NC-09: In a totally bizarre series of events over a three-hour period on Tuesday evening, former Rep. Rob Pittenger trashed then un-trashed state Sen. Dan Bishop in the special election to fill North Carolina's vacant 9th Congressional District, which Pittenger himself had held for six years until January.
It began with an email from Pittenger to supporters in which he gave his endorsement to former Mecklenburg County Commissioner Matthew Ridenhour, one of 10 Republicans running in the May 14 primary. In that message, Pittenger also slammed one of Ridenhour's rivals, state Sen. Dan Bishop, who's best known as the author of North Carolina's disastrous anti-LGBT "bathroom bill" that led to punishing boycotts of the state.
Pittenger dinged Bishop over the measure, saying he "poorly communicated" it, but most of his attacks were concentrated on his claim that Bishop had served as a "primary advisor" to Mark Harris, the pastor who narrowly defeated Pittenger in the 2018 primary. Pittenger asserted that Bishop had been "integrally involved" with Harris' "campaign strategy" and "clearly had knowledge" of the election fraud scheme perpetrated by McCrae Dowless, the Harris operative whose wrongdoing prompted officials to void last year's general election results and order a do-over.
Bishop responded with fury. In an email of his own, he accused Pittenger of acting out of bitterness over his loss, then charged that he'd published "multiple false statements of fact," calling all of Pittenger's claims about Bishop's involvement with and knowledge of the Harris campaign "malicious," "falsehoods," and "lies." Bishop threatened to sue Pittenger for defamation unless he issued a "complete retraction" within 30 minutes.
Amazingly enough, Pittenger complied. Not long thereafter (though perhaps not within that tight 30-minute deadline), Pittenger sent a statement to the media that read, simply, "The statements regarding Dan Bishop were false." That seemed to settle the matter: In response, Bishop tweeted, "I appreciate Robert Pittenger's prompt and unequivocal retraction."
While this whole incident is unlikely to play a bigger role in the upcoming election—beyond, perhaps, generating a measure of sympathy for Bishop, a man who deserves none—it did accomplish one thing: Pittenger managed to completely step on his own endorsement of Ridenhour. Perhaps Ridenhour would now prefer that Pittenger stop trying to "help."