Establishment Scheme to Sink NC MAGA Candidates in 2022 Senate, 2024 Gov Races? ‘Big League’ Scoops, DC Insiders Say Yes

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The 2022 race to replace retiring Senator Richard Burr was bound to be a big battle, and the primaries especially messy as growing fields of established candidates duke it out for the nomination. News of insider scoops and rumors flying around Washington, D.C. about Ted Budd’s recent entry into the race may have just fulfilled this expectation, and then some.

Here’s the theory (which I heard earlier today, too): Budd is getting in Senate race to hurt Walker, help McCrory win GOP primary; then Budd — with better name ID — will be positioned to run for Governor in 2024 and stop Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson from winning GOP nomination. #ncpol https://t.co/scEmIk5S71

— Brian Murphy (@MurphinDC) April 12, 2021

Did you get all that?

Upon last week’s relatively fluid quasi-announcement about Rep. Ted Budd’s (R-NC) impending entry into the 2022 Senate primary, we wondered about the implications of his candidacy. It was interesting especially in context of Mark Walker’s head start and his apparent deferral to Budd in the 2020 congressional contests, in which Walker was ‘drawn’ out of contention, and could have challenged Budd to keep a seat in Congress.

Well, this scoop from Big League Politics suggests there could be far more scheming afoot.

As the tweet concisely states, and the BLP story details, the alleged one-two punch at hand is 1) Budd entering the race to only to split the more conservatives voters with and sink Walker, paving the way for former Governor Pat McCrory to enter the race and win the day with enough votes to exceed the threshold of 30 percent; and 2) then run higher name-ID Budd for governor in 2024 so the Establishment can elbow out the decidedly not-for-sale Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson from contention.

Shot-callers behind the scenes, familiar names to those familiar with the Establishment/Anti-Establishment battle in North Carolina Republican politics, are seemingly orchestrating the whole thing.

Unfortunately, this sounds so familiar as to be plausible. Dark pools of influence in North Carolina politics are as common as they are in The Swamp, because their fed from the same polluted spring.

In much the same way the Establishment hated, resented, and sabotaged Donald Trump, and for the same reasons, these reports indicate those forces are active and aligned against strong, principled conservatives that cannot be controlled by the cronies that encircle every position of power. That means MAGA-friendly candidates like Mark Walker must be headed off, and independent, strong, convicted, values candidates like Mark Robinson cannot be allowed to succeed.

Upsetting the status quo, or not pandering to the Chamber of Commerce, just won’t do.

Amid all the high drama and politicking among consultants and Swamp Things in Raleigh and D.C., voters get stuck with a sense that their ultimate vote may only be a veneer for a result that a few interested parties had already predetermined.