Mark Harris (R) called for a new election in North Carolina’s disputed 9th congressional district race, the Washington Post reports.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections is hearing evidence this week to decide whether a suspected ballot-tampering scheme tainted the outcome where Harris leads Dan McCready (D) by 905 votes in unofficial returns.
“The son of Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris testified Wednesday that he warned his father repeatedly that he believed a political operative now at the center of an election-fraud investigation had previously used illegal tactics to win votes,” the Washington Post reports.
“John Harris, now an assistant U.S. attorney in Raleigh, said he advised his father in conversations and emails that he believed Leslie McCrae Dowless was ‘shady’ and appeared to have illegally collected absentee ballots in 2016 while working for a different Republican candidate in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.”
“State election officials in North Carolina said that a political operative for Republican Mark Harris orchestrated a ‘coordinated, unlawful, and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme’ in the 9th Congressional District last year, hiding evidence of the operation as it unfolded and obstructing the state’s investigation after the election,” the Washington Post reports.
“Those explosive charges opened an evidentiary hearing in Raleigh Monday, where the North Carolina State Board of Elections began listening to witness testimony to decide whether enough ballots were tampered with to taint the outcome of the 9th District race.”
The Charlotte Observer has more on the hearing.
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“North Carolina’s board of elections will dig into fraud allegations in the state’s disputed 9th Congressional District on Monday, kicking off hearings that could prompt a new election this year,” Politico reports.
“The district has gone without a congressman this year after the board declined to certify the 2018 election results amid accusations that McCrae Dowless, an operative hired by Republican Mark Harris’ campaign consultants, organized an illegal scheme to collect and mark absentee ballots. Harris led Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes on election night, but both candidates spent the next three months in political limbo.”
“Investigators on Monday will begin revealing the breadth of an alleged ballot-tampering scheme in North Carolina, launching a potentially bitter and partisan battle over how to fill a congressional seat that has remained vacant since January,” the Washington Post reports.
“The election has been in limbo since November, when evidence surfaced that a political operative paid by Republican candidate Mark Harris had assembled a crew of election workers to collect mail-in ballots from voters, a felony in North Carolina. With Harris leading Democrat Dan McCready by just 905 votes, the board declined to certify the results and launched a wide-reaching investigation instead.”
Mark Harris (R), in the nation’s last undecided congressional election, told the AP that “he recruited a political operative now at the center of a ballot fraud investigation because he produced election results in his rural North Carolina county and other Republicans vouched for him.”
“Harris said he didn’t know before November’s election that state elections board investigators found evidence that operative Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. may have illegally handled ballots in 2016. Harris said he didn’t know that that evidence was referred to federal prosecutors. A background check by Harris’ political consultants missed Dowless’ previous felony convictions for insurance fraud and perjury.”
President Trump said that former Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) lost his re-election bid last fall because the Nevada Republican had been “extraordinarily hostile” to him during the 2016 election and the conservative base “wouldn’t go for him,” the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.
When told of Trump’s comments, Heller said: “This president called me that day before the election and said I was going to win by five points. Now all of sudden he has a different spin on that. Not surprising. I think America’s used to that.”
A new Change Research (D) survey finds former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is less known to the electorate than other declared and potential presidential candidates with 56% having never heard of him or don’t have an opinion. Among those who have an opinion, just 4% view him favorably compared to 40% unfavorably — a 10:1 unfavorable to favorable ratio, far higher than any other candidate tested.
Schultz is viewed unfavorably by Democrats (50% unfavorable to 4% favorable), Republicans (43% unfavorable to 4% favorable), and Independents (31% unfavorable to 4% favorable).
In hypothetical matchups, with and without Schultz in the race, of Donald Trump running against different Democrats — Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and Bernie Sanders — Schultz takes an average of four points away from what the Democratic candidate receives in a two-way race, while taking just 1% away from Trump.
“The investigation into North Carolina’s alleged election fraud moved closer to a possible February resolution when Gov. Roy Cooper (D) named a new state elections board to oversee the probe of the last undecided congressional race in the nation,” the Charlotte Observer reports.
“The chairman of the new State Board of Elections said a vote could come next month on whether to certify the election of Republican Mark Harris or order a new election in the 9th Congressional District.”
“As Democratic presidential hopefuls promise not to boost their candidacies through spending by outside groups with cash from wealthy donors, sometimes given secretly, a new report says the party received most of the so-called ‘dark money’ spent on political ads in the 2018 midterms,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Joe Biden “swept into Benton Harbor, Mich., three weeks before the November elections, in the midst of his quest to reclaim the Midwest for Democrats. He took the stage at Lake Michigan College as Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) faced the toughest race of his career,” the New York Times reports.
“But Mr. Biden was not there to denounce Mr. Upton. Instead, he was collecting $200,000 from the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan to address a Republican-leaning audience… The group, a business-minded civic organization, is supported in part by an Upton family foundation.”
“Mr. Biden stunned Democrats and elated Republicans by praising Mr. Upton while the lawmaker looked on from the audience… The remarks quickly appeared in Republican advertising. The local Democratic Party pleaded with Mr. Biden to repair what it saw as a damaging error, to no avail. On Nov. 6, Mr. Upton defeated his Democratic challenger by four and a half percentage points.”
A judge ruled that North Carolina’s investigation into election fraud by the Mark Harris (R) congressional campaign will continue, the Charlotte Observer reports.
“Harris is the Republican candidate who appeared to narrowly win an election for North Carolina’s 9th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 elections. But the state has not officially certified his victory, due to an ongoing investigation into alleged fraud related to mail-in absentee ballots.”
Missouri state auditors have started their probe into former Attorney General Josh Hawley’s (R) office, a process that will include “heightened scrutiny” into allegations that Hawley illegally used state resources to support his successful campaign for the U.S. Senate, McClatchy reports.
“Long before accusations of absentee ballot fraud in a small North Carolina county cast doubt on the results of a heated 2018 congressional race, a state elections investigator spent weeks probing whether the man at the center of the current scandal was among a group buying votes,” the AP reports.
“That 2010 investigation was one of at least a half dozen instances over the last nine years that prosecutors and elections officials received complaints of serious elections irregularities in Bladen County, a rural locale of 35,000 people that has long had a statewide reputation for political chicanery by both Republicans and Democrats.”
After North Carolina congressional candidate Mark Harris (R) finished addressing Mecklenburg County Republicans, he tried to avoid questions from WSOC-TV by running out of a fire exit.
After the bizarre exit, in a tweet to the reporter, Harris said he had to get home to watch the college football National Championship game.
Mark Harris (R) said he’ll ask a judge to certify his election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District immediately, even as a probe into alleged election fraud continues, the Charlotte Observer reports.
“Harris’ announcement came after North Carolina state elections officials postponed next week’s hearing into allegations of election fraud in the 9th District — and after Gov. Roy Cooper accused Republicans of blocking the probe.”
“Despite calls for refunds, new campaign filings show Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith kept $50,000 in donations from major companies like Walmart and Facebook in the wake of her controversial special election victory in November,” ABC News reports.
“The latest Federal Election Commission filing — released amid the government shutdown at the end of last week — showed that Republican Hyde-Smith did not issue refunds to most of the corporate donors who asked for their campaign contributions to be returned in November in the wake of her ‘public hanging’ comment.”
“As the year winds down and we look toward 2019, I’m asking you to make a commitment: find something you want to change in your community and take the first step toward changing it. If you need some inspiration, take a look at some of the young leaders who inspired me this year.”
— Barack Obama, on Twitter.
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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