“Mark Harris, the Republican candidate in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District election, issued a video Friday saying he would ‘wholeheartedly support’ a new election if evidence emerges that criminal activity swayed the outcome of the Nov. 6 race, the Washington Post reports.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports Harris paid more than $525,000 to a political consulting firm at the center of a probe of possible absentee ballot fraud in the race.
Dan McCready (D) withdrew his concession in a North Carolina congressional race that has been roiled by accusations of fraud, the Washington Post reports.
McCready also called on rival Mark Harris (R) “to tell the American people exactly what he knew and when he knew it.”
“Republican officials had early warnings of voting irregularities in North Carolina congressional race that are now the subject of probes,” the Washington Post reports.
In the days immediately after the GOP primary, aides to Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC), who lost the race, told the state party’s executive director that they believed fraud had occurred. GOP officials did little to scrutinize the results, instead turning their attention to the general-election campaign.
Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, told CNN that he supports a new election if allegations of fraud in the 9th congressional district race are proven true and it impacted the outcome of the race.
Said Woodhouse: “This has shaken us to the core. We are not ready to call for a new election yet. I think we have to let the board of elections come show their hand if they can show that this conceivably could have flipped the race in that neighborhood, we will absolutely support a new election.”
“Over a thousand absentee ballots from likely Democratic voters may have been destroyed in the race for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District last month as allegations of fraud on behalf of the Republican candidate mount,” The Hill reports.
Said Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman: “You’re looking at several thousand, possibly 2,000 absentee ballot requests from this most recent election. About 40 percent of those, it appears, at this point may not have been returned.”
The Charlotte Observer calls for a new election in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district:
“There may be no way, however, to know how widespread the fraud was, or whether it involved enough ballots to potentially change the outcome of the election — a 905-vote victory for Republican Mark Harris over Democrat Dan McCready. But we do know enough. Unless new evidence somehow clears the clouds hanging over this election, the Board of Elections should toss out the 9th District results.”
Cook Political Report: “Just when it looked like the 2018 House outcome couldn’t get any worse for Republicans than a 40-seat loss, a deepening absentee ballot fraud scam has cast into doubt an open North Carolina seat previously called for the GOP. The scandal is now a full-blown national news story and it’s possible the state board of elections, which has refused to certify the race, could order a new election altogether.”
“It’s quite likely this race will persist in legal limbo well beyond when the new House is seated in the first week of January.”
Incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters that there is a “substantial question” about the election in the 9th Congressional District, where Mark Harris (R) held a slim lead over Dan McCready (D), the Washington Post reports.
“State investigators are examining the work of a local operative in a growing fraud investigation that has delayed certification of Harris’s narrow win. Hoyer said unless the questions are resolved, the House should hold off on letting Harris take the oath of office on Jan. 3 when new members are sworn in.”
WSOC-TV found what “appears to be a targeted effort to illegally pick up ballots” in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, “in which even the person picking them up had no idea whether those ballots were even delivered to the elections board.”
Consistently, the station “found the same people signing as witnesses for the people voting, which is very rare.”
The Raleigh News & Observer looks at data on mail-in ballots in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, where there are allegations of improperly collecting mail-in ballots and voters receiving mail-in ballots they did not request.
“The Democratic chairman of the state elections board in North Carolina resigned Saturday, saying he did not want his partisan views to undermine a widening investigation into alleged election fraud in the 9th Congressional District race,” the Washington Post reports.
The Associated Press is retracting its call of a winner for U.S. House in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district.
The AP had called the race for Mark Harris (R) on Nov. 9, after Dan McCready (D) conceded the election but the North Carolina board of elections has delayed certifying the results, citing “claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities related to absentee by-mail voting.”
FiveThirtyEight: “Where do we go from here? It’s unclear. If the state board of elections finds that fraud did indeed taint the results, it has the authority to call a new election — even if the fraud wasn’t widespread enough to change the winner. And according to the U.S. Constitution, the soon-to-be-Democratic House of Representatives has the final say on the qualifications of its members; it could theoretically refuse to seat Harris until it’s satisfied that he won fairly.”
North Carolina’s state board of elections declined to certify Mark Harris’ (R) apparent victory over Dan McCready (D) in the state’s 9th congressional district again on Friday, instead calling for a hearing to discuss the matter on or before Dec. 21, the Charlotte Observer reports.
“Mounting evidence of voter fraud in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District could indefinitely delay the certification of a winner, as state election officials investigate whether hundreds of absentee ballots were illegally cast or destroyed,” the Washington Post reports.
“The board is collecting sworn statements from voters in rural Bladen and Robeson counties, near the South Carolina border, who described people coming to their doors and urging them to hand over their absentee ballots, sometimes without filling them out. Others described receiving absentee ballots by mail that they had not requested. It is illegal to take someone else’s ballot and turn it in.”
North Carolina’s board of elections “refused to certify the results of the 9th congressional district election after one board member cited what he called ‘unfortunate activities’ in the eastern part of the district,” the Charlotte Observer reports.
“It’s unclear what those activities involved or what the failure to certify might mean. The board discussed the matter in closed session.”
Unofficial results show Mark Harris (R) defeated Dan McCready (D) by 905 votes.
North Carolina congressional candidate Mark Harris (R) said in a 2015 speech that the United States had descended into “moral decay” and cited as one of several examples that “we have watched in one generation where homosexuality was once criminalized to now we see the criminalization of Christianity,” according to video found by Media Matters.
North Carolina congressional nominee Mark Harris (R) “on multiple occasions — as a preacher and political candidate — has said that women should submit fully to their husbands and that he believed homosexuality is a choice,” Roll Call reports.
Harris faces Dan McCready (D), “a Marine veteran and business owner, in this once-thought safe Republican district that stretches along the South Carolina border from the wealthy suburbs of Charlotte to Fayetteville.”
A new Civitas poll in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district finds Dan McReady (D) leading Mark Harris (R) by seven points, 43% to 36%.
Said pollster Donald Bryson: “This race has all the indications of being a nail-biter into November, but Republicans should be concerned with a negative 7-point spread in a district that has an R+7 rating.”
Harris has questioned whether careers were appropriate for women.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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