Months of controversy come to a head Tuesday as voters in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District again try to select a representative, a contest widely seen as a preview to the 2020 presidential election.

For six decades, Republicans have held the district, which includes Charlotte, but Democrat Dan McCready was just 905 votes behind Republican Mark Harris in the unofficial tally in the 2018 mid-term election before widespread allegations of ballot fraud by a contractor for Harris’ campaign and a subsequent investigation rendered the results void. The investigation found 1,000 absentee ballots had been collected improperly.

McCready has sought to make the race about kitchen-table issues including healthcare and drug prices, issues that are expected to be at the top of Democrats’ concerns in the battle for the White House next year. This time around, McCready’s GOP opponent, state Sen. Dan Bishop, largely has been running a coattails campaign, hitching his star to President Trump, who won the district by 12 points in 2016, in a bid to turn out the president’s base.

Also in the race are Libertarian Jeff Scott and Green Party candidate Allen Smith.

Bishop supports Trump’s border wall and is a darling of the National Rifle Association. He also is anti-abortion, calling late-term abortions “infanticide.” He sponsored the state’s controversial bathroom bill, which would have required transgender people in state-run buildings to use the bathroom associated with their sex at birth rather than their gender identity. The law was overturned in a July settlement of a complaint brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

McCready is a solar energy entrepreneur and former Marine.

“I believe that no one should go to Washington as a Democrat first or a Republican first, they should go as Americans first,” McCready told The Daily Tar Heel. He said he expects voter turnout to be low despite a massive door-knocking effort during the weekend. Early voting, which was interrupted by Hurricane Dorian, ended Friday.

Public and private polls have shown the race virtually tied. A poll taken last week gave McCready a 3-point edge over Bishop, down from 5 points at the end of August.

Trump was expected to give Bishop a boost Monday with a rally in Fayetteville while Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to make an appearance on the other side of the district in Wingate.

“I think the president will put us over the top,” Bishop told the New York Times.

There’s a second special election Tuesday in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District to fill the vacancy created when Walter Jones died in February. Republican and Trump supporter state Rep. Greg Murphy faces former Greenville Mayor Allen Thomas, the Democratic candidate.

RELATED STORIES