NCGOPe decides to start fighting FOR Mark Harris
(It looks and sounds like they’ve been getting an earful from outside the Raleigh beltline on this.)
Here’s where we stand. A three judge state panel (2Ds, 1R) ordered the current state elections board to be dissolved. On Thursday, the legislature overrode a Cooper veto — allowing for the seating of a new state elections board as of January 31.
Meanwhile, earlier today, the Mark Harris campaign petitioned the state elections board in court to call an emergency meeting and certify the Ninth district race before the noon deadline to disband said state board. The state board refused to call the meeting.
So, what happens next?
Governor Cooper announced that he would appoint an interim elections board to run things until January 31, when the provisions of HB 1029 kick in. Republicans are challenging that move — saying it flies in the face of the state constitution and the just-overridden vetoed legislation.
The little cartoon character wasn’t even close to being finished:
State board of elections chairman Josh Malcolm (D) — who we’ve learned has a daughter who was being paid to campaign for Harris opponent Dan McCready in the Ninth — issued a response to the Harris campaign’s petition for an emergency meeting and certification that insinuated Harris and his team had obstructed the investigation.
NCGOP chairman Robin Hayes and vice-chairman Michele Nix also sounded off — echoing Dallas’s talking points. At first glance, it sounds like somebody really really really smart when it comes to election law got to that trio and put them on message.
(None of those three have the skill to put all this together on their own. But I’m glad they have chimed in. It’s about time.)
Better late than never.
By failing to engage weeks ago when they should have pm this issue, Woodhouse and Hayes have given the NCGOP a huge PR problem. The Democrats and their media buddies have been hammering a story line that this is “Republican vote fraud”. In their very misplaced zeal to replace Harris with Pittenger, they have left that story line unconstested. They should have been hammering back with all the Democrat fraud in this same race, and with the prior Democrat fraud to help Roy Cooper in this same part of the state.
Wooshouse and Hayes have helped give the GOP a much bigger black eye in this mess than should have been the case, and failed to neutralize it by giving the Democrats a similar black eye. One would call this gross political malpractice if they did not know that it was part of an underhanded campaign to replace Harris with Pittenger.