Republicans drop $2 million to help Rep. Richard Hudson a week before Election Day
A top Republican outside spending group has disclosed that it will spend $2.05 million to air ads against Pat Timmons-Goodson, the Democratic former North Carolina Supreme Court justice who is in a tight race to unseat Rep. Richard Hudson in the state’s 8th Congressional District.
The late-stage move by the Congressional Leadership Fund is a sign that Concord’s Hudson, whose district backed President Donald Trump in 2016 by a 53%-44% margin, could be in trouble.
The CLF, which typically spends money in competitive races, has now committed $3.6 million to the race. The area has not been competitive territory for Democrats since Hudson took the seat in 2013. A recent redistricting, combined with a strong candidate for the Democrats, has made the race a potential addition to the party’s majority in the House of Representatives.
“They’re scared to death,” said Thomas Mills, an adviser to the Timmons-Goodson campaign. “This is what I call a panic buy.”
The 8th District stretches from Cabarrus County to Cumberland County, where Fayetteville is located.
Ad acrimony
The Congressional Leadership Fund did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. The group spends tens of millions of dollars each election cycle to boost Republican House candidates. CLF has already been on the air in the race, running ads that called Timmons-Goodson “soft on crime,” among other attacks. The Democrat’s campaign has called the ad’s claims baseless.
“I can’t tell you what CLF is thinking because we don’t have any contact with them,” said Hudson’s campaign manager, Robert Andrews.
National Democrats have also been spending to sink Hudson.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been airing ads criticizing Hudson for missing a vote on a crucial defense bill that gave members of the military a pay raise, an important issue in a district that includes Fort Bragg, one of the world’s largest military installations.
Hudson was in quarantine for COVID-19 at the time of the vote in question and could not vote by proxy according to his caucus’s rules. His campaign has called the ads “false, defamatory and shameful.”
The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election forecaster, says the race currently leans Republican.
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 1:25 PM with the headline "Republicans drop $2 million to help Rep. Richard Hudson a week before Election Day."