This is another of The Watchdog’s continuing series taking a detailed look at how our region’s major candidates are raising campaign money ahead of the Nov. 3 elections, where they get it and how they spend it. Federal campaign-finance records show that members of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association, individually and through its Political Action Committee, contributed more than $100,000 to Edwards’ campaign for western North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District. The OABA PAC gave Edwards’s campaign the maximum $10,000 contribution, and Asheville Watchdog identified 52 contributions from various industry donors from across the country totaling at least another $102,050. In 2023, Edwards co-sponsored the Carnivals are Real Entertainment Act, which called for the expansion of seasonal-worker visas, known as H-2B visas. In a separate article, the magazine also reported on an OABA fundraiser where the association raised $112,000 for Edwards’s campaign.