Mark Walker seeks return to Congress, departs race for NC governor

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker is exiting the race for North Carolina governor to run for Congress in a new district created by Republican state legislators.

Walker, a Baptist preacher who represented the Greensboro area in Congress from 2015 to 2021, had struggled to catch up to Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson in the GOP’s gubernatorial primary. Robinson is considered the frontrunner in that race.

In a statement Wednesday, Walker acknowledged that there wasn't a clear path in the gubernatorial race. "That door has not opened," he said.

Instead, Walker said he'll try to win the newly-created 6th Congressional District, home to Democratic incumbent Kathy Manning. Walker announced that he's secured an endorsement from U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., who on Wednesday was elected House speaker by his Republican colleagues.

"Having previously represented 13 NC counties, I look forward to representing many friends as well as family members in the new 6th including all of Rowan, Davidson and Davie Counties and parts of Cabarrus, Forsyth, as well as our home county of Guilford," his statement said.

Manning's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Walker had entered the gubernatorial race in May hoping to make gains on Robinson, some establishment Republicans criticized as too extreme to win a general election. Walker sought to offer an alternative, pitching himself as a more electable candidate, playing up his humble-beginnings rise to Congress.

But his accomplishments on Capitol Hill — including leadership of the right-wing Republican Study Commission group in 2017 and helping restart a Congressional caucus focused on historically Black colleges and universities in 2019 — didn't translate to success in the gubernatorial race.

A poll commissioned by the conservative John Locke Foundation in May found that 43% of registered Republicans would back Robinson for governor, while 9% would back Walker, 12% would back other candidates and 37% were undecided. In a poll conducted this month for the conservative Civitas Institute released this month, only 4% of likely GOP primary voters said they'd support Walker.

Walker’s departure from the gubernatorial race leaves the GOP with five primary candidates: Robinson, State Treasurer Dale Folwell, former legislator Andy Wells, and businessmen Jesse Thomas and Bill Graham.

Walker hasn’t won an election since 2018 but has remained active in state politics. He decided not to run for reelection to his U.S. House district in 2020, after a gerrymandering lawsuit forced Republican state lawmakers to redraw the districts to be more fairly representative of the state.

He then sought the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by Sen. Richard Burr’s retirement in 2022. Walker seemed to have momentum in the early months of that GOP primary, winning a poll taken of the hundreds of conservative activists who attended the Republican Party’s annual convention in 2021. But that momentum shifted after former President Donald Trump endorsed the eventual victor, Ted Budd, over Walker and the other candidate, ex-governor Pat McCrory.

New maps drawn by state Republican lawmakers, approved Wednesday by the GOP-controlled General Assembly, created a pathway for Walker to possibly return to the U.S. House. The maps used in 2022 made the 6th District heavily Democratic by combining all of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem into a single district. But the new maps split the Triad cities up into four separate districts, all heavily Republican.

The new 6th Congressional District includes pieces of Greensboro and most of High Point, and stretches southwest through Salisbury and Lexington into the Charlotte suburbs around Concord. In the 2020 presidential election, 57% of voters in the new district lines supported Republican Donald Trump.

"I’ve been amazed at the encouragement coming from the 6th district and across the state," Walker said, adding: "I’m delighted to share that since the maps were released only a week ago, our campaign has already received close to [$500,000] in pledges from supporters across North Carolina."