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GOP voters in North Carolina 9th U.S. House district picking new candidate for race rerun
Tuesday’s primary will narrow field of Republican challengers to face Democrat Dan McCready
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
CHARLOTTE (CFP) — Voters in North Carolina’s 9th U.S. House District will go to the polls Tuesday to vote in primaries for a seat that has been vacant since state elections officials refused to certify the winner of last November’s election over allegations of absentee ballot fraud.
On the Democratic side of the ballot, Dan McCready, who narrowly lost the seat in November, faces no opposition. But on the Republican side, nine candidates are jockeying for their party’s nomination after last year’s GOP nominee, Mark Harris, dropped out of the election rerun.
State Senator Dan Bishop
To clear the primary without a runoff in North Carolina, a candidate needs 30 percent of the vote, and pre-election polling has shown State Senator Dan Bishop of Charlotte right at that threshold and ahead of the other candidates in the crowded field. He has the backing of much of the Republican establishment, including Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.
The only other candidate in double-digits in polling is Union County Commissioner Stony Rushing, who has gotten Harris’s endorsement.
The district stretches across south-central North Carolina from the Charlotte suburbs to near Fayetteville.
Democrats have high hopes of flipping the seat, which McCready lost to Harris by just 900 votes. He has raised more than $2 million since November and will start the general election campaign with a $1.6 million war chest.
However, Republicans in the legislature changed state law to force a primary in the special election, which cleared the way for the party to jettison Harris, whose campaign had seriously wounded by allegations that one of his campaign operatives had engaged in absentee ballot fraud in Bladen County, a rural outpost at the eastern end of the district.
After a new election was ordered, Harris — citing health concerns — declined to run.
Bishop, 54, is a social conservative best known as one of the authors of North Carolina’s “bathroom bill,” a law passed in 2016 which required transgendered people to use the restroom assigned to their birth gender in public facilities. After a public outcry and organized boycotts of the state, the law was repealed in 2017.
His campaign has been endorsed by the North Carolina Values Coalition, a conservative group that supported the restroom restrictions.
Stony Rushing as Boss Hogg
Rushing, 47, who owns a gun range, has drawn attention for dressing like Boss Hogg, the fictional political boss in “The Dukes of Hazard,” during his re-election campaign to the county commission in 2018. During the congressional campaign, he has defended Harris, saying the fraud allegations had been “blown out of proportion” and that state elections officials had erred by ordering a new vote.
McCready, 35, is a Marine Corps veteran and solar energy entrepreneur making his first bid for political office.
If no Republican candidate clears 30 percent, a runoff will be held in September. The GOP winner will face McCready in November.
Residents of the 9th District have been without representation in Congress since Republican U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger left office in January.
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Republican field set for July runoff for vacant North Carolina 3rd District U.S. House seat
State Rep. Greg Murphy will face newcomer Joan Perry in runoff; winner faces Democrat Allen Thomas in September
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com
GREENVILLE, North Carolina (CFP) — Two medical doctors will compete in a July 9 runoff for the Republican nomination for fill a U.S. House vacancy in Eastern North Carolina.
Greg Murphy and Joan Perry
State Rep. Greg Murphy from Greenville and Joan Perry, a pediatrician from Kinston and former member of the University of North Carolina System Board of Governors, took the top spots in the crowded April 23 primary for the 3rd District seat, which featured 17 Republican candidates.
The seat has been vacant since U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, who had held it for 24 years, died in February.
Murphy took 23 percent in the first round to 15 percent for Perry. Under state law, primary runoffs are held when no candidate gets 30 percent of the vote.
Among Democrats, former Greenville Mayor Allen Thomas won his party’s nomination outright in the first round, with 50 percent of the vote.
The winner of the Republican runoff will be prohibitive favorite in the 3rd District, which includes 17 mostly rural counties along the state’s Atlantic coast. President Donald Trump carried the district by 14 points in 2016.
In addition to the special election in the 3rd District, voters in the state’s 9th U.S. House District will also vote in a May 14 primary to fill a seat that has been vacant since the State Board of Elections ordered a redo of last November’s election amid allegations of absentee ballot fraud.
