NC congressional race goes negative, and the candidates blame each other
He hoped for a “decent, honest, and honorable campaign,” but in the race to represent a Charlotte-area congressional district, he got an opponent’s TV advertisement filmed near his house.
That’s what Pat Harrigan, the Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 14th District, claims in an open letter to his opponent, Democratic state Sen. Jeff Jackson. Though Harrigan blames Jackson for the race’s tenor, he’s also published a negative TV ad and images critical of his Democratic opponent on social media.
In his letter, Harrigan claims the race has become so full of vitriol he now wears a bulletproof vest to major public events and has received a death threat. The letter came after the Jackson campaign ran an ad picturing one of Harrigan’s homes — in Hickory. Harrigan said the ad “went too far because targeting family domiciles crosses a line.”
What did the ad show?
Jackson’s ad shows a man on a jet ski as a narrator tells listeners Harrigan “made a fortune” off of his gun manufacturing business and bought a lake house. It then shows an image of Harrigan’s lakefront home. At the end of the ad, Jackson walks across the screen and shrugs his shoulders.
“As I travel, wherever my family is located, they are significantly less safe with me in this race,” Harrigan wrote. “And they are even less safe now that you’ve shown one of my homes to the world.”
Candidates’ addresses are public record. Though, the ad showing an image of Harrigan’s home doesn’t give an address.
Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper said because of easily accessible public records and Google Street View, “I don’t know (Harrigan’s argument) carries the same weight it used to.”
Jackson, meanwhile, has questioned Harrigan’s voter registration because he owns a home in Hickory and rents an apartment in Charlotte. He is registered to vote in Charlotte, but Jackson wrote a letter to the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections asking for an investigation about whether he is legally registered there.
While “friendly” campaigns aren’t entirely a thing of the past, Cooper said they’re mostly non-existent in competitive races. The 14th includes uptown Charlotte, southern and western Mecklenburg County and much of Gaston County. The district leans Democratic, but it’s been the Charlotte area’s most competitive congressional race.
Where is the line drawn?
“Everything in a campaign is political,” Cooper said. “(Harrigan’s letter) is no different.”
Cooper said it’s important to distinguish helpful, negative ads from unhelpful ones. Some ads may present a difference in policy between candidates, which can be viewed as negative but give voters a good sense of where the candidates stand. Others are less helpful, attacking the opponent without giving useful context.
Where that line is drawn “is an open question,” Cooper said.
Cooper said Harrigan’s letter challenges Jackson’s reputation as a “media savvy and friendly” politician. Still, it should be viewed through the lens of a campaign approaching Election Day.
Both candidates claim to be more interested in issues than in baseless attacks.
Harrigan said he’s focused on inflation and economic issues. Jackson, in an emailed statement, said he’s focused on substance, pointing to a recent post on his Facebook page about Republican arguments on curbing inflation.
“(Harrigan) relies on endless, angry tweets,” Jackson said. “He’s attacked me by name dozens of times.”
Honest and decent campaign?
Harrigan puts the blame on Jackson in his letter.
“I write to express my firm and sincere disappointment in you, this race, and what is has devolved into,” Harrigan wrote in his letter. He goes on to say an “honest and decent campaign is not what we have, and it’s because of your actions.”
But the Republican candidate has also released ads claiming Jackson supported sending COVID-19 stimulus checks to domestic terrorists, which The Charlotte Observer reported lacked full context. Jackson responded with a thread of tweets saying the ad claimed he supports domestic terrorism.
Harrigan has also on Twitter called Jackson “elitist” and posted a black-and-white image of Jackson and President Joe Biden with flames in the background.
In an interview with the Observer, Harrigan defended his TV ad, saying it relayed genuine policy preferences by Jackson that voters should understand.
“Everything that we have ever tied Jeff Jackson to is poor policy or votes where he has said one thing and voted in a different direction,” he said.
Other ad tactics
In his letter, Harrigan points to several ads and tactics he calls dishonest, including one that references an Observer article about the candidates’ position on gun laws.
In the article, the Jackson campaign pointed to an interview Harrigan gave in 2018 to the AR-15 Podcast on the Firearms Radio Network. Harrigan said in the interview his gun manufacturing business benefited from an increase in gun sales after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
While Harrigan said his business and the industry benefited, he never said he deliberately used it to sell more weapons.
Harrigan said in an interview Tuesday the mention of Sandy Hook took him aback and changed his view of how the race would progress.
“We didn’t have the race in front of us that we thought we had,” he said.
This story was originally published October 27, 2022 at 1:25 PM.
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