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Beyond the more than $100 million spent endorsing either Sen. Kay Hagan or Speaker Thom Tillis for North Carolina’s branch of the senatorial race, one candidate has gone overlooked. Sean Haugh, 53, works as a pizza delivery man in Durham and has put little money toward his campaign. But that hasn’t stopped others from campaigning for him.
Although he has received attention for his own colorful YouTube videos, the American Future Fund, a conservative political action group, posted a series of YouTube videos in late October promoting the Libertarian senatorial candidate.
The videos feature young people urging people to “Get Haugh, Get High,” playing on Haugh’s pro-marijuana legalization stance. This, of course, is a blatant attempt to sway young voters from supporting Hagan, effectively splitting the left-leaning vote between two candidates, allowing for a stronger majority support for Tillis.
The American Future Fund has served as a conduit for the Koch brothers’ motivations in the past; however, the Koch brothers have not funded the political action group since 2012, according to The Washington Post.
According to Real Clear Politics, a polling aggregator, Haugh is currently polling at 4.7 percent, and the same site shows that during the last year, Hagan (D) has struggled to keep up her lead over Republican senatorial candidate Thom Tillis.
The Technician urges voters not to fall for this. That is not to say that we’re telling you as independent-minded voters for whom to cast your ballots, but to realize that the advertisements here aren’t even being funded by the candidate himself. Rather, Haugh has become an unwilling political tool.
We urge you, if you plan on voting for Haugh, to research his stance on issues other than marijuana legalization as well. After all, he will not, as a U.S. Senator, be able to enact any laws at the state level and will only be able to push for legalization laws at the national level.
This year’s election is an important one, and as voters, we can’t let it be decided by dark money. If the senate does fall into Republican hands, the direction of our national legislation will be virtually moot, further hindering progress in D.C.