Ten Republicans are running that that primary. Democrat Dan McCready, who narrowly lost in the district in November, is the only Democrat on the ballot.
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Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax calls for criminal investigation of sexual assault allegations
Fairfax issues new denials after his accusers describe encounters in graphic, emotional detail on CBS
By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
RICHMOND (CFP) — Days after two women vividly described for a national television audience how they were sexually assaulted by Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, he called a news conference to once again deny the allegations and release results of polygraph examinations that he insists clear him.
Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax denies allegations in April 3 news conference (From CBSN via YouTube)
“Sensationalizing allegations does not make them true,” said Fairfax, who admitted having sexual encounters with both women but said they were consensual. “Yet airing salacious allegations without evidence does enormous damage.”
Meanwhile, Republican and Democratic leaders in the House of Delegates continued to spar over whether to let Fairfax’s accusers, Vanessa Tyson and Meredith Watson, testify in a public hearing, as the women have requested.
Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox has proposed forming a special committee to hear their testimony, but House Minority Leader Eileen Filler-Corn and Fairfax have resisted, saying a law enforcement agencies, not lawmakers, should investigate to keep the process from becoming politicized.
Tyson has alleged that Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex on him when both were working at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Watson accused Fairfax of raping her in 2000, when they were personal friends while both attending Duke University.
This week, CBS This Morning aired the first national television interviews with the women since their allegations became public in February, during which both described their encounters with Fairfax in graphic and emotional detail to correspondent Gayle King.
“It was a huge betrayal. He was my friend,” Watson said, after describing how Fairfax invited her to his apartment, came into a room, locked the door, and then pinned her down and raped her. “I don’t understand how you do that to someone that you’ve been a friend to.”
She also she had confided to Fairfax that she had been raped by another student at Duke and that he told her after the assault that he thought her previous experience would make her too afraid to report his actions.
Tyson told King that after meeting Fairfax at the Democratic convention, he invited her to accompany him to his hotel room on an errand, and she agreed. As the two began kissing, with her consent, at the end of the bed, she said he grabbed her by the back of the neck and forced her face into his crotch.
“And I’m choking and gagging,” she said. “I was completely caught off guard. It was almost as if I was dumbstruck.”
She told King that prior to the assault, she had discussed with Fairfax her work as an advocate for sexual assault survivors and disclosed that she had been the victim of incest. She said he believes Fairfax “took advantage” of that disclosure to victimize her.
Tyson and Watson both said did not know each other prior to making their allegations and have never met. And Watson insisted she would have no incentive to make untrue allegations against Fairfax.
“The only thing coming forward has done is invited criticism and chaos and scrutiny of me and put me under a microscope,” she said.
At his news conference, Fairfax said he has asked prosecutors in Boston and Durham, North Carolina, where Duke is located, to investigate the allegations, which he said would lead to a “fair, serious and respectful process.”
“I will answer any and all questions, and I am willing to do so under oath and under penalty of perjury,” he said.
Fairfax said he had undergone two polygraph examinations from a nationally recognized polygraph examiner in which he was asked about the women’s allegations. He provided results that showed that the examiner concluded he had been truthful.
Polygraph examinations, commonly know as “lie detector tests,” are used as a law enforcement tool in dealing with suspects. However, results cannot be admitted in court because the reliability of the tests has not been conclusively established.
Fairfax denied the statements attributed to him by the women in their CBS interviews. He also said that neither women appeared upset after their consensual encounters with him, and both stayed in contact with him after the alleged assaults took place.
“If the facts alleged by Dr. Tyson and Ms. Watson were true, they conduct would be criminal,” he said. “Such conduct is against everything I have stood for in both my public and private life.”
He said the allegations have been “incredibly hurtful to me and my family and my reputation, which I spent a lifetime building.”
Fairfax, 40, a former federal prosecutor, was elected as Virginia’s lieutenant governor in 2017. He was considered a rising star in Democratic politics until the allegations surfaced in February.
Tyson came forward in February when it appeared likely that Fairfax could become governor, as Governor Ralph Northam was fighting to stay in office after a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page came to light.
