‘Election being bought’: Budd’s outside support consolidates GOP Senate candidate criticism

With less than two weeks of campaigning to go and Rep. Ted Budd leading the field, Republican candidates for U.S. Senate have converged in condemning spending by a political action committee that’s working to get Budd the nomination.

Pat McCrory, former Charlotte mayor and North Carolina governor, said the group Club for Growth is “having a great deal of influence in deceiving the voters of North Carolina.” The group has spent well over $8 million in the primary and plans to spend at least $14 million by election day, a Club for Growth spokesman told The Charlotte Observer last month.

“We have a group called the Club for Growth, an outside Washington group, that is attempting to buy the GOP Senate nomination for about $15 million,” McCrory told reporters Tuesday.

That amount of cash has drawn the ire of other candidates as well.

Speaking to The Charlotte Observer Wednesday, combat veteran and Republican candidate for Senate Marjorie Eastman said the GOP electorate “needs to know this story right now before they go in the booth and they vote on May 17.”

“It’s disturbing,” Eastman said. “A lot of North Carolinians are worried about a stolen election, and we really need to worry about an election being bought. We need campaign finance reform yesterday.”

Budd holds the lead, polling shows

Club for Growth is an influential conservative political action committee that has spent millions in support of Budd. Its work is separate from Budd’s campaign, which raises and spends money separately. The group has endorsed Budd and used its coffers to buy ads and boost the congressman’s name recognition among primary voters.

McCrory will do anything to distract from his liberal record and “the massive lead that he’s blown, but he’s not fooling North Carolina Republicans,” Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh said in a statement.

Budd told the Observer last month he believes the PAC supports him for his stances on low taxes, economic growth and small government. The organization touts itself as a pro-growth, limited-government and free-enterprise advocate.

It has supported all of Budd’s campaigns since he launched his political career in 2016, though Budd said the support is something he’s earned each election.

Jonathan Felts, Budd’s senior advisor, pointed to outside money also aiding Budd’s competitors.

Former Rep. Mark Walker’s spokesman, Jack Minor, has received at least $12,000 from a political action committee, Awake Carolina, over the past year for “political strategy consulting,” finance records show.

Another group called Restoring Common Sense has supported Eastman. It raised more than $2.45 million between July and the end of March. Eastman’s campaign declined to comment about the group’s support.

The Carolina Senate Fund, which aims to get McCrory the nomination, reported raising more than $1 million between April 2021 and the end of March. Its biggest donor is Doug Lebda, CEO of LendingTree, where McCrory formerly served on the board of directors, Business North Carolina previously reported.

“There are no super-PAC virgins in this senate campaign,” Felts said in a statement. “Mark Walker, Marjorie Eastman, Pat McCrory all have the support of super-PACs so their pearl clutching focused only on the super-PAC supporting the candidate who is beating them by double-digits is a textbook case of hypocrisy.”

He said every campaign for U.S. Senate with a credible shot at winning, Democrat or Republican and across the country, will have the support of a super PAC, a type of political action committee that can raise money from companies, unions, associations and people without limits.

Jordan Shaw, a McCrory advisor, pushed back on Felts’ comparison, saying there is “no other group involved in this race like the Club for Growth.”

“And there is no other candidate in this race that is wholly owned and operated by and dependent on a group like Ted Budd is on the Club,” Shaw said. “They bought him his first race and they’re trying to do it again because he does whatever they tell him to do.”

With Club for Growth’s money and President Donald Trump’s endorsement, Budd pulled in front of his opponents in polls.

A poll by Meredith College released Tuesday found 32.7% of respondents interested in voting in the Republican primary prefer Budd, 25.7% said they would vote for McCrory and 33.7% said they were undecided. Walker got 6.5% and Eastman got 2.7%.

Eastman said the number of undecided voters indicates the impact of Club for Growth’s spending is limited.

“They’re realizing North Carolinians are not taking the bait on this,” she said. “This is a call to action for our state — we can show the rest of the country that when you show up in the primary you not only change the trajectory of a party, you change the trajectory of a country.”

Walker also has been outspoken about Club for Growth’s support of Budd, saying the group played a role in securing former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

“I met with President Trump, and he promised his full support in whatever election I would have,” Walker said during a debate hosted by FOX8 WGHP. “But (his choosing Budd) was an example of endorsements and backroom deals in Washington. North Carolina doesn’t want to be told what to do.”

‘Not the Republican Party’ McCrory’s known

Speaking to reporters, McCrory said he plans to target undecided voters — many of whom, he said, aren’t even aware of the upcoming primary and general election. He also sees himself having an edge with a large percentage of independent voters in the state.

Walker’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Eastman told the Observer her outsider status — she hasn’t held public office before unlike Walker, Budd and McCrory — will help her resonate with voters tired of career politicians. Despite low name recognition ahead of the race, she’s raised more than $635,000 so far.

Eastman added that she’s logged over 1,000 miles a week on the campaign trail.

McCrory decried what he called “untruthful and deceitful” television ads about his record and lamented how the Republican party has been “hijacked” by groups like the Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative House Republicans founded in 2015.

“It’s not the Republican Party I’ve been a part of since I was a young man,” McCrory said.

McCrory said the U.S. Senate race is not getting the national or state attention as other races were and he worried about an uninformed electorate.

Turnout in North Carolina’s 2018 primary was just 14.35%. In 2014, it was 15.79%, according to the state Board of Elections.

“This is one of the most important Senate campaigns in the United States of America,” McCrory said. “It could determine who has control of the U.S. Senate coming up in 2022.”

This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "‘Election being bought’: Budd’s outside support consolidates GOP Senate candidate criticism."

Will Wright

The Charlotte Observer

Will Wright covers politics in Charlotte and North Carolina. He previously covered eastern Kentucky for the Lexington Herald-Leader, and worked as a reporting fellow at The New York Times.

Gordon Rago

The Charlotte Observer

704-358-5107

Gordon Rago covers growth and development for The Charlotte Observer. He previously was a reporter at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia and began his journalism career in 2013 at the Shoshone News-Press in Idaho.