RALEIGH — After a few months of rumor and speculation, Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop (NC-08) officially announced his campaign for North Carolina attorney general during an Aug. 3 interview on WBT Radio.
Bishop, who turned 59 this past July, is the second Republican to announce a run for the spot. Former state legislator Tom Murry announced his campaign in February.
“My pledge to the people of North Carolina is simple,” said Bishop in his campaign announcement. “I will stand beside local law enforcement, District Attorneys, and victim’s advocates to defend, not defund, the rule of law for all North Carolinians.”
Bishop’s announcement on the radio was followed by a press release noting that the last time the state had elected a Republican attorney general was over 125 years ago; Zeb Walser in 1896.
The Charlotte-area congressman already has a big endorsement behind him: Club for Growth, which also endorsed him in his race against Democrat Dan McCready.
“Dan Bishop is the conservative champion that the people of North Carolina deserve as Attorney General,” Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh said in the group’s official endorsement statement. “Congressman Bishop is a strong supporter of free markets, school choice, and is a leading voice in the U.S. House of Representatives pushing back against the Biden Administration’s radical agenda. We look forward to providing the necessary support to ensure Bishop becomes North Carolina’s next Attorney General.”
The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) also has endorsed Bishop.
“Dan Bishop has spent his entire tenure in public office fighting for conservative values,” said RAGA Chairman and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall. “At a time when Washington bureaucrats and the Biden Administration are trampling on our rights and subverting the legal process, we need to add strong fighters like Dan Bishop to our ranks so we can continue restoring the balance between the states and federal government.”
Prior to running for Congress, Bishop served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from Jan. 2015 to Jan. 2017 representing the 104th District of Mecklenburg County. He then was elected to serve in state Senate District 39 for two terms, from Jan. 2017 through mid-Sept. 2019 when he won a special congressional election to the U.S. House of Representatives, beating McCready with 50.7% of the vote.
Bishop is recognized as one of the primary authors of House Bill 2, which reversed an ordinance created by the Charlotte City Council that made all bathroom and locker room facilities, both public and private, open to members of the opposite sex based on an individual’s chosen “gender identity.” Mainstream media outlets ran with the label by opponents for the bill, calling it “the bathroom bill.”
In an interview, North State Journal asked Bishop why he would leave Congress for a state-level position. He said people often seem surprised he would leave Congress to run for a state office, but he thinks the question should be asked in reverse.
“Why would you stay in a Washington that’s stuck in a status quo and is proving repeatedly unable to solve big problems?” Bishop asked. “I’ve come to believe that strengthening the states is our path to saving the country.”
An attorney by trade with three decades of experience, Bishop describes himself as a “tenacious litigator, handling complex commercial cases.” As noted in his campaign release, that work put him on the Business NC’s “Legal Elite” ten times and was named a “Super Lawyer” seven times.
“I’m on the Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee in Washington,” Bishop said, adding that was the “area that I focused on” but that he looks forward to getting back to fully using his legal training.
“I don’t believe in hiding from anybody,” Bishop responded when asked if he would bring more transparency than the past two occupants of the state’s attorney general’s office, Gov. Roy Cooper and current Attorney General Josh Stein.
“I’m glad to talk to whoever. I’ll talk to somebody who wants to be a critic or I’ll talk to somebody who wants to be helpful equally,” said Bishop. “And I do think transparency in government is another respect in which I think we politicians tend to lose – The key notion that the government belongs to the people; activities of government should be completely open to the people. They’re not a private forum for elected officials.”
Murry has also hit Attorney General Josh Stein on his record, stating, “For nearly eight years, our state has had an attorney general who has put his political ambitions first rather than defending the rule of law.”
When asked what his priorities would be should he be elected, Bishop said, “Justice impartially, which is what we’re supposed to do.”
He went on to say supporting district attorneys and law enforcement officers was a priority because those groups “do not feel supported by the attorney general today,” and he is “going to correct that.”
Bishop said another focus would be on a “national scale.”
“The attorneys state attorneys general over the last 20 years or so have become a real focal point of the means to stop or limit overreach by federal agencies and federal administrations,” said Bishop. “And I intend to be a thought leader and full participant in teamwork with other state AGs in the country to continue and expand that role.”
A native North Carolinian, Bishop has been happily married to his wife Jo for 25 years and their son, Jack, is following in his father’s footsteps by pursuing a law degree.
