Who Did Trump Endorse in CD 6?

 

Trump's new find

Donald Trump announced his endorsement on Wednesday of his favored candidate in North Carolina's 6th Congressional District. It wasn't Mark Walker, the ex-congressman who ran for US Senate last year and lost to Trump endorsee Ted Budd. And it wasn't Bo Hines, the Madison Cawthorn wannabe whom Trump endorsed in 2022 for the seat in the 13th Congressional District. Both Walker and Hines are announced candidates in CD 6.

No, Trump endorsed one Addison McDowell, who Danielle Battaglia reported wasn't even an announced candidate on Wednesday.

Born and raised in Davidson County, [McDowell] worked on Rep. Richard Hudson’s 2016 campaign and then from 2017 to 2019 in Sen. Ted Budd’s congressional office, while Budd served in the U.S. House representing the same area of the state .... McDowell currently is registered as a lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield.

How Trump and McDowell got together could be an interesting love story. Did they "meet cute"? How did the romance blossom? "McDowell visited Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida to meet with the ex-president on Tuesday, campaign adviser Jonathan Felts said." 

The most devastated collateral damage of the Trump-McDowell elopement ... young Bo Hines, who was counting on getting the Trump rose himself.

Battaglia reports that McDowell has hired the hard-driving veteran operative named above, Jonathan Felts. The Felts resume is impressive. He ran the Bush-Cheney campaign in North Carolina in 2004 and then worked for Bush in the White House. In 2023 after Budd won his Senate seat, he hired Felts as his transition manager. Felts has also been a policy whisperer for Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt.

One naturally wonders if that was the conduit for getting McDowell under Trump's nose: McDowell to Felts to Budd to Trump.