HB2 author captures GOP nomination in do-over 9th District primary

State Sen. Dan Bishop easily won the Republican nomination for the 9th Congressional District in Tuesday's special primary.

Posted 10:45 p.m. May 14, 2019 — Updated 3:07 p.m. May 15, 2019

Matthew Burns

, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor, & Mark Boyle, WRAL anchor/reporter

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — State Sen. Dan Bishop easily won the Republican nomination for the 9th Congressional District in Tuesday's special primary.

Bishop, R-Mecklenburg, garnered 48 percent of the vote, far outdistancing Union County Commissioner Stony Rushing, who finished second in the 10-person race with 20 percent, according to unofficial results.

A new election was called after Republican Mark Harris, who appeared to beat Democrat Dan McCready in November's general election, acknowledged the need for a do-over following revelations that his operative in Bladen County likely paid people to illegally collect absentee ballots.

Harris declined to run again and endorsed Rushing for the seat.

Bishop will now face McCready, Green Party candidate Allen Smith and Libertarian candidate Jeff Scott in a Sept. 10 election.

Bishop, most known for sponsoring a since-repealed state law limiting transgender rights, criticized "crazy liberal clowns" in Washington, D.C., saying Democrats in Congress are pushing for socialism, open borders and infanticide.

"'Wrong Dan' McCready went through two elections without telling anyone where he stood on everything," Bishop told cheering supporters in Charlotte. "That ends tomorrow. Voter in the 9th District deserve a clear choice in this race, and we're going to give them one."

May 2019 special election results

The other Republicans on the ballot were:

Chris Anglin, a Raleigh lawyer who ran for state Supreme Court last fall (and who GOP officials describe as a Democratic plant intended to roil the primary)
Kathie Day, a real estate agent from Mecklenburg County
Gary Dunn, a Mecklenburg County businessman who has run for governor as both a Republican and a Democrat and who lost the 2017 GOP primary for Charlotte mayor
Stevie Rivenbark Hull, a Fayetteville businesswoman
Matthew Ridenhour, a former Mecklenburg County commissioner
Fern Shubert of Union County, a former state senator and gubernatorial candidate
Leigh Thomas Brown, a real estate agent and motivational speaker from Mecklenburg County who lost a 2014 primary for a state House seat
Albert Wiley Jr., a physician from Salter Path who has run for Congress several times since the mid-1980s

Ridenhour finished a close third with 17 percent of the vote, but none of the other seven candidates topped 9 percent.

9th Congressional District Coverage

Turnout was very light, with only about 10 percent of the 313,300 eligible voters casting ballots.

Cumberland County elections director Terri Robertson initially estimated that staffing the 20 precincts in the 9th District, as well as early voting sites, would cost Cumberland County taxpayers about $90,000.

"We have cut some costs that we felt like we would need in certain areas. and hopefully we've brought it down to a little bit less, maybe around $60,000 or $70,000," Robertson said.

Despite the absentee ballot scandal, Carolyn De Jesus decided the primary was a good time to teach her first-time-voting daughter the importance of the ballot.

"[I want her] not just go by what either I say or other people say, but to get thoroughly informed and come to a decision on her own and to exercise that right that so many countries don't have," De Jesus said.

The 9th District stretches along the South Carolina state line from Charlotte to Fayetteville.

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