Republican Dan Bishop narrowly defeated Democrat Dan McCready on Tuesday night in a North Carolina special election which dragged out for months due to a ballot-tampering scandal that forced Republicans to replace their initial candidate.
Bishop, a former state senator, captured 50.8 percent of the vote in North Carolina’s ninth district compared to McCready’s 48.6 percent. He was tapped to run by the state party after their initial nominee, Mark Harris, was forced to withdraw due to allegations that one of his aides tampered with ballots ahead of the first vote count.
President Trump, who won North Carolina’s ninth congressional district handily in 2016, took credit for Bishop’s narrow victory in a Tuesday night tweet.
Dan Bishop was down 17 points 3 weeks ago. He then asked me for help, we changed his strategy together, and he ran a great race. Big Rally last night. Now it looks like he is going to win. @CNN & @MSNBC are moving their big studio equipment and talent out. Stay tuned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2019
Trump also urged the crowd gathered at his Monday night rally in Charlotte to turn out for Bishop.
Bishop thanked Trump for his support Tuesday night, calling him “the greatest fighter ever to occupy the White House” and telling supporters gathered at his victory party that the president put “himself on the line for this race.”
Harris, the initial GOP nominee, beat McCready by just 905 votes in December 2018, but the state elections board refused to certify the result, and ordered a new election, after it was revealed that one of Harris’s aides paid campaign workers to go door-to-door collecting absentee ballots so that he could dispose of those cast for McCready.
Republican state representative Greg Murphy also won Tuesday night in North Carolina’s third congressional district, defeating Democrat Allen Thomas 62-37 percent. Murphy will finish the two-year term of the late Representative Walter Jones, who died in February.