Far-right Rep. Dan Bishop, who crafted North Carolina’s transphobic 2016 “bathroom bill” while in the state Senate, is considering leaving the House to run for attorney general, according to a new report from Axios’ Lucille Sherman. Bishop, who has spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, didn’t publicly confirm his interest in a 2024 run for a post that Republicans last held in 1975, but Sherman says his deliberations have “frozen the field of potential challengers.”
A few fellow Republicans, though, publicly confirmed Bishop was thinking about making this race. A strategist for Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, an unrepentant bigot who is the primary frontrunner to succeed Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, says his boss would back the congressman, while the well-funded Club for Growth also said it wanted him to run. Former U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray, meanwhile, tells Sherman he halted his own planned campaign launch for attorney general after speaking to Bishop and coming away with the impression he’d be seeking the job himself. An unnamed source also adds that longtime state Senate leader Phil Berger would chair a Bishop campaign to replace Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, who is leaving to run for governor.
Bishop himself indirectly helped cost the GOP the governorship in 2016 after incumbent Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2, which required anyone using bathrooms at schools or public facilities to use the restroom associated with the sex on their birth certificate regardless of their gender identity. That legislation caused a national backlash that led a number of major corporations to cancel planned expansions in the state, and voters responded by narrowly booting McCrory in favor of then-Attorney General Cooper.
Bishop’s career, though, very much survived even after Cooper signed a law rolling back HB 2. The state senator unexpectedly got the chance to run for Congress in what was then numbered the 9th District in 2019 after the results of the previous year’s election were voided because of Republican election fraud. He decisively won the primary and went on to narrowly defeat 2018 Democratic nominee Dan McCready 51-49 after an expensive campaign for a gerrymandered constituency that Trump had taken 54-43 in 2016.
But despite that underwhelming victory, as well as a new court-supervised map that made the 9th District a shade bluer, Bishop turned in an easy 2020 win in a contest that national Democrats didn’t target. His constituency was soon renumbered the 8th District under the 2022 map and became safely red turf, and Bishop had no trouble holding it. The congressman used the first days of the new Congress to cast 11 straight votes against making Kevin McCarthy speaker, but he eventually flipped; McCarthy afterward placed Bishop on the Orwellian-named “Weaponization of the Federal Government” subcommittee.
Bishop’s House seat will almost certainly remain reliably red no matter if he stays or goes, especially now that the GOP-dominated state Supreme Court has given the state legislature the green light to draw a new gerrymander for 2024. Political observers have speculated that this decision could motivate Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson to run for attorney general should he be left with a hostile seat, though he hasn’t said anything about a potential bid to replace Stein.
P.S. Republicans last took the attorney general’s office in 1974 when GOP Gov. James Holshouser appointed James Carson to fill a vacancy, though Carson lost the ensuing special election a few months later to Democrat Refus Edmisten. The last time Republican to actually win an election for this post, however, was Zeb Walser all the way back in 1896.
A few fellow Republicans, though, publicly confirmed Bishop was thinking about making this race. A strategist for Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, an unrepentant bigot who is the primary frontrunner to succeed Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, says his boss would back the congressman, while the well-funded Club for Growth also said it wanted him to run. Former U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray, meanwhile, tells Sherman he halted his own planned campaign launch for attorney general after speaking to Bishop and coming away with the impression he’d be seeking the job himself. An unnamed source also adds that longtime state Senate leader Phil Berger would chair a Bishop campaign to replace Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, who is leaving to run for governor.
Bishop himself indirectly helped cost the GOP the governorship in 2016 after incumbent Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2, which required anyone using bathrooms at schools or public facilities to use the restroom associated with the sex on their birth certificate regardless of their gender identity. That legislation caused a national backlash that led a number of major corporations to cancel planned expansions in the state, and voters responded by narrowly booting McCrory in favor of then-Attorney General Cooper.
Bishop’s career, though, very much survived even after Cooper signed a law rolling back HB 2. The state senator unexpectedly got the chance to run for Congress in what was then numbered the 9th District in 2019 after the results of the previous year’s election were voided because of Republican election fraud. He decisively won the primary and went on to narrowly defeat 2018 Democratic nominee Dan McCready 51-49 after an expensive campaign for a gerrymandered constituency that Trump had taken 54-43 in 2016.
But despite that underwhelming victory, as well as a new court-supervised map that made the 9th District a shade bluer, Bishop turned in an easy 2020 win in a contest that national Democrats didn’t target. His constituency was soon renumbered the 8th District under the 2022 map and became safely red turf, and Bishop had no trouble holding it. The congressman used the first days of the new Congress to cast 11 straight votes against making Kevin McCarthy speaker, but he eventually flipped; McCarthy afterward placed Bishop on the Orwellian-named “Weaponization of the Federal Government” subcommittee.
Bishop’s House seat will almost certainly remain reliably red no matter if he stays or goes, especially now that the GOP-dominated state Supreme Court has given the state legislature the green light to draw a new gerrymander for 2024. Political observers have speculated that this decision could motivate Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson to run for attorney general should he be left with a hostile seat, though he hasn’t said anything about a potential bid to replace Stein.
P.S. Republicans last took the attorney general’s office in 1974 when GOP Gov. James Holshouser appointed James Carson to fill a vacancy, though Carson lost the ensuing special election a few months later to Democrat Refus Edmisten. The last time Republican to actually win an election for this post, however, was Zeb Walser all the way back in 1896.