GOP candidate says he selected operative in North Carolina scandal

“I had no reason to think that what he was doing was illegal,” said Harris, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2016 and said that afterward he had been introduced to Dowless by a former judge in Bladen County.

Investigators are examining whether Dowless or anyone working for him improperly handled, altered or even discarded large numbers of absentee ballots in the 2018 election.

Harris, in an interview with WBTV, a station in Charlotte, said he wanted to hire Dowless, who worked for another candidate in 2016, and oversaw a robust victory in absentee ballots in Bladen County, because of his record in the area.

The state Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement said Friday that it would hold a hearing Jan. 11 to examine “irregularities” in the 9th District, which includes part of Charlotte and spreads far into eastern North Carolina. The board could order a new election if it concludes that “irregularities or improprieties occurred to such an extent that they taint the results of the entire election and cast doubt on its fairness.”

And the North Carolina Legislature this week approved a measure, still awaiting a signature or veto by the state’s Democratic governor, that would trigger a primary election if regulators order a new vote. The measure, which the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved, would potentially allow Republican voters a chance to choose another candidate if they felt Harris was too wounded to win a second election.

He led Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in the unofficial count.

In public, at least, powerful Republicans are largely standing by Harris, 52, a Baptist preacher who is a favored candidate of religious conservatives.

“We have a candidate, based on what we know, who won an election,” Robin Hayes, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, said Friday. Hayes, who has had close ties to Harris for years, added that he was a “firm believer” in the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.”

Still, other Republicans have begun their own deliberations to prepare for the possibility that Harris will have to win two elections if he is to reach Congress.

Some Republicans “are probably thinking Harris is damaged goods, so they wanted to have a primary so they can replace him,” said Carter Wrenn, a longtime North Carolina Republican campaign consultant. “And so there’s a lot of this maneuvering going on.”

He added, “I think that everybody on the political side should just have a little patience and hold their fire.”

But Harris is under increasing scrutiny. State investigators, who have served subpoenas on Harris’ campaign committee and the Red Dome Group, the consulting firm that hired Dowless, have also requested an interview with Harris. As of Friday afternoon, they had not received a response.

John Branch, a lawyer for Harris’ campaign, declined to comment.

Harris spoke to the Charlotte television station less than 24 hours after The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources familiar with Harris’ campaign, reported that he had directed Dowless’ hiring, even after being warned of his questionable tactics in past elections.

The ties between the two men have slowly come into public view since Dowless, who has declined to comment, became a focus of the inquiry.

Hayes, the state Republican Party chairman, acknowledged that division had grown among Republicans behind the scenes.

“It’s fair to say he’s a weakened candidate at this point,” Matthew Ridenhour, a Republican former member of the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners and a potential candidate in any new election, said of Harris. “I don’t know that he’s too tainted, that he’s too tainted to win, that he’s damaged goods.”

Asked in the television interview if he felt under attack by his own party, Harris replied, “I certainly don’t feel the circling of the wagons around Harris the way I see the Democrats circling the wagons around McCready.”

He said he had not spoken out until now because his campaign “needed to make sure that everything was done decently and in order.”

Harris said he hoped his campaign would be exonerated when the facts come out. “I mean, I don’t know,” he said. “My hope is that McCrae hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Harris’ allies expect that he would run again if the state orders a new election, but they acknowledge that he would most likely face a challenge from within his own party. Rep. Robert M. Pittenger, the Republican incumbent whom Harris barely beat in a May primary, could run again.

That would set up a particularly dramatic showdown because investigators, in addition to examining the general election, are also looking at whether Dowless may have run an illegal absentee ballot scheme in Bladen County that helped Harris defeat Pittenger in the primary. (Pittenger has not said whether he would run again.)

Ridenhour has also emerged as a possible challenger. In an interview Friday, he said he would consider a bid for the 9th District seat — but only if Pittenger declined another campaign.

Last month, Ridenhour narrowly lost his bid for re-election to the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners. He is a former Marine — a background, he said, that would make him well-suited to challenge McCready, who is also a Marine Corps veteran.

Other Republicans have wondered whether former Gov. Pat McCrory would jump into a new election. On Friday, repeating an assertion he has made throughout the week, McCrory said he was “not interested at this time.”

Harris, a relative political newcomer, represents the party’s conservative grassroots, terrain more aligned with President Donald Trump’s white evangelical base and staunch conservatives like Mark Meadows, leader of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, than with the Republican establishment and donor base.

So far, that white evangelical base is standing with Harris.

“I know his character; he would not tolerate illegal activities,” said Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition. “I haven’t seen any wavering of support from evangelicals of Mark Harris.”

The elections board’s announcement of a January hearing — the proceedings had been expected by Christmas — means the 9th District will not have a lawmaker in Washington when the new Congress convenes in January. Depending on the board’s ruling, it could be months before the seat is filled.

Wrenn said that Harris might not suffer much damage if it turns out he did nothing wrong and if he can clearly demonstrate that to voters.

On the other hand, Wrenn said, “If he knew what Dowless was doing, and Dowless was doing wrong, then he has a big problem.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

GOP candidate says he selected operative in North Carolina scandal

But amid mounting fears among Republicans about his political viability, Harris again insisted that he did not know of any illegal behavior carried out by L. McCrae Dowless Jr., who helped to orchestrate voter-turnout efforts in rural Bladen County.

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