North Carolina reporter Joe Bruno said on Friday that there could be a new field of Republican candidates in the state’s 9th Congressional District’s election following GOP candidate Mark Harris’s call for a new election in his disputed House race.
“North Carolina lawmakers recently passed a law requiring there to be a new primary if the state board of elections orders a new election,” Bruno, a reporter with WSOC-TV, told Hill.TV’s Jamal Simmons and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
“So that means we’re going to have a primary for this, and my feeling is that we’ll have a whole new crop of Republican candidates'”
The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously Thursday to call a new election in the state’s 9th Congressional District after holding an evidentiary hearing this week to look into allegations of ballot fraud in the November race.
Initial results from the election showed Harris leading his Democratic opponent, Dan McCready, by 905 votes.
However, Bruno said potential candidates would wait to see if Harris decided to jump into the race.
“Of course, people will wait to see if Mark Harris runs again, or if the former 9th District representative, Robert Pittenger, throws his hat in the ring again,” he said.
“As far as a date goes, that has not been set. There’s some thought they may try to set up the timeline along with the third congressional seat, which used to be Walter Jones’s before he passed away, so we could have concurrent elections right there,” he said. “Or there’s some thought they may try to set it up with Charlotte City Council’s mayoral election, which is in November.”
— Julia Manchester
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