NC legislator who compared Lincoln to Hitler faces strong challenge from his own party

One of the N.C. House’s most controversial legislators is facing his strongest Republican primary challenge yet.

Former Cabarrus County Commissioner Jay White is running against Rep. Larry Pittman, who has elicited news headlines and rebukes from his own party for comparing Abraham Lincoln to Adolf Hitler and suggesting that “communist Democrats” were involved in mass shootings.

White is the first well-known challenger that Pittman has faced in years from his own party. The Concord attorney mentioned Pittman’s Lincoln-Hitler comments briefly in the press release announcing his candidacy, but he says he’s not making it the focus of his campaign.

“If other people want to talk about Mr. Pittman, they can,” he said. “I want to do a positive campaign.” Pittman is also running in a redrawn district where he’s not many voters’ current representative.

Pittman and White have a shared political history. When Pittman, a pastor, was first appointed to his seat in 2011, White was the other candidate that local Republican Party leaders considered to fill the vacancy.

The vote was 5-4 to vote in favor of Pittman, and Pittman’s wife, Tammy, was among those who voted, according to The Charlotte Observer. Pittman then narrowly defeated White again in the GOP primary the following year.

Pittman has since won his primaries by a much larger margin, including getting about 64% of the vote in 2018, when his challenger was a photographer and political newcomer who boasted of owning more than 50 fedora hats.

White, by contrast, served on the county commission from 2006 to 2013, including a stint as chairman. He said he’s “in the best position to work with (House) leadership” to serve the district.

Pittman’s Lincoln-Hitler comments drew a rebuke from House Speaker Tim Moore’s office last year, and he has fewer leadership roles than most Republicans with similar levels of seniority in the chamber.

On Pittman’s campaign website, he says, “We cannot afford to lose one of the most conservative voices in the NC House!” He says 2020 will be his last campaign because he pledged to serve only five terms in office.

A serious challenge

In this year’s primary campaign, he has sparred with White over a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” resolution recently approved by the Cabarrus County commissioners.

The commission considered several proposals for a resolution and chose one written by White, who called it “just an example of what I can get done when I arrive in Raleigh.” Pittman had offered what he described on Facebook as a “stronger” resolution, but the commissioners preferred White’s version.

“Can you say ‘collusion?’” Pittman wrote. “It was such an obvious setup in favor of my opponent, whom they prefer.”

With the redrawn District 83, Pittman loses the Landis and China Grove areas of Rowan County, where he won his primary by a larger margin in 2018 than Cabarrus County. Instead of stretching north from Concord, the new district extends to the west and south of the city.

Campaign finance reports show Pittman is taking White’s challenge seriously, spending thousands on radio ads, mailers and other advertising. Both candidates have raised similar amounts of money this election. As of Feb. 15, $32,000 for White and $34,000 for Pittman. Both have received PAC contributions, with the Blue Cross Blue Shield PAC supporting Pittman and the NC Realtors PAC supporting White.

Pittman criticized White’s candidacy and supporters in a Facebook post this week. His opponents, he said, “have done all they could to get rid of me ever since (being appointed to the House); and they are at it again, pushing him to run against me in this primary election as he did in 2012. How dare a person such as I, who is not part of the ‘upper crust,’ interfere with their plans for this House seat to serve the special interests to whom they cater?”

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This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 6:28 PM.