Mark Harris, the North Carolina Republican who nearly won a seat in Congress last year but saw his political fortunes collapse after the revelation that his campaign had financed a fraud-tainted voter-turnout effort, said Tuesday that he would not run in a new election.
In a statement Tuesday, less than one week after the North Carolina State Board of Elections ordered a new contest for the seat, Harris attributed his decision to his health and said the 9th District deserved “to have someone at full strength during the new campaign.”
Harris’ decision was not especially surprising in the wake of an evidentiary hearing last week in Raleigh, where state officials and witnesses described an absentee ballot effort that was rife with misconduct. Although Harris denied any personal wrongdoing, he testified that he had hired the contractor at the center of the scandal, L. McCrae Dowless Jr., and he acknowledged that he gave “incorrect” testimony to the state board last Thursday.
The state board has not yet set a timetable for the new election, and Democrats are expected to mount an aggressive campaign. Dan McCready, the Democratic nominee in last fall’s race, said on Friday that he would run in the new contest. Prominent Democratic officials and groups have already begun to coalesce around McCready, a former Marine who has been among his party’s most prized candidates.
What is still uncertain is how much the wrongdoing associated with last year’s vote — conduct that could soon lead to criminal charges, a prosecutor said Friday — will loom over this new campaign. But Harris’ decision not to run could limit that line of attack, and Republican officials have expressed optimism that the 9th District campaign will eventually focus on policy issues.
Even before Harris announced his decision, many leading Republicans had begun to distance themselves, in public and in private, from him, seemingly dimming the prospects for a rematch of last fall’s election. In that race, Harris appeared to prevail by 905 votes, but state officials soon refused to certify him as the winner and announced the inquiry that ultimately led to the new election.
On Tuesday, Harris said he would support Stony Rushing, a commissioner from Union County, for the Republican nomination.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.