are not previously made gains in the suburbs of dallas or houston or oklahoma city or charleston or salt lake city. this is one of those seats. this is a tough seat for democrats. there are only four democrats in the house in districts that trump won by a bigger margin than he won north carolina nine. it starts in the suburbs, but it extends to the rural communities where the president is much stronger and even the suburban part of it has been the most republican remaining area in the charlotte suburbs