RALEIGH — A newly elected Republican congressman in North Carolina says President Donald Trump called to congratulate him on his victory.
Republican Greg Murphy won by a comfortable margin Tuesday in the coastal 3rd Congressional District over Democrat Allen Thomas, a former mayor of Greenville. Murphy will succeed the late Rep. Walter Jones Jr., whose death in February led to the special election.
Murphy said Trump called him Tuesday to say he “loves eastern North Carolina and looks forward to us working together to help the region.”
Murphy is a state House member who survived a 17-candidate Republican primary in April and a July runoff. Jones died in February after 24 years in Congress.
The GOP-leaning district extends from the Virginia border and Outer Banks to the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune, and inland to Greenville. President Donald Trump won the district vote comfortably in 2016, and Murphy said at a Trump rally that he would have the “president’s back” if elected.
Thomas had questioned Murphy’s “blind loyalty” to Trump.
