Republican Bishop narrowly wins North Carolina special election
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Republican Dan Bishop narrowly defeated Democrat Dan McCready to win a North Carolina battleground district on Tuesday, holding a traditionally Republican seat in a rare do-over election following a 2018 race marred by allegations of fraud.
The Associated Press called the race in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District with Bishop leading McCready 50.6 percent to 48.8 percent, with 95 percent of precincts reporting.
The two candidates were battling for a seat Republicans have held for decades but which has sat vacant since the 2018 midterm election result — an apparent 905-vote victory for Republican Mark Harris over McCready — was thrown out over credible evidence of election fraud committed by one of Harris’ campaign contractors. Harris declined to run in the new election ordered by the state elections board, and Bishop won the Republican nomination in a primary this spring.
The result offers something for both parties: The fact that the long-time GOP district was in play again is a sign the national environment has changed little since the midterms, when the GOP lost the House, as President Donald Trump runs for reelection.
But Bishop’s slender victory could also act as a salve and an emotional lift for the GOP. Had McCready won in a district Trump carried by 12 points in the 2016 election, it would have dealt a blow to the GOP’s hopes of winning back the House majority next year and likely led to more retirements among Republican incumbents.
The vote in North Carolina followed a reliable pattern of the Trump era: McCready cleaned up in the immediate suburbs of Charlotte, where the president has been unpopular, even improving on his 2018 margins in many precincts. But Bishop did even better in the rural and exurban stretches of the district, outmatching McCready’s base. That push-pull will be one of the main storylines of the 2020 presidential campaign, as Democrats try to wrest back states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where urban and suburban voters are sprinting in one direction and rural and exurban voters are pulling just as hard the other way.
The contest between Bishop and McCready attracted more than $10 million in outside spending, the second-most ever for a special election for the House. The National Republican Congressional Committee and Congressional Leadership Fund, the leading pro-GOP super PAC for House races, have combined to spend more than $5 million.
Democratic groups also engaged, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Majority Forward, a nonprofit group linked to Democratic leaders, each spending more than $1 million.
Before the polls even closed, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who traveled to North Carolina with Trump on Air Force One Monday night, warned against reading too much into the results of the race. “Special elections are just what they are: special,” McCarthy told reporters at his weekly press conference Tuesday.
McCready, a Marine veteran running in a district that hasn’t gone Democratic since the early 1960s, campaigned as a bipartisan figure who wouldn’t vote for Nancy Pelosi for speaker.
He identified health care as his top issue, pledging to “fix” the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Asked earlier Tuesday about some of the health care proposals among Democrats’ 2020 presidential candidates, McCready called some of them “crazy” ideas.
“I think there’s a lot of crazy, aspirational stuff coming out of those presidential debates,” the Democrat said. All we got to do is stand up to the drug companies, stand up to the special interests. We got to fix Obamacare — we got to fix the problems in the system.”
But Bishop — who said he’d be a strong supporter of Trump and his agenda if elected —sought to link McCready to prominent Democratic liberals. He cited contributions McCready has received from billionaire presidential candidate Tom Steyer and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose money McCready returned. (According to Federal Election Commission filings, Omar donated $2,000 to McCready on Nov. 6 of last year, and McCready refunded the donation on March 30 of this year.)
“That’s where his money’s coming from,” Bishop said Tuesday before the polls closed. “That doesn't happen if those people believe he's a force for moderation. So I suggest — have suggested — that it's kind of a scam. It's sort of a phony presentation and a way to flip a seat blue."
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That visit by the President paid dividends. At one point Bishop was down by 17 points, he won by about 3. I suppose had McCready won it would have been a bellwether for Trump, now we won't hear a thing.
Do they take these polls at OWS rallies? Do they sit in the Starbucks parking lot waiting for cars with Resist or Coexist bumper stickers on them?
I think they talk to a lot of those suburban women, you know the ones who's minds are full of transgender concerns.
Suburban women are remarkably practical. They care about carpool and soccer practice and good schools. They have bills to pay, and don't really care very much about transgenderism.
Bullshit like that belongs to 25 year olds in the "19th grade" still getting an allowance from Mom while they try to figure out what they're "passionate about".