Despite calls from fellow Democrats for him to resign, Northam has remained in office.
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North Carolina GOP Chair Robin Hayes, top donor accused of trying to bribe insurance commissioner
Committee supporting U.S. Rep. Mark Walker got $150,000 donation from indicted donor as he was being enlisted to lobby on donor’s behalf
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
CHARLOTTE (CFP) — Robin Hayes, a former congressman who chairs the North Carolina Republican Party, and the state’s top political donor have been indicted in what federal prosecutors allege was a “brazen” scheme to bribe Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey with $2 million disguised as campaign contributions.
North Carolina Republican Chair Robin Hayes
The indictment, unsealed April 2, charges Hayes with wire fraud, bribery and three counts of lying to the FBI. Also charged with wire fraud and bribery in the case is Greg E. Lindberg, 48, a Durham businessman who federal prosecutors allege initiated the scheme to bribe Causey in order to get more favorable treatment from insurance regulators for one of his companies.
The indictment of Lindberg is likely to reverberate through state Republican politics. He has contributed generously to various GOP groups and political committees supporting Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest and U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, who appears to have been mentioned in the indictment but was not accused of any crime.
Also charged were John D. Gray, 68, from Chapel Hill, a consultant working for Lindberg, and John V. Palermo, Jr., 63, from Pittsboro, an employee at one of Lindberg’s companies and former GOP chair in Chatham County.
Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey
Causey, who notified federal law enforcement of the bribery attempt and cooperated with investigators, was not charged.
In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said the men had engaged in a “brazen bribery scheme in which Greg Lindberg and his co-conspirators allegedly offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for official action that would benefit Lindberg’s business interests.”
Prosecutors allege that Hayes agreed to use the state GOP to funnel Lindberg’s money to Causey’s campaign to keep the source from becoming public, and then lied to FBI agents when he was asked about the contributions and his contacts with Causey on Lindberg’s behalf.
Also mentioned in the indictment, but not accused of wrongdoing, is an unnamed “Public Official A,” who was allegedly enlisted to lobby Causey on Lindberg’s behalf after Lindberg donated $150,000 to a political committee supporting him.
U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, R-North Carolina
Citing Federal Election Commission records, Politico identified “Public Official A” as Walker, from Greensboro, a member of the House Republican leadership.
FEC records show that Lundberg made a $150,000 contribution to the Mark Walker Victory Committee, which was dated Feb. 17, 2018. Lundberg was the first contributor to the committee, which was registered on Feb. 13, 2018. His contribution was 10 times the amount of any other donor and accounted for about one-fourth of all of the money taken in by the fund during 2018.
The indictment said that on Feb. 5, 2018, Gray contacted “Public Official A” to lobby Causey on behalf of Lindberg, who wanted the insurance commissioner to remove a deputy he felt was “maliciously” hurting his reputation and replace her with Palermo.
After Gray reported his conversation with Public Official A to Lindberg, he donated $150,000 to a political committee supporting that official, according to the indictment. Two days later, the official called Causey to “explain that Lindberg was doing good things for North Carolina business,” according to the indictment.
Responding to the Politico report, Walker’s office released a statement saying he was not a target of the investigation, has not been accused of any wrongdoing and that he had cooperated with federal prosecutors investigating the case.
The statement also noted the Lindberg has also donated money to Democratic officials and that the victory fund was controlled by the Republican National Committee.
Walker, 49, was elected in 2014 to represent the state’s 6th District, in and around Greensboro. He is part of the GOP House leadership as vice-chair of the House Republican Conference.
Hayes, 73, who served in the U.S. House from 1999 to 2009 and has chaired the state GOP since 2016, had announced on the day before the indictment was unsealed that he would not seek re-election as state chair in June.
His attorney issued a statement saying Hayes “steadfastly denies the allegations made against him” and is looking forward to clearing his name.
In a statement, the state GOP’s legal counsel, Josh Howard, said the party has been “cooperating with the investigation for several months, including staff members providing statements and responding to various document requests” and “remains fully operational and focused on its mission at hand.”
Lindberg’s attorney, Anne Tompkins, told the McClatchey newspapers that his client was innocent of the charges and was also looking forward to his day in court.
