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Republicans hold 9th District U.S. House seat in North Carolina
State Senator Dan Bishop defeats Democrat Dan McCready with last-minute help from Donald Trump
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
CHARLOTTE (CFP) — Republican State Senator Dan Bishop has squeaked out a victory over Democrat Dan McCready in a special election to fill North Carolina’s vacant 9th District U.S. House seat, keeping the seat in GOP hands.
U.S. Rep.-elect Dan Bishop, R-North Carolina
Bishop — bolstered by an election-eve campaign appearance on his behalf by President Donald Trump — took 51 percent in the September 10 vote to 49 percent for McCready.
Although McCready beat Bishop decisively in the part of the district in suburban Mecklenburg County in and around Charlotte, Bishop rolled up a 20-pont margin in exurban Union County, which was enough to put him over the top.
McCready’s defeat extinguishes Democratic hopes of making a breakthrough in the Tar Heel State, where they failed to flip a single U.S. House seat in 2018.
In another special election in the 3rd District, Republican State Rep. Greg Murphy defeated Democrat Allen Thomas, the former mayor of Greenville. The seat became vacant when longtime incumbent GOP U.S. Rep. Walter Jones died in February.
Murphy took 62 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Thomas.
The 9th stretches from the suburbs of Charlotte east along the South Carolina state line toward Fayetteville. The 3rd is a mostly rural district that takes in the counties along the state’s Atlantic coast.
Last November, McCready fell 900 votes short in a race against Republican Mark Harris, but the State Board of Elections ordered a rerun of the election after allegations of absentee ballot fraud were raised against a contractor working for Harris.
The contractor is now facing criminal charges; Harris dropped out of the race, clearing the way for Republicans to pick Bishop as a replacement.
The seat has been vacant for nine months as the dispute over the seat lingered.
Bishop, 55, is a social conservative who has served in both houses of the legislature. He is 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 After a public outcry and organized boycotts of the state, the law was repealed in 2017.
Trump held a rally in Fayetteville Monday in which he heaped praise on Bishop and went on the attack against McCready, whom he accused of wanting “open borders,” “sanctuary cities” and gun control.
In 2016, Trump won the 9th District by 12 points, but the district swung toward the Democrats in 2018, part of a similar shift seen in suburban areas across the South.
While that shift allowed Democrats to make breakthroughs in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Richmond, Charleston and Oklahoma City, they came up short in all four targeted House races in North Carolina.
With the results Tuesday, Republicans will hold a 10-to-3 advantage in the Tar Heel State’s House delegation.
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Voters decide Tuesday who fills disputed North Carolina 9th District U.S. House seat
Donald Trump heading to Tar Heel state to rally Republicans ahead of vote
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
CHARLOTTE (CFP) — Voters in two North Carolina congressional districts will go to the polls Tuesday to fill vacant seats, with Democrats hoping to make a breakthrough by flipping the 9th District into their column.
In a sign of the national implications of the vote, President Donald Trump is heading to Fayetteville Monday to campaign for Republican State Senator Dan Bishop, who is in a tight race with Democrat Dan McCready in the 9th District.
Dan McCready and Dan Bishop
A McCready win would flip a House seat to the Democrats and add to the majority they won in 2018. The seat has been vacant for nine months after a narrow GOP win last November was overturned amid allegations of absentee ballot fraud.
In the 3rd District, Republican State Rep. Greg Murphy is heavily favored to win over Democrat Allen Thomas, the former mayor of Greenville. The seat became vacant when longtime incumbent GOP U.S. Rep. Walter Jones died in February.
The 9th District stretches from the suburbs of Charlotte east toward Fayetteville. The 3rd District takes in the counties along the state’s Atlantic coast.
Polls point to a close race between McCready, a political newcomer who came close to winning in last November’s disputed election, and Bishop, a veteran state lawmaker whom Republican picked to replace their previous tarnished nominee.
In November, McCready fell 900 votes short in a race against Republican Mark Harris. But the State Board of Elections ordered a rerun of the election after allegations of absentee ballot fraud were raised against a contractor working for Harris.
The contractor is now facing criminal charges; Harris dropped out of the race, clearing the way for Republicans to pick Bishop in an effort to keep the seat.
Bishop, 55, is a social conservative who has served in both houses of the legislature. He is 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.
McCready, 36, is a Marine Corps veteran and solar energy entrepreneur making his first bid for political office.
Trump won the district by 12 points in 2015, but the district swung toward the Democrats in 2018, part of a similar shift seen in suburban areas across the South.
While that shift allowed Democrats to make breakthroughs in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Richmond, Charleston and Oklahoma City, they came up short in all four targeted House races in North Carolina. Winning Tuesday would be a bit of redemption.
Republicans currently hold a 8-to-3 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation, with two seats vacant.
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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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North Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones dies at 76
Death will trigger a special election in the state’s 3rd U.S. House district
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com
GREENVILLE, North Carolina (CFP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a libertarian maverick who frequently bucked his party’s leadership and became a vocal opponent of sending U.S. troops into foreign wars, has died at the age of 76.
Jones, who had been granted a leave of absence from the House in December due to ill health, died on his birthday Sunday at a hospice in Greenville, according to his office. He had entered the hospice in late January when he health took a downward turn after breaking a hip.
U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-North Carolina
“Congressman Jones will long be remembered for his honesty, faith and integrity. He was never afraid to take a principled stand.” said a statement from his office issued upon his death. “Some may not have agreed with him, but all recognized that he did what he thought was right.”
His funeral is scheduled for Thursday afternoon in Greenville.
Jones’s death will trigger a special election in North Carolina’s 3rd District, which takes in a wide swath of the eastern part of the state along the Atlantic Coast, including the Outer Banks.
After serving a decade in the North Carolina House as a Democrat, Jones was elected to Congress in 1994 as a Republican. His father, Walter Jones Sr., served as a Democratic member of Congress for 26 years before his death in 1992.
Together, father and son served a total of 50 years in the House, starting in 1967.
In 2003, the younger Jones, a strong supporter of the Iraq War, famously introduced a resolution to change the name of French fries to “freedom fries” in the House cafeteria after the French government voted against the U.S. invasion at the United Nations.
But as casualties mounted and no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Jones became a vocal critic of the war, saying Congress had been misled by faulty intelligence.
He then introduced legislation to try to force the Bush administration to bring the troops home — a stance that went down less than well in a district that is home to both the Fort Bragg Army base and Camp Lejeune Marine base.
But Jones saw off a primary challenge in 2008 and continued to be a frequent thorn in the side of Republican leaders. In 2011, Jones was stripped of his seat on the House Financial Services Committee after voting against a budget proposal pushed by his party leadership.
More recently, Jones signed on to a letter calling on Congress to obtain and examine President Donald Trump’s income tax returns, and he called for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election after Nunes discussed the investigation with White House officials.
Due to his health issues, Jones had already announced that he would not seek re-election in 2020, opening up the 3rd District seat, which leans Republican. He did not face Democratic opposition in 2018.
Governor Roy Cooper has not yet set the date of the special election to fill the vacancy. Each party will hold a primary, followed by a general election between the two winners.
The 3rd District seat is one of two North Carolina seats that are now open. In the 9th District, state elections officials have refused to certify the results in the November race between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready because of allegations of absentee ballot fraud.
The State Board of Elections will convene February 18 to hear evidence in the case, which could lead to a new election.
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