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Rick Santorum has entered the fray of North Carolina's Republican primary runoff elections by backing Richard Hudson's bid to represent the 8th congressional district.
Santorum, a former presidential hopeful from Pennsylvania and current chairman of Patriot Voices, said in a release that Hudson is an "economic conservative" and "unabashed defender of life and the traditional family."
The 8th Congressional District was already one of the biggest recipients of outside money in North Carolina. Now it's one of the biggest in the country.
Today a group called the American Action Network is dropping $300,000 into TV ads targeting Republican Scott Keadle. He faces Richard Hudson in Tuesday's GOP runoff.
The new legislative and congressional districts drawn in 2011 by the Republican-led legislature are clear, but the process that produced them was clouded by closed-door politics, some contend.
Lawyers are expected to go before the state Supreme Court on Tuesday morning to argue whether a state legislature that has described itself as “the most transparent” in “modern history” about its motives and criteria for the new districts is illegally holding back documents linked to the process. Read more here.
More political headlines below.
America Action Network may soon become the latest national conservative group to throw cash into a July 17 primary runoff that will decide the GOP nominee to oppose Democratic Rep. Larry Kissell this fall.
POLITICO reports the group will begin a 750-point media buy on Tuesday to air an attack ad against Scott Keadle in Charlotte called "Layers" that aims to gin up support for his opponent, Richard Hudson. Hudson has also been backed by Young Guns Action Fund.
Keadle is supported by powerful free-market advocacy group The Club for Growth. With the help of its 75,000 members, the group has spent around $400,000 in the race. Read more about the race at the Charlotte Observer.
A powerful free-market advocacy group has spent an additional $190,000-plus to support Scott Keadle's campaign for Congress in North Carolina's eighth district, stretching from Charlotte to Fayetteville.
The Club for Growth PAC, with the help of its 75,000 members, has now thrown around $400,000 behind Keadle, who is pitted against Richard Hudson in a hotly-contested Republican primary runoff.
Richard Hudson is making a small TV buy to make a big point in his Republican congressional runoff election against Scott Keadle.
The two are fighting for the chance to challenge endangered Democrat Larry Kissell in the 8th District.
As his competition endured criticism for questioning President Barack Obama’s birthplace, congressional candidate Scott Keadle of North Carolina took the high road last week and said he hadn’t spent “two seconds of my life thinking” about Obama’s birthplace.
But that’s not what Keadle told a tea party group last month in Rowan County, N.C., during a heated primary race for the Republican nomination for North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District. Keadle, who’s now in a two-man runoff July 17 with former congressional chief of staff Richard Hudson, told the Rowan County Tea Party Patriots in April that he’d demand an investigation into the president’s eligibility, whatever the personal costs.
“If you’ll elect me to Congress, I will absolutely make sure that I don’t shut up until there is an investigation to find out if the president is eligible to be the president,” Keadle told the group, according to a video of the event. “That’s the end of that. And, they can do whatever they want to me.”
Asked about the apparent contradiction, Keadle said Monday that he’d made a mistake, was caught up in the adrenaline of the forum and had failed to qualify his statement. He said he had no intention of pursuing an investigation of Obama’s birthplace unless constituents asked him to.
“I didn’t get it right that day. I didn’t think I got it that bad, but I did,” Keadle said, adding later, “Yes, I do believe he was born in the United States and no, I don’t want to be dragged into the middle of this.”
See a video on the jump below.
Going into 2012, the 8th Congressional District GOP primary was one of the hottest races in the state. Republicans think incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell is vulnerable and the primary attracted a packed field.
And even though the 10-candidate race to replace retiring Congresswoman Sue Myrick is getting more attention now, the 8th GOP primary is still big money and big TV.
Scott Keadle is loaded with Club for Growth cash. Richard Hudson boasts a number of establishment Republican endorsements. And state Rep. Fred Steen -- who is endorsed by House Speaker Thom Tillis -- is hitting a local theme. His new TV ad (above) features local folks and was filmed and produced locally. The kicker: “Like me and my campaign this commercial is 100 percent local,” Steen says.
