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Greg Murphy wins GOP nomination in North Carolina’s 3rd U.S. House District
Murphy defeats Joan Perry, who receive significant support from groups pushing to elect more Republican women
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com
GREENVILLE, North Carolina (CFP) — In a setback for the cause of adding to the thin ranks of Republican women in the U.S. House, Republicans in North Carolina’s 3rd District have chosen State Rep. Greg Murphy as their nominee in a special election for one of two vacant seats in the state’s delegation.
State Rep. Greg Murphy
Murphy, a urologist from Greenville, won the July 9 runoff with 60 percent to defeat Joan Perry, a pediatrician from Kinston, who took 40 percent.
Perry, a political newcomer, had received significant financial support from outside groups pushing to elect more Republican women to the House. Her loss will leave the number of GOP women at 13, the party’s lowest ebb in female membership in the last 25 years.
Murphy will be a heavy favorite in the September 10 special election against the Democratic nominee, former Greenville Mayor Allen Thomas, in the Republican-leaning district, which takes in 17 mostly rural counties along the state’s Atlantic coast.
President Donald Trump carried the district by 24 points in 2016.
The seat has been vacant since U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, who held it for 24 years, died in February.
In the first round of voting in April, which drew 17 Republican candidates, Murphy took 23 percent to 15 percent for Perry. A runoff was required because neither candidate met the 30 percent threshold to win outright.
During the runoff, the contest between Perry and Murphy became a proxy war pitting advocates for electing more Republican women to the House, who supported her, against ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus members, who campaigned for him.
Winning for Woman, a PAC that supports election of female Republican candidates, spent $900,000 in the race on Perry’s behalf. The Susan B. Anthony List, which supports pro-life women, added another $350,000.
Currently, the number of Republican women serving in the House, 13, is dwarfed by the number of Democrats, 89.
Perry was trying to join the tiny club of four Southern Republican women who serve in the House — Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, Martha Roby of Alabama, Kay Granger of Texas, and Carol Miller of West Virginia, the lone GOP female newcomer elected in 2018.
In addition to the race in the 3rd District, voters in the state’s 9th District will also vote September 10 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.
In that district, which runs from the Charlotte suburbs east along the South Carolina line toward Fayetteville, Republican State Senator Dan Bishop will face Democrat Dan McCready, who narrowly lost in the district in November.
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7 new Southern U.S House Democrats who ousted Republicans support Nancy Pelosi for speaker
Cunningham of South Carolina and Spanberger of Virginia keep vow to oppose Pelosi; North Carolina’s 9th District remains vacant
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com
WASHINGTON (CFP) — Seven Southern Democratic U.S. House freshmen who ousted GOP incumbents in November supported Nancy Pelosi’s bid to reclaim the gavel as speaker of the U.S. House — handing Republicans an issue to use against them in 2020.
Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi accepts gavel from GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (From Twitter)
Colin Allred and Lizzie Pannill Fletcher of Texas, Kendra Horn of Oklahoma, Lucy McBath of Georgia, Elaine Luria and Jennifer Wexton of Virginia, and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Florida all supported Pelosi in the January 3 vote.
Two other freshmen Democrats who had vowed during their campaign that they would not support Pelosi — Joe Cunningham of South Carolina and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia — kept that promise, voting instead for Cheri Bustos of Illinois.
And despite signing a letter in November calling for new leadership in the House, Filemon Vela of Texas switched course to vote for Pelosi.
Meanwhile, as the new Congress convened in Washington with 29 new Southern members, one seat sat empty — the representative from North Carolina’s 9th District, where state elections officials have refused to certify Republican Mark Harris’s narrow win over Democrat Dan McCready amid allegations of absentee ballot fraud.
In the vote for speaker, just three Southern Democratic members did not support Pelosi — Cunningham and Spanberger, who voted for Bustos, and Jim Cooper of Tennessee, who voted present.
Cooper, who has been in Congress since 1983, had been a long-time opponent of Pelosi’s speakership, having voted against her five times previously.
After the November election, a group of 16 Democratic members, including Cooper, Cunningham and Vela, signed a letter calling for “new leadership” in the Democratic caucus.
Vela changed course after Pelosi agreed to support term limits for the House Democratic leadership, which will limit her speakership to no more than four years.
Pelosi needed a majority of the 430 votes cast for speaker. In the end, she got 220 votes, four more than necessary.
Of the seven Southern Democrats who ousted Republicans and voted for Pelosi, McBath, Horn and Luria represent districts carried by President Donald Trump in 2016, while Allred and Fletcher represent districts he lost by less than 2 points.
Hillary Clinton carried Murcasel-Powell’s district in South Florida by 16 points and Wexton’s district in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. by 10 points.
Three other Southern Democratic newcomers who won open seats in November also supported Pelosi — Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia of Texas, and Donna Shalala of Florida. All three represent districts Clinton carried handily.
Among Southern Republicans, only three did not support their candidate for speaker, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.
Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Jody Hice of Georgia supported Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus, a grouping of the most conservative Republican members.
Walter Jones of North Carolina did not vote. He has been absent from Congress since September because of an undisclosed illness.
Of the 29 new Southern members of the House, 17 are Republicans and 12 are Democrats. Republicans hold 101 Southern seats, compared to 50 for Democrats, with North Carolina’s 9th District vacant.
The 9th District seat is likely to remain vacant until after the state elections board completes its investigation into the allegations of absentee ballot irregularities, which has been delayed until February because of a new law revamping the board.
Harris has filed a lawsuit seeking for force certification of the election.
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U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster’s bid for speaker crushed by Paul Ryan wave
Webster received only nine votes, eight from his fellow Southerners
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
WASHINGTON (CFP) — Florida U.S Rep. Daniel Webster’s longshot bid for House speaker has come up short — 227 votes short, to be exact.
U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster
Webster, a Winter Haven Republican, garnered just nine votes in the October 29 vote, which saw the rise of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin into the top leadership spot.
Ryan received support from 236 of the chamber’s 247 Republicans. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, received support from 184 out of the 188 Democrats.
Webster, 66, launched his campaign for speaker September 28, after former House Speaker John Boehner stepped down amid a rebellion by conservatives in the GOP caucus.
Initially, members of the House Freedom Caucus–made up of the House’s most conservative members–endorsed Webster, a former speaker of the state House in Florida. However, after Ryan entered the race, that support began to melt away.
Of the 38 Freedom Caucus members, only six stuck with Webster on the final vote.
Among the nine House members who supported Webster, eight were Southerners: Dave Brat of Virginia; Curt Clawson, Bill Posey and Ted Yoho of Florida; Louie Gohmert and Randy Weber of Texas; Walter Jones of North Carolina; and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
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