The Raleigh News & Observer had previously reported that Lindberg had become the largest political donor in the state over the last two years, contributing more than $3 million to candidates from both parties since 2016. Most of those contributions were made to political committees and political parties instead of directly to candidates, whose donations are capped.
About half of that money went to groups supporting Forest, who is expected to run for governor in 2020, the newspaper reported.
Lindberg is chairman of Eli Global, an investment company, and Global Bankers Insurance Group, which is regulated by Causey’s office.
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10 Republicans file to run for disputed North Carolina 9th District U.S. House seat
Winner of GOP primary will face Democrat Dan McCready for a seat Democrats hope to flip
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
CHARLOTTE (CFP) — Ten Republicans have filed the paperwork to run for their party’s nomination for the disputed 9th District U.S. House seat in North Carolina, setting up a primary battle to pick an opponent who can stop Democrat Dan McCready from flipping the seat from red to blue.
Dan McCready
By the close of the filing deadline for the special election on March 15, no Democrats filed to run against McCready, who lost the seat by 905 votes in November but is getting another chance after state elections officials ordered a new election amid allegations of absentee ballot fraud.
The seat has been vacant since January, and residents of the district could be without a representative in Washington until November, if the crowded Republican field requires a primary runoff.
The 10 Republicans running in the May 14 primary include four current or former elected officials: State Senator Dan Bishop from Charlotte; Union County Commissioner Stony Rushing from Wingate; former Mecklenberg County Commissioner Matthew Ridenhour from Charlotte; and Fern Shubert, a former state legislator from Marshville.
Also running are Stevie Rivenbark Hull, a sales manager from Fayetteville; Kathie Day, a real estate agent from Cornelius; Gary Dunn, a Charlotte businessman; Leigh Thomas Brown, a real estate agent from Harrisburg; Albert Wiley, Jr., a physician and frequent candidate from Salter Path; and Chris Anglin, a Raleigh attorney.
Dan Bishop
Bishop is best known for being a lead sponsor of North Carolina’s “bathroom bill,” a controversial 2016 law which required transgendered people to use bathrooms that matched their birth identity in public buildings. The legislature repealed the law in 2017 after the state faced a series of boycotts.
Bishop also also drew critical press coverage for his investment in Gab, a social media site popular with white supremacists and anti-Semites. He has said he was not aware that the site promoted hate speech when he made a crowdfunding investment in August 2017, a week after white supremacists ignited a riot in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Rushing, who owns a gun range, is serving his third term as a commissioner in Union County. He has been endorsed by Mark Harris, who was the Republican nominee in November’s disputed vote.
The State Board of Elections refused to certify Harris as the winner amid allegations that an operative hired by his campaign had improperly collected absentee ballots. After the board ordered a new vote, Harris bowed out of a rematch with McCready, citing health concerns.
Ridenhour, who lost his seat on the county commission last year after a single term, is a Marine veteran who has been active in the Tea Party movement in Charlotte.
Shubert served three terms in the House and one in the Senate. She made unsuccessful bids for governor in 2004 and state auditor in 2012.
Hull and Day are both political newcomers who live outside the 9th District, which stretches from Charlotte east along the South Carolina border toward Fayetteville. Federal law does not require candidates for Congress to live in the district they want to represent.
Brown is a Charlotte-area realtor. Dunn ran unsuccessfully for Charlotte mayor in 2017 and for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2012.
Wiley ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the neighboring 10th District in 2016 and 2018. Anglin ran unsuccessfully for the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2018. Neither man lives in the 9th District.
If none of the Republican candidates captures a majority in the May vote, a primary runoff is scheduled for Sept. 10, with a general election on Nov. 5. If a runoff isn’t required, the general election will move up to September, which could give the district representation in Washington sooner.
McCready, 34, a former Marine officer and businessman who has raised more than $500,000 since November, starts the race with a significant cash advantage over his Republican rivals and won’t need to spend any of it in a primary.
If McCready wins, the 9th District will be the only Republican-held district in North Carolina to flip Democratic in the 2018 election cycle.
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