I would think they would want safe schools then! Oh, that's right, they live in the suburbs!
This is in trump country, this should have been a layup election, it wasn't. This guy shouldn't have had to spend a dime to win by 15 points.
North Carolina is a battleground state and the 9th District is tighter than Tom Thumb's ass. As I said the President put Bishop over the top.
It is nice to see you broadening your mind. That was good reading.
How many points did trump win that county by in 2016?
Close to 12 points, but that was Trump not a mere Republican. Thus the need for the rally last night. It's a good sign for all those nervous Republicans in the House. Don't retire, stick with the President. It was very important for their confidence, which needs to be fortified from time to time.
It's pretty telling Vic, you can spin all you want but Bishop narrowly won, (your own article says that), that should make trump supporters nervous. 12 points, the GOP lost a LOT of ground there.
Didn't my article say it was supposed to be close? McCready was running against Bishop, right? Democrats spent alot of money there!
Was it Confucius or Charlie Chan?
That sounds right. I once had a girlfriend who thought we should agree on everything. (Can you imagine that?) I reminded her of Charlie Chan's favorite proverb: "The sparrow must go to the tree, the tree never goes to the sparrow."
I let the President speak for himself:
"In a hypothetical poll, done by one of the worst pollsters of them all, the Amazon Washington Post/ABC, which predicted I would lose to Crooked Hillary by 15 points (how did that work out?), Sleepy Joe, Pocahontas and virtually all others would beat me in the General Election"....Donald Trump tweet
Yawn ..... many polls had his favorability below that ...... right before he got elected POTUS.
That said, the butt hurt (a big portion of the electorate unfortunately) would rather tend to their hurt feelings than enjoy the prosperity that has followed the election in 2016. Sad!
And it isn't gonna get any better in 2020 unless those TDS ridden masses manage to pull their collective heads out of their asses.
It's unbelievable really. The "resist" movement is failing miserably. Just like Hillary's campaign did in 2016.
Some people will never learn.
This article isn't about me nor is it about your unhealthy fixation on me.
Yes, but again, you're missing the point. Bishop should have won by at least 10 points. 190,000+ votes cast, he won by less than 5,000 and that was with the trump bump from the day before. Add to that, Bishop blew how many millions of dollars in that race? Exactly, he shouldn't have had to spend ANY money at all.
Like I said, it's not that he won, it's that he won by so little, in a race that trump won "bigly", in 2016.
You keep saying that, but the evidence contradicts that. The previous election held there between Harris and McCready only had a difference of about 2000 votes:
"CHARLOTTE, NC — In what was one of the more dramatic races in North Carolina, Republican Mark Harris has declared victory in his bid for North Carolina's 9th congressional district seat in the U.S. House, bringing in about 2,000 votes more than Democratic challenger Dan McCready."
That was the original election that never got certified!
Ya, I believe that's what Don Lemon said. Funny, he was set to have a big party had McCready won.
I think the RNC should put Laura Trump (a native of Wilmington, North Carolina) into service with the North Carolina office for the 2020 campaign.
A nice local touch.....I can only recommend.
Is she qualified at all?
A well known local figure? Of course.
Now he's gotta turn right around and run for reelection.
"In a major victory for both President Trump and national Republicans, North Carolina GOP state Sen. Dan Bishop was projected to win a fiercely contested special U.S. House election for the 9th District that was widely seen as a bellwether for the president's chances in the 2020 election.
And another Republican House candidate, Greg Murphy, decisively won a separate special election in North Carolina's more solidly GOP-leaning 3rd District earlier Tuesday evening — frustrating Democrats who spent millions trying to make a splash in the state.
Even Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairwoman Cheri Bustos acknowledged that the president contributed to Bishop's win, writing in a statement, "We fell an inch short tonight, but it took more than $6 million in outside Republican spending and a last-minute Trump rally" to seal Democratic candidate Dan McCready's fate in the 9th District."
Despite being massively outspent and allegations of cheating in the 2018 election dragging him down, the republican improved his performance from just a few months ago.
Dan Bishop proven to be a good replacement to Mark Harris.