Robert Pittenger had endorsements from Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and the rest of the Republican leadership, but a Southern Baptist pastor from North Carolina took down the congressional incumbent in a stunning political upset.
Mark Harris said on the Todd Starnes Radio Show that he just wanted to see President Trump’s agenda promoted and felt that Pittenger and the majority of the rest of the Republicans in Congress were “slow-walking” the president’s agenda.
“I just truly believed that I could be a better representative of the people that made up that district than the incumbent at that time,” Harris said, after detailing the numerous changes the district and state had gone through in the last two years, most notably a court-ordered redistricting.
Harris told Starnes that even though Pittenger received numerous endorsements from establishment Republicans, “the reality is, all politics is local.”
“When you look at this race that we just went through,” Harris said, “there are people here that recognize that we got to be fiscally conservative, we were all in favor of the tax cuts because we feel that’s been a phenomenal stimulus, but at the same time, for those tax cuts to work, we were somewhat promised that we were gonna have spending cuts after the first of the year, and instead we saw a $1.3 trillion spending bill.”
The Southern Baptist pastor explained that “people were just really concerned about that,” and noted that the House of Representatives has the power of the purse but is “no longer even trying to pass fiscally responsible things.”
“The House has got to be the voice of the people and has got to be willing to take that fiscal responsibility once again,” he said.
Harris, who received an endorsement from former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, praised the House Freedom Caucus and its chair, Rep. Mark Meadows, for their part in safeguarding fiscal responsibility, and pledged to continue their work if elected in the general election, saying “I applaud the work that they’ve done, and given the opportunity to serve, I would be glad to be associated with the Freedom Caucus.”