In the age of hyper-polarized politics, it is time that we begin to elect candidates who can help close the divide of partisanship. We need leaders who are willing to compromise on issues and vote in the interest of the American people. Unfortunately for the 9th congressional district of North Carolina, Mark Harris is not this candidate.
On May 8th, Mark Harris narrowly defeated the incumbent of the 9th district, Robert Pittenger, in the Republican primary. Harris ran on a far-right platform, going as far as to call his opponent a liberal, even though Pittenger voted in alignment with Trump’s position 97.2 percent of the time.
So who exactly is Mark Harris? At first glance, Mark Harris appears to be North Carolina’s less repugnant Roy Moore: he is a firebrand conservative who supports Trump almost as much as he supports Christianity. Mark Harris is the former senior pastor of Charlotte’s First Baptist Church and he makes his passion to religion a staple of his campaign. He is not a political newcomer by any means. Harris ran for U.S. Senate in 2014 and challenged Pittenger for his first time in 2016.
One of his campaign promises is to restore religious liberty to our country. Unfortunately, what Harris truly means by this is to restore Christian hegemony to the country. On his campaign website, Harris makes no effort to reference other religions, saying that “A quick tour of Washington DC easily proves that God and the Bible were a vital part of government. Bible verses are engraved in our official federal buildings and monuments…” What he neglects to point out is that this history of ours goes directly against the separation of church and state, and that it excludes representation of other religions in our nation’s capital.
Additionally, Harris is a devout supporter of the pro-life movement. A previous column of mine, entitled “Reproductive rights have been quietly attacked,” discussed how Harris would like to reverse the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade.
Harris would also like to reverse the decision on Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that prevents states from outlawing same-sex marriages, calling this decision “the breakdown of the family unit.” In 2012, Harris lead a ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to forbid North Carolina from recognizing same-sex marriages or performing them.
The deep conservatism offered by Mark Harris is inconsistent with the makeup of the 9th congressional district. The 9th district does not consist of predominantly rural areas, or small populations. The district in fact has an urban to rural ratio of 65:35, with part of the district being Charlotte and boasts a population of 733,498 people. It contains Union, Anson, Richmond, Scotland and Robeson counties, a southeast portion of Mecklenburg County and most of Cumberland and Bladen counties. Of those eight counties, four of them voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
But there is still much to look forward to in this race. The Democratic primary churned out a young candidate who appears to be exceptionally qualified for the job in Dan McCready. McCready is a Harvard Business School graduate and an Iraq War veteran. McCready now works at McKinsey & Co., a solar farm company in Charlotte. On his campaign website, McCready advocates for unifying policies such as putting an end to gerrymandering, increasing teacher pay, creating middle-class tax cuts and providing better veteran support.
Dan McCready is already seeing positive early signs for the race with Harris in November. The district had a 17+ point swing for Pittenger in the 2016 elections, but the primary results seem to be predicting a different forecast for the midterm elections. The race between Mark Harris and Robert Pittenger collected 35,494 votes, while the Democratic primary took in 45,660 votes.
Early campaign fundraising provides an even bleaker prospect for Mark Harris as McCready’s campaign has vastly outraised his opponent. In April, Harris was reported to have $70,000, while Dan McCready’s campaign was able to gather a monstrous $1.2 million. Such a fundraising gap will confer a huge advantage in the general election race in November with McCready being able to spend more on advertising on Get Out the Vote efforts.
While these early numbers are promising, they should not be nearly enough for North Carolina voters in the 9th district to be satisfied. North Carolina needs to send representatives who will work across the aisle, not those who will fight against the right for people to control their own bodies and romantic lives. In order for Mark Harris to have no potential to materialize his far-right beliefs, voters, especially students, need to prepare themselves to hand Harris his third defeat on November 6.
