RALEIGH, N.C. — After more than 30 years in Charlotte and North Carolina politics, Pat McCrory’s name appeared on a ballot Tuesday for potentially the last time.
Speaking to The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday, the former governor and Charlotte mayor said he likely won’t run for public office again. But he left the door open slightly, saying “I’m going to have to do a lot of self evaluation.”
The Republican U.S. Senate primary left a bad taste in his mouth.
Throughout the campaign, McCrory said, policy almost never took center stage. Instead, the race was “about endorsements, surveys and money,” he said. He blamed Democrats, Republicans and the media. Democrats painted him as a hard right-winger for his time as governor. Rep. Ted Budd’s winning campaign painted McCrory as a liberal faking conservatism.
And the media let them do it, McCrory said.
He likened the attacks from the right — Budd, former President Donald Trump and others — to McCarthyism.
“Who gave them the authority to be the judge and jury?” McCrory said of his opponents. “It’s almost like a McCarthyism within my own party, where they’re purging people when they need to expand.”
McCrory lost by more than 258,000 votes. He won about 25% of the Republican primary electorate. Budd won about 59%.
Political analysts debate whether there’s a coming schism within the GOP, with Trump loyalists on one side and everybody else on the other.
Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College, said McCrory’s loss shows what he’s believed to be true already: there is no coming civil war between the factions. The battle’s been fought and “Trumpism” won, Bitzer said.
“Trumpism is the dominant factor,” he said. “The more mainstream, establishment-oriented Republicans are a distinct minority. I kind of see them as a group without a true political home.”
Even in Mecklenburg County, McCrory won by fewer than 100 votes.
“The civil war’s done,” Bitzer said.
Former Republican City Council member Lynn Wheeler, who has known McCrory since he made his first foray into politics in 1989, said she has a hard time seeing this as the end to McCrory’s political career.
“I can’t see him without some sort of political future, but I don’t know what that would be. It’s in his blood,” Wheeler said. “I just can’t see him fading into the sunset.”
To Wheeler, McCrory’s criticisms of Trump before he ran for U.S. Senate sealed his fate. The former governor would have cruised to victory if he had Trump’s nod, she said.
“It’s sad that it has to be that way,” she said.
The power of Trump’s endorsement factored in other North Carolina races as well. Despite a flurry of scandals, Rep. Madison Cawthorn came within 1,500 votes of winner state Sen. Chuck Edwards in the race for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District.
Trump-endorsed Bo Hines won the Republican primary for the 13th Congressional district despite opposition from some of the prominent local GOP establishment. Hines won by more than 5,000 votes.
Charles Jeter, a former Republican state representative and Huntersville Town Board member, said Tuesday night was “a prime example” of the former president’s power in North Carolina. McCrory’s loss may be the starkest example.
“What I saw last night was a man that was really hurt that Ted Budd won because Trump anointed him, and frankly there was nothing Pat McCrory could do … that was going to be able to overcome that anointment,” Jeter said. “That’s a dangerous place for our party to be, when issues don’t matter and endorsements carry the day.”
There were other factors in McCrory’s loss. Budd’s support from the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee that spent $11 million to secure the victory for Budd. He won in a landslide despite skipping every debate between the Republican candidates.
Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, likened the Club for Growth and Trump combination to a one-two punch from Muhammad Ali in his prime.
“It’s not a clean test of the Trump endorsement theory because we also had truckloads of Club for Growth cash that influenced this race,” Cooper said. “I think it’s both of those factors, but it’s difficult to know which matters more.”
Charlotte Republican strategist and attorney Larry Shaheen says a different one-two punch landed Budd the victory — outside spending combined with an ineffective strategy by McCrory’s team.
“The fact (McCrory’s) campaign did not have a robust super PAC organization was the number one reason Budd beat him. It had nothing to do with Trump’s endorsement,” Shaheen said. “Budd’s people were smarter and they outworked McCory.”
Shaheen donated to McCrory’s campaign, but the GOP strategist said the business community failed to get behind the former governor in a meaningful enough way to shift the results.
Jeter said another factor in McCrory’s loss might have been his ties to Charlotte.
While the state now correctly views Charlotte as a Democratic stronghold, that wasn’t the case when McCrory was mayor, Jeter said. To be from Charlotte in a statewide Republican primary might be a downside.
For the betterment of the party, McCrory should endorse Budd immediately, Shaheen said.
“I have a ton of respect for the former governor,” Shaheen said, “but it’s time for him to move on.”
Kerry Haynie, a political science professor at Duke University, said McCrory could still have a voice in the Republican Party among people who aren’t Trump loyalists, whether he’s in elected office or in political commentary.
“He may be well positioned if, as some analysts believe … the Republican Party can’t continue to be successful without some transformation,” Haynie said.
Haynie added Budd may need to come closer to the center to win moderate Republicans and North Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat in November.
McCrory said he isn’t sure whether he’ll endorse Budd. But the congressman’s treatment of him made the former governor wonder whether Republicans can pull off a victory against former state Supreme Court chief justice Cheri Beasley in November.
“If they plan to retake the Senate with a Republican majority,” he said, “they’ve got to be careful with conservative Republicans who are conservative but are told otherwise.”
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