North Carolina pastor Mark Harris is re-entering politics, announcing a fourth bid for Congress in a statement and video posted to his various social media accounts on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
Harris, who has served as senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Mooresville since 2020, will seek the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District where current Rep. Dan Bishop announced in August that he would seek to become the state’s attorney general instead of running for Congress again in 2024.
Currently, the 8th District includes a large portion of the southern Piedmont area of North Carolina, stretching from west of High Point down to the North Carolina-South Carolina border along the east side of Charlotte. However, North Carolina’s congressional maps are expected to be redrawn prior to the 2024 election.
“I feel called to serve my nation, and I’m willing to make the sacrifice needed to do it,” Harris said in his announcement video.
The last race Harris was a part of gained national attention amid allegations of election fraud. In 2018, Harris appeared to have won a close race against Democratic opponent Dan McCready in the state’s 9th Congressional District, but the State Board of Elections did not certify the results based upon “claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities related to absentee by-mail voting.”
Harris was never criminally charged with election fraud and said at the time he had no knowledge of fraudulent activities. However, Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr., who worked for the Harris campaign and other campaigns, was charged with multiple counts of ballot fraud during the 2016 and 2018 elections. Dowless died of cancer in 2022 while awaiting trial.
The fraud investigation eventually resulted in a new election in 2019, which Harris called for but was not a candidate in. The new election was won by Bishop.
In his announcement video, Harris alleges the 2018 congressional election was stolen from him, echoing similar claims made by former President Donald Trump about the 2020 presidential election.
“They manufactured a scandal to steal the election,” Harris said. “But I’m back, and I’m not going anywhere. In 2020 Democrats stole the election from President Trump. The year before, they did it to me. Well, in 2024 President Trump is making a comeback, and so am I.”
Harris was also a U.S. congressional candidate in 2016, falling to incumbent Robert Pittenger in that year’s Republican primary. Harris defeated Pittenger in the Republican primary in 2018.
In 2014, Harris ran for the U.S. Senate, finishing third in the Republican primary behind Thom Tillis and Greg Brannon in a crowded primary field of eight candidates. Tillis went on to defeat Sen. Kay Hagan, the Democratic incumbent, in the 2014 general election.
Harris, a Winston-Salem native, served as pastor of First Baptist Church of Charlotte from 2005 to 2017, before stepping down to devote more time to his 2018 congressional campaign.
He also served two consecutive terms as president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina in 2012 and 2013.
