Local Republicans are rejecting Trump’s 'carpetbagger' candidate in a North Carolina primary: report

In a GOP primary in North Carolina’s 13^th Congressional District, former President Donald Trump has endorsed 26-year-old MAGA Republican and football player Bo Hines. Trump likes loyalists, and Hines — who Trump considers an “unwavering America First patriot” — fits that description. But according to Politico reporter Natalie Allison, some local Republicans are rebelling against Trump’s endorsement — as Hines doesn’t “live anywhere near” that district and is being slammed by locals as a “carpetbagger.”

“With Hines set to join the former president on stage at a rally in Johnston County (on April 9), a local effort is afoot to sink his candidacy before it takes off,” Allison explains in an article published on April 7. “Through newspaper advertisements, e-mail blasts and door-knocking, some local Republicans are trying to spread the word that Hines, Trump’s favored candidate in the 13th Congressional District, is a carpetbagger. In their view, the former president was misguided in endorsing Hines over homegrown conservatives invested in local party politics.”

Allison adds, “The revolt against Trump by conservatives who adore him, while rare, isn’t the first of its kind this year. Trump has issued scores of midterm endorsements, in some cases for candidates who are all but unknown to local GOP officials and activists.”

One of the Republicans who is critical of Trump’s Hines endorsement is Linwood Parker, chairman of the Johnston County Republican Men’s Organization and the former mayor of Four Oaks, North Carolina.

Parker told Politico, “It feels like it’s incumbent on us to make sure everybody understands that Bo Hines may be a fine fellow — I don’t know him — but the truth of it is he’s not a resident of the district. He’s coming in, just trying to cherry pick a district he can win.”

According to Allison, another Republican group that is opposing Hines in the 13^th Congressional District primary is Citizen Advocates for Accountable Government.

Allison reports, “CAAG, which has grown in numbers since it formed last year to advocate at the state legislature on issues like election fraud and critical race theory, began dispatching members two weeks ago to knock on doors and talk to voters about Hines. Dale Lands, the group’s founder, said they’ll do so every weekend until the primary, and will have volunteers at polling places across the district throughout early voting and on Election Day. They’re endorsing Johnston County resident DeVan Barbour in the congressional race.”