Ten Years Later: Remembering the Firebombing in Hillsborough

Ten Years Later: Remembering the Firebombing in Hillsborough

By John Gaither, Vice Chairman, 4^th Congressional District; Former Chairman, Orange County Republican Party

Here in the early days of Early Voting 2026, my mind keeps going back to another election season—ten years ago.

Some of the details have grown a little fuzzy with time. Others I can still see as clearly as if they happened yesterday.

I had undergone surgery in September 2016 and, because of my recovery, had not been nearly as involved in that presidential campaign as I normally would have been. It was the first Donald Trump election—the one in which the New York City billionaire who had famously ridden down an escalator was taking on Hillary Clinton.

Then came Sunday, October 16, 2016.

For some reason that Sunday evening, I drove by the Orange County Republican Party office at Daniel Boone Village in Hillsborough. Our county chairman at the time, Dan Ashley, was standing in the parking lot. He had already spent much of the day there with volunteers, cleaning up.

That was when he told me what had happened.

Sometime during the night, someone had thrown a bottle containing flammable material through the front window of our headquarters. The fire burned furniture, blackened the walls and melted campaign signs. Fortunately, no one was inside and no one was injured.

The office was a sooty mess.

I remember the couch against the back wall—the couch where Dan had fallen asleep more than once during long campaign days. Now it was little more than burned wire and springs.

Political signs had melted into twisted pieces of plastic and wire frames.

And there stood the American flag, still in the corner, blackened and charred.

Outside, on the neighboring Balloons Above Orange building, someone had spray-painted a message:

“NAZI REPUBLICANS LEAVE TOWN OR ELSE.”

Beside it was a swastika.

And then there was our concrete elephant.

It stood out front, untouched by the fire and vandalism, almost as though it were still standing guard over what remained of our headquarters.

Before that night, my political involvement had been fairly routine. During my eight years of party involvement leading up to 2016, I would normally take a Monday-evening shift at headquarters in the weeks before an election. I handed out sample ballots and yard signs, answered questions and waited for voters who might stop by.

There was usually a stale cookie somewhere and a can of Coke to get me through the evening.

My shift might officially end at 5:00, but I would often stay until 7:00—just in case somebody came through the door needing help.

That year was supposed to be different. I was recovering from surgery.

The firebombing changed that.

After October 16, I began spending several days a week at the office, working alongside Dan Ashley and our vice chairman, Evelyn Poole-Kober. Many helped clean up, reorganized and getting back to work.

There were television cameras. Press conferences. Reporters. Interviews.

Two days after the attack, Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence came to Hillsborough and walked through the burned office. I missed his visit—and the Secret Service presence that came with it—but Pence stood outside our headquarters and said something that has stayed with me: an attack on our political system was an attack on all Americans.

But perhaps one of the most memorable responses came from people who disagreed with us politically.

David Weinberger, a Democrat in Massachusetts, helped establish a GoFundMe campaign to reopen our Republican office. Its message was simple: Democrats could disagree with Republicans without tolerating violence against them. The campaign passed its $10,000 goal almost immediately.

That mattered.

Hillary Clinton condemned the attack as horrific and unacceptable. Donald Trump condemned it. Republican Governor Pat McCrory called the firebombing an attack on democracy. North Carolina Democratic Party leaders condemned it as well.

For at least a moment, people across the political divide could agree on something very basic:

You do not burn your opponent’s headquarters because you disagree with him.

You do not threaten your neighbors because of the way they vote.

You do not answer political speech with violence.

The investigation continued for years. Rewards were offered. Investigators followed leads, reviewed evidence and even examined cellphone-location information from the area. Yet no one was ever charged. In January 2026, the FBI confirmed that the case had been closed after all viable leads were exhausted, although the agency said it could be reopened if new information comes to light.

Ten years later, that remains difficult to accept.

Some reminders of that night are still with us. The large Trump sign donated after the attack still hangs in our present office. The charred American flag was preserved rather than thrown away.

They are not decorations.

They are reminders.

And perhaps that is why I have been thinking about October 16, 2016, so much during this election season.

We sometimes speak of political polarization as though it were merely people arguing too loudly on television or social media. But political hatred can become something much darker.

We have seen assassination attempts against Donald Trump. In September 2025, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University, an attack Utah Governor Spencer Cox described as a political assassination.

Those events are separated by years, circumstances and thousands of miles. They should not simply be treated as one continuous story.

But October 16, 2016 taught me something I have never forgotten:

Political hatred becomes dangerous when we stop seeing the person on the other side as our neighbor.

That lesson applies whether the target is Republican, Democrat or Independent.

I remember standing in that blackened office. I remember the smell. I remember that burned couch. I remember the melted signs. I remember the American flag, charred but still standing.

And I remember that concrete elephant out front.

Untouched.

Still standing guard.

Ten years have passed.

The person responsible has never been brought to justice.

But neither intimidation, fire nor hate stopped democracy in Orange County that October morning.

The doors opened again.

The volunteers came back.

And we kept working.