Tim Moore expects to serve as speaker again after opting against congressional run

North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, giddy over an overwhelming bipartisan vote for the state budget, said Wednesday evening that his decision not to seek a U.S. House seat was not a difficult one.

Most observers expected Moore to run in the newly drawn 13th Congressional District, a solidly Republican district that includes the western part of Mecklenburg County. Republicans in the Senate and House, which Moore has led since 2015, agreed on a district with no incumbent that includes his home county of Cleveland.

But U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican who has generated national headlines and controversy in his first term in the House, scrambled those plans by announcing he would run in the district, rather than the 14th Congressional District where he was the lone incumbent under maps drawn by Republican state lawmakers.

“It really wasn’t a difficult decision. But carefully considered this, was something I’d been thinking about clearly,” Moore said. “But at the end of it just assessed that there’s still great work to be done here and a great opportunity to make a big difference for North Carolina.”

Moore had not previously spoken to reporters in-person since Cawthorn’s announcement and Moore’s own announcement last week that he would run for another term in the state House. He spoke briefly to The News & Observer after the House’s 104-10 initial vote to approve the budget. A day later, House members gave final approval to the budget and Gov. Roy Cooper signed it.

Cawthorn’s decision caught many state lawmakers, including Moore, off-guard.

“It did surprise me that someone would move from another area, move into another district that they didn’t live in to try and represent it, but I’ll let the voters of that district decide that,” Moore said.

Cawthorn appeared to call out Moore, though not by name, in his announcement video.

“Knowing the political realities of the 13th district, I am afraid that another establishment, go-along-to-get-along Republican would prevail there,” he said.

Those comments and Cawthorn’s move have upset some Republicans.

New legislative maps favor Republicans, giving Moore hope of a potential supermajority capable of overriding vetoes from the Democratic governor.

“Very happy doing this, very happy to continue to serve and my members in the caucus have told me they’d like for me to serve as speaker again, so I expect that I’ll be back and I expect that I’ll be back with even more Republican members,” he said.

Sen. Ralph Hise, a key Republican in the map-drawing process and a resident of the 14th district, said the districts may have been slightly different had state lawmakers known Cawthorn was going to run in a different district. The map carves out a small portion of Watauga County where Rep. Virginia Foxx lives so as to avoid putting the two Republicans in the same district.

“It was completely unexpected. I don’t necessarily know, other than maybe three or four days beforehand, anybody who had any inclination that that was a consideration,” Hise said.

Hise said that he and others, including state senators, are considering a run in the district.

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.

This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 7:36 PM.