Ellmers Wins Race in Upset Run
Politico reports:
Democratic Rep. Bobby Etheridge has conceded to Republican Renee Ellmers, handing the GOP a victory in a race few thought the party would win.
When local election officials completed their recount of votes cast in North Carolina’s 2nd District race on Friday, Ellmers led Etheridge by 1, 489 votes.
“Now, the election recount has concluded, and the numbers confirm that despite the incredible support we had - and neither candidate getting to 50 percent - in the end we came up just a little too short,” Etheridge told supporters at a news conference.
With the victory, House Republicans have now picked up at least 61 seats. The GOP leads in three of the five contests that have yet to be decided.
The outcome of the race comes as something of a surprise, even to Republican officials who as late as this summer privately dismissed the tea party-leaning Ellmers’s prospects for ousting Etheridge, a seven-term veteran. Over the course of the campaign, Ellmers raised less than $560,000.
But in June, Etheridge found his reelection bid derailed when a YouTube video went viral that showed him in a physical altercation with a young man on the street who was questioning Etheridge’s support for President Barack Obama’s agenda. Etheridge later apologized for the incident.
In an interview the day after the election, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions acknowledged in an interview with POLITICO that the House GOP campaign arm was behind the video.
