NCGA: Sen. Bingham doubles down, says NCGOP definitely gave him dirt to use on primary opponent | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Brant Clifton discusses Republican establishment politics in his "bare knuckles" Conservative online publication known as The Daily Haymaker.

    We've got quite a kerfluffle going down in one Davidson County legislative race. State Senator Stan Bingham is locked in a primary fight for renomination. The senator recently earned statewide publicity for distributing a flier detailing his opponent's brushes with the law. Bingham let it slip to the media that NCGOP operatives made him aware of the information. A sternly worded but unsigned denial of Bingham's allegation went up on NCGOP's Facebook page.

    But Bingham is still standing by his story:

    [...] Bingham said he was made aware of the charges by the North Carolina Republican Party, which felt it was an issue that needed to be addressed. He also said he understands some people will not be happy about him distributing the flier.

    "I didn't look any of this up, it was brought to me from the GOP in Raleigh," Bingham said. "They think it is important and wanted to do something about it. I don't know if it will have a negative impact or not, but in an election you need to know as much as you can about the candidates."

    Amazing. We've been subjected to all kinds of lectures from Raleigh about not beating up on fellow Republicans. Save it for the Democrats in the general, we're told. But all kinds of details are leaking out about party officials aiding incumbents in GOP primaries.

    In addition to this, you've got an NCGOP staffer working as a campaign treasurer for one incumbent legislator fighting it out in a primary. The NCGOP executive director's campaign consulting firm — which he helped found — is involved in at least one primary race involving an incumbent GOP legislator. We heard stories from last election cycle about Speaker Thom Tillis lining up primary opponents for his fellow Republicans. Now, we have our senior US senator and our Republican governor openly taking sides in a hotly-contested GOP primary for US Senate.