North Carolina Rep. McHenry, who led House through speaker stalemate, won’t seek reelection in 2024

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP/WNCN) — North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, who presided temporarily over the U.S. House for three intense weeks while Republicans struggled to elect a permanent speaker after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster, announced Tuesday that he won’t seek reelection to his seat next year.

McHenry, who was first elected to the House in 2004 at age 29, unveiled his surprise decision as candidate filing started this week in North Carolina. He currently represents the 10th District covering several counties north and west of Charlotte entering the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

He had announced his reelection campaign in late October, just two days after the completion of another congressional redistricting by the Republican-controlled legislature that kept the reconfigured 10th District on the GOP side of the ledger in the November 2024 election. That announcement also came two days after U.S. House Republicans ultimately got behind Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana to become the next speaker.

McHenry’s news release didn’t explain his reversal.

“I will be retiring from Congress at the end of my current term. This is not a decision I come to lightly, but I believe there is a season for everything and — for me — this season has come to an end,” McHenry said. “I look forward to what the next season brings for my family and me.”

Known as the bow tie-wearing chairman of the Financial Services Committee, McHenry had risen through the House Republican ranks in recent years. As a top lieutenant to McCarthy, McHenry helped him win the speaker’s contest in January and negotiate the debt limit deal made with President Joe Biden earlier this year.

McHenry was thrust into a starker spotlight in October when McCarthy was pushed out of his speaker job in a historic vote.

According to House rules, McHenry was picked from a list McCarthy was required to keep and became the acting speaker — also known as speaker pro tempore — until the chamber figured out who would be the next leader.

As several candidates for the job rose and fell, McHenry resisted overtures from some Republicans and Democrats who wanted to give McHenry more power to get on with the routine business of governing.

McHenry, now 48, ran unsuccessfully for a state House seat in 1998, but he won four years later. In 2004, McHenry pulled off an upset by winning the 10th District GOP U.S. House primary, narrowly defeating a popular local sheriff in a runoff before winning in the general election.

McHenry entered Congress as a hardline conservative willing to speak against leadership, but over time McHenry rose up the GOP leadership ladder, becoming the Republicans’ chief deputy whip in 2015, and a key part of McCarthy’s team.

Soon after McHenry’s announcement, Republican Pat Harrigan revealed he’ll now run in the 10^th district, which McHenry currently represents. It stretches from Lincoln to Forsyth counties.

Harrigan said he’s hired McHenry’s former campaign manager Eduardo Andrade to run his campaign.

State Rep. Jason Saine (R-Lincoln) also confirmed he’s considering getting into the race. He already filed to run for re-election to his state House seat but still has time to switch if he decides to do that.

Harrigan had planned to run the 14^th district which stretches from western Mecklenburg County to Rutherford County along the South Carolina state line. He would have been in a competitive primary with state House Speaker Tim Moore.

Harrigan already had highlighted Moore’s support of bringing more casinos to the state when he labeled him a “casino activist” following Moore’s announcement that he was getting into the race earlier this fall.

Moore formally filed to run for office on Tuesday.

Looming over all of this is a new federal lawsuit filed on Monday challenging the congressional districts. Black and Latino voters have sued Republican lawmakers, saying the new districts are unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

“By strategically packing and cracking North Carolina’s minority voters, the 2023 Congressional Plan entrenches the state’s white majority and erases the gains made by voters of color in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles,” the lawsuit reads.

It’s unclear how quickly the case will move forward. Attorneys representing the plaintiffs have not asked the court to consider it on an expedited schedule.

“I’m not concerned about that at all. I know very well the process that the legislature went through to draw these districts to not take race into account,” said Moore. “I think the fact that it took the Democrats so long to sue, frankly, shows that they didn’t have a case and they had to scratch around and create something to file a lawsuit.”

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