Duncan McLauchlin "Lauch" Faircloth (14 January 1928-14 September 2023) was a Republican US Senator from North Carolina from 3 January 1993 to 3 January 1999, succeeding Terry Sanford and preceding John Edwards.
Biography[]
Duncan McLauchlin Faircloth was born in Sampson County, North Carolina in 1928, the son of a cotton farm owner. He became a wealthy hog farmer, construction businessman, and auto dealership owner, and he entered politics amid a populist backlash against hog farming regulations. A Democrat until 1990, Faircloth served as a state highway commissioner under Governor Terry Sanford, as chairman of the commission under Governor Robert W. Scott, and as Secretary of Commerce of North Carolina from 1977 to 1985. In 1990, he defected to the Republican Party and was elected to the US Senate in 1992, defeating his former ally Sanford after accusing him of being a "tax-and-spend liberal". Faircloth served a single term in the Senate, supporting a work requirement for welfare recipients, cutting benefits to single mothers under 21 and to recipients with more children, and supporting social security reform. He lost re-election to Democrat John Edwards in 1998, and he died in 2023.