SBA List’s North Carolina team says it has knocked on more than 12,500 doors across NC-02 in the last few weeks and reached 90,000 voters through digital advertising in its campaign to unseat Ellmers. “You know, the special interest groups with their deep pockets in Washington, they have won today”.
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Rep. Holding, who was endorsed by National Right to Life in March, was in the contest with Ellmers due to a redrawing of district lines resulting from a federal lawsuit. Rep. “Good friends don’t tell you you’re fat or getting fat”, Sandrock said.
Rep. Walter Jones faces a rematch against his 2014 Republican primary foe, former George W. Bush administration official Taylor Griffin.
Across the 2nd District, which includes Wake County and portions of the surrounding area, Holding received 16,999 votes to Ellmers’ 7,527 votes, or 23.64 percent.
Voters overall are choosing nominees in 11 districts Tuesday. Instead, Ellmers placed a distant second behind Rep. George Holding and only narrowly edged ahead of a third challenger, physician Greg Brannon.
And yet Donald Trump still endorsed the woman who betrayed conservatives, saying she was “terrific and boy, is she a fighter”. Our legislature passed a law allowing Supreme Court justices to stand for a “retention” election, an up or down vote to allow justices another eight year term, but a three-judge Superior Court panel overturned this law, saying it violated North Carolina’s constitution.
The Susan B. Anthony List, which works to elect more anti-abortion women, took the unusual step of endorsing Holding in the race, the first time ever that it had endorsed a man over a “pro-life woman”.
Renee Ellmers became the first GOP incumbent to lose re-election in Tuesday’s primary. “We are in the business of supporting pro-life leaders”, she said, and had backed Ellmers since her first run for office in 2010, when she upset a veteran Democratic incumbent.
Conservative groups have spent almost $1.2 million this year trying to defeat Ellmers, lead by about $790,000 from Club for Growth Action, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Americans For Prosperity, another group that advocates for conservative policies and principles, blamed Ellmers’ 29-point loss on her abandonment of limited-government principles.
“They’re pretty close”, The IT manager said. This is a winner-take-all affair in which the candidate from each party receiving one more vote than his or her opponent will qualify to run in the November 8 General Election. And, in Ellmers’ situation, “they are as much as anything looking for opportunities to prove their clout”, he said. He said he just felt that Brannon was a bit more conservative than Holding.
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Turnout will likely be low statewide if early-voting totals are any indication, although there may be spikes in competitive congressional districts.
