WAXHAW, N.C. — Does Conor Lamb strike twice?
Dan McCready certainly hopes so. Like Lamb, who won a special House election in Pennsylvania two months ago, McCready is a Democratic congressional candidate competing on steadfastly Republican, Donald Trump-friendly turf.
Like Lamb, he’s a veteran, he’s young and he’s brand new to politics. And like Lamb, he has exceeded expectations in a fashion that contributes mightily to Democrats’ hopes for a House majority after November. If McCready succeeds in North Carolina’s Ninth District, which has been represented by Republicans for the last 55 years, Democrats are in a good position to win big over all.
Success is no fantasy. In the primaries on Tuesday, McCready got more votes in a two-way contest on the Democratic side than all three candidates combined on the Republican side. What’s more, he’ll go head-to-head in the general election not against the Republican incumbent, Robert Pittenger, who lost his primary, but against a former pastor named Mark Harris with extremely conservative social views.
Several prognosticators just changed their rating of the race from “leans Republican” to “tossup,” and the veteran North Carolina Republican strategist Paul Shumaker, who worked for Pittenger, told me: “I would not be surprised if, come September or October, you don’t see it rated ‘leans Democratic’.”
