A Democrat who talks like a Republican could steal a major NC race from the GOP

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- One Sunday morning this spring, the Republican candidate stood in the pulpit of a cavernous Baptist megachurch off a dusty road outside of Charlotte, bellowing about bathrooms.

"I'm here to tell you this morning that they can call it a new morality. They can call it the new normal,” thundered Mark Harris, a former Baptist pastor, referencing a fight over bathroom access for transgender people that tore this state apart two years ago. “But God has said it's same old sin" — his voice shook with emotion as the crowd’s applause began to drown him out —“and I'm going to stand on the...word of the living God."

Twelve miles away and one night earlier, the Democratic candidate stood in a lushly flowering backyard in a residential slice of Charlotte, taking a different kind of stand.

“This is a calling I feel,” Dan McCready drawled to a well-heeled group of friends and potential supporters, using a phrase often employed by religious Christians, “to get off the sidelines and fight back for people who deserve better in North Carolina."

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