our children. The Department of Education should either be eliminated or have its authoritative reach severely limited when it comes to the individual states and how they teach. Too often bad policies are enforced at the state level because the federal government threatens funding without cooperation. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for education across our country. The states and parents should be the ones determining what is best for their children and classrooms. Our children should be taught how to think and solve problems, they need to learn skills that will help them succeed in life. They do not need to be taught what to think, nor should they be indoctrinated with societal trends that are inappropriate or immoral. K-12 students are children, minors, who need protection from the insanity occurring with our adults in America. SOCIAL SECURITY Currently, the tax is put into a trust fund that is predicted to be depleted by 2033, which in turn we only have tax as a method to pay beneficiaries rather than interest gained in a solvent account. This means that by 2033 our benefits are expected to be worth up to 25% less than what they are today. There are a few problems with this outcome that will happen in less than 10 years. It seems like only three ideas are being discussed to ensure the trust isn’t depleted. Raise our taxes to increase the flow of income into the fund, raise the retirement age from 67 to 70, or raise the wage base limit so higher earners can pay more into the fund. The latter is also a measure of raising tax, without a percentage increase it still raises the amount you can be liable to the government. Providing stability to our seniors is of utmost importance and should be a priority for our elected officials. However, neither party has made any progress to ensure proper benefits will be a reliable source of income for retirees. One reason we are here is because during the post-war era of the 1940s our country had an influx of children referred to as the Baby Boomers. This population is expected to consist of 70 million people by 2030, which increases the need for benefits and decreases the amount of taxable income available to sustain this program. But it isn’t only an increase of retired-age Americans, over time our government has borrowed money from our promise of a stable future to fund unpopular and often un-supported efforts such as war. I’m not saying conflict can always be avoided but if you must take from a program as fragile as Social Security you need to have a plan to pay it back…or else we find ourselves looking at dire choices that don’t favor our elderly in less than a decade. Our country also faces a population decline because fewer people are starting families and having children. Without people reliably paying their share into this program it will continually shrink and deplete. So what does our government do about this, what can we as concerned and taxed citizens do about this? It seems as though the government has made promises it once again cannot keep. We have waited far too long to address the looming issues with our Social Security benefits. Should we continue to elect Representatives that will only delay the inevitable and then force our citizens to pay the price for their procrastination? My answer is clearly NO, we must elect citizen servants who are willing to take action now and protect our citizens who rely on these benefits. As your Representative, I will make Social Security benefits one of my top issues that I will relentlessly fight to preserve without placing the burden on us who already pay too much tax. There are better answers available such as cutting erroneous spending on things that don’t benefit Americans. I promise you as your Representative I will not stop fighting for your rights and your benefits. We cannot, we will not allow these critical benefits to be cut nor will we allow more tax to be collected to make up for inaction.[2] |
” |
| —Troy Tarazon’s campaign website (2024)[3] | ||
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on January 3, 2024
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Troy L. Tarazon for United States House of Representatives, “Issues,” accessed January 22, 2024
