Walker decided to stay in the Senate race even after Trump urged him to bow out and run for a U.S.
He launched his 2022 Senate bid in December 2020, but within months Budd had won Trump’s endorsement at the 2021 state convention. Walker chose in 2019 not to seek reelection in the following year when redistricting would have it made difficult to win. Walker soon led the influential Republican Study Committee in the House and was known for his anti-abortion views. Walker had won a bruising Republican primary upsetting the son of state Senate leader Phil Berger in a runoff. Trump, who will speak at next month’s state GOP convention, hasn’t weighed in on the governor’s primary.Īfter the 2014 election, Walker, who turned 54 on Saturday, joined Congress - representing a Greensboro-area congressional district that was vacated by the retiring GOP Rep. But Robinson’s endorsement of Budd - who also had President Donald Trump’s backing - changed that relationship, Walker has said. Walker and Robinson had been close allies, the result of Walker’s distribution of Robinson’s 2018 speech defending gun rights to the Greensboro city council that went viral and in time vaulted Robinson to prominence.
Recently, abortion came to the forefront in North Carolina as the General Assembly overrode Cooper’s veto of a bill that starting July 1 will narrow the state’s ban on most abortions from 20 weeks of pregnancy to after 12 weeks. State Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said Walker joined a “growing field of GOP candidates that are all missing the mark for North Carolinians with extreme agendas” against abortion and public education and for “job-killing culture wars.” “It’s not clear there is a unique constituency within the Republican Party that Walker would be able to tap into as a means of beating Robinson,” Heberlig said.įolwell, who has been treasurer since 2017, said Saturday in a text that while he welcomed Walker into the race he remained “uniquely qualified” to become governor because of his state financial responsibilities and government experience. Black supporters were featured prominently at the announcement event. He’s been known for his efforts to work with minority groups, particularly on funding historically Black colleges. Walker said he had a history, in both the pulpit and in Congress, of building bridges with unaffiliated and Democratic voters, which North Carolina Republican candidates often need to win statewide races. If elected, he said he would provide a bulwark against federal policy intrusions, promote educational opportunity and economic freedom, and protect families and children on cultural issues. Walker, a former Baptist pastor who rode the Tea Party wave to three terms in Congress, made the announcement to a crowd of 300 at a church in Kernersville. Mark Walker formally entered next year’s race for North Carolina governor on Saturday, saying that he’s best suited to win the seat that has eluded Republicans for much of the past three decades, by attracting a diverse set of voters in the otherwise closely divided state.
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