NC Speaker of the House announces congressional run
Speaker of the House Tim Moore launched his long-discussed campaign for Congress Tuesday, confirming he plans to run in North Carolina's 14th Congressional District, which is centered around his home in Cleveland County.
"I've been proud to serve with the conservative Republican majority in the statehouse for the last nine years as speaker," Moore said in an announcement video. "And now I'm ready to take that same conservative leadership to Washington."
At five terms, Moore is the longest-serving state speaker of the house in North Carolina history, and his congressional run has been assumed for months. He and other Republican leaders at the General Assembly recently redrew the state's congressional map, affording him input on district lines that all but ensure a Republican will win the 14th District.
That political reality led the district's Democratic incumbent, U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson, to run for attorney general instead of seeking re-election next year.
Moore, R-Cleveland, has at least one competitor in the district's Republican primary: Pat Harrigan is a Green Beret who ran against Jackson in 2022. Harrigan has been skewering Moore in anticipation of the contest, saying in a statement last week that the speaker "carries a legacy of corruption."
In his announcement video, Moore noted North Carolina's ranking as the best state for business and the new abortion restrictions that the General Assembly's Republican majority passed earlier this year. He also mentioned the ban Republican lawmakers passed forbidding transgender athletes from playing on women's sports teams.
He hit on immigration, saying some "want amnesty for illegals and preach open borders," but that legislative Republicans have worked to tighten immigration enforcement at the state level. Last month, Moore visited the U.S. border with Mexico, one of several hints his announcement was coming.
In the video, Moore said he was "particularly proud" of the state's voter ID law, which generally requires voters to show photo ID at the polls. He said he's running because "it's time to fix Washington, just as we have fixed Raleigh over the past decade."
"Unlike all of the other candidates, you know how I will vote regarding the conservative issues that we each hold dear, because that's how I've been voting," Moore said.
Moore has been lining up support for this run for a while, and advisors publicly confirmed his plans last week. At the time, Harrigan described Moore as "bought and paid for by the casino and gambling bosses." Harrigan also referenced "taxpayer-funded sexual escapades" and said "such a man does not represent NC-14's values, nor does he deserve its trust."
Moore, a lawyer by trade, represented the Catawba Nation as land was assembled for its casino project in Kings Mountain. An angry husband's lawsuit this year exposed Moore's affair with a state employee.
The speaker has frequently flirted with other controversy too. In 2019, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman took the unusual step of announcing that a State Bureau of Investigation inquiry had cleared Moore of wrongdoing in a case involving payments he received from groups that benefited from General Assembly legislation.
Many expected Moore to run for the U.S. House in 2022, and there appeared to be a perfect district in the maps Republicans drew that cycle. But then-U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn opted to run in that district, and Moore stayed out of the race.
Eventually, those maps were tossed and Moore opted for a record-breaking fifth term as House Speaker in North Carolina. Under those maps, North Carolina's delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives is split 7-7 between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans could hold 10 or 11 of the seats under the new maps, after the 2024 elections.
The new 14th District runs along the South Carolina border. It stretches from the Charlotte suburbs west into Gastonia and Moore’s hometown of Kings Mountain, then north to Morganton.
