North Carolina Republicans realize that vote thief Mark Harris is unelectable-- and there's a special election coming to fill the NC-09 seat he almost got away with stealing. The district is trending purple but it still leans pretty Republican. Trump beat Hillary there 54.4% to 42.8%. That's a lot of ground to make up. And Cook still gives the district a PVI of R+8. The district starts up in the southern part of Charlotte at Piedmont Community College and takes in many of the city's southern suburbs before heading due south to the South Carolina border and east through Matthews, Monroe, Wadesboro, Laurinburg, Lumberton, Elizabethtown and then back north into Fayetteville. Even with all the vote theft, the Blue Dog Democrat the DCCC ran, Dan McCready, won Mecklenburg, Robeson, Cumberland, Richmond, Scotland and Anson counties, losing only Bladen and Union. A friend who works for a member of the state legislature told me that it wasn't just the votes Harris stole in red Bladen County. Harris, she told me "stole enough votes in Robeson [which McCready won in a landslide] to swing the election. Everyone knows it and Harris' support has completely evaporated. No one wants to see him go to Congress except some real extremists out in Union County... He's embarrassed the state and embarrassed the [Republican] party."What this all amounts to is a plan for the Republicans in the state legislature to make certain that Harris is not the party's candidate in the special election. To do that, they feel, there needs to be a new primary election before a new general election. They passed a bill on Thursday that requires a new primary after the Election Board officially rejects Harris, presumably after a January 11th hearing-- a week after the new Congress is in session. The Charlotte News & Observer reports that "The Wake County District Attorney’s Office is also conducting a criminal investigation into Bladen County absentee ballots.Yesterday Governor Roy Cooper (D) said he's veto-ing the GOP bill calling for new primaries, a bill bitterly opposed by Democrats and, according to Cooper, too friendly to lobbyists and others who violate campaign finance laws. If the Republicans in the state legislature can override the veto-- not likely-- it is considered probable that incumbent Robert Pittenger (R) will beat Harris (who appears to have stolen the Republican primary as well as the general).
Under current state law, if the board calls for a new election it would be a re-do of the general election contest between Harris, McCready and Libertarian Jeff Scott. But the Republican-led General Assembly passed a bill Thursday mandating a new primary election in the district if the board calls for a new election. The bill must be signed by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.“These bad actors may have been even more influential in the primary of 2018 than they were in the general election,” Rep. David Lewis, a Republican, told the News & Observer.“It certainly looks like we’re heading toward a new election,” said Bill D’Elia, a spokesman for Senate Leader Phil Berger: “ Media reports also indicate potential wrongdoing in the primary, which is why we passed a bill earlier this week to require new primary if the Board calls for a new election.”In the GOP primary, Harris won 437 mail-in absentee votes in Bladen County to 17 for the incumbent Rep. Robert Pittenger. The state board is investigating McCrae Dowless, a Bladen County political operative who allegedly was at the center of a mail-in absentee ballot scheme. Dowless was paid by Harris’ consulting firm, Red Dome Group.Harris directed the hiring of Dowless despite warnings about the convicted felons methods and history, the Washington Post reported Thursday. Late Friday, WBTV reported that Harris confirmed to them that it was his decision to hire Dowless, but denied any knowledge of wrongdoing.Democrats and a former N.C. Supreme Court Justice believe that changing the law, at this point, could be unconstitutional.“Now that the (primary) election has been certified — over and done — it raises constitutional questions whether it is an ex post facto law,” former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, a Republican, told the News & Observer.North Carolina’s three Democratic representatives in the U.S. House made the same argument.“For the legislature to preempt that in any way is unacceptable. This is designed to give a partisan advantage,” Rep. David Price, of Chapel Hill, told the News & Observer on Thursday at the Capitol.Said Price, Rep. G.K. Butterfield of Wilson, and Rep. Alma Adams of Charlotte issued a joint statement: “The Republican super majority in the General Assembly must understand that changing the law after the election, to require a new primary, is likely unconstitutional. This newly enacted legislation discredits North Carolina once again in the eyes of the Nation.”A primary would give Republicans a chance to remove Harris, whose campaign and consulting firm have been subpoenaed, from the general election ballot. The lawmakers’ move to add a primary was seen by many as an indication of that desire. Harris is a former Baptist pastor who has run for federal office three times since 2014.“It’s sort of a sign that Republicans would like to have a different candidate other than Harris,” longtime GOP strategist Carter Wrenn told the Charlotte Observer.It was just a week ago that some state Republicans were calling Harris “an innocent victim” in the election fraud case. Now they are demanding answers from Harris, whose long public silence did little to calm impatient Republicans. Harris released a video message on Dec. 7, claiming he was “absolutely unaware of any wrongdoing.”Prior to Harris’ interview with WBTV, CNN reported that an unnamed NC GOP official called Harris’ lack of communication “a death wish.”“We have to hear what Mark Harris has to say and how much he knew about this guy (Dowless),” Phillip Stephens, the chairman of the Robeson County Republican Party, told the News & Observer on Friday. In his WBTV interview that was posted later Friday, Harris is quoted saying that Dowless “was being vouched for by a number of other leaders down there.”Wake County’s investigation, which began in January, includes the 2016 election, District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told the News & Obsever on Friday. She said the investigation could extend for several months.“The focus includes not only what was the nature of voting irregularities of absentee ballots, but also in as much as there may be activity, how would it have been funded and who would’ve been involved in such a scheme-- including potentially campaigns and others who may have had an interest in such activity,” Freeman said.
WARNING: There is going to be a new election. The DCCC and other Democratic captive groups-- from No Labels and Center Forward (the New Dem PAC) to the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation/New American Jobs Fund, Bloomberg's PACs, Steyers' PACs, Priorities USA, VoteVets and Patriot Majority-- will be bombarding you for money to help elect McCready. Do you want another Blue Dog in Congress? McCready would be the 8th conservative Blue Dog elected in 2018 (except it would be 2019)... and who needs him? The Democrats already have a 40-seat majority. And McCready is likely to vote with Republicans on almost everything. He's supposedly good on environmental issues... but not on anything remotely like the Green New Deal. If he's elected, he'll be just another conservative Democrat pushing the party always further right from the inside. He will not support anything like Job Guarantee, Medicare-For-All, free state colleges, $15 minimum wage or anything that the media labels "controversial." Why bother spending your money on him. Let the DCCC spend their own money on him. Save yours for the primary that happens after he scores an "F" from ProgressivePunch, pledges his everlasting fealty to the Military Industrial Complex and votes with the GOP more than he votes with the Democrats.Last time around, he spent $6,121,978 to Harris' $2,096,992, while Democratic organizations poured another $4 million into the race. It's not worth spending that kind of money on someone who isn't even going to support the party on core values votes. Sure, he's the lesser evil. Go, for it... if you want to spend your money on evil. He'll probably win anyway but I guarantee you, Blue America won't be asking our members to waste their money by chipping in for a candidate as bad as the incumbents whose 2020 primaries we're already working on (like Dan Lipinski and Jim Costa).And no sooner had I written this-- ink not even dry on the page yet-- when this popped pop in my in-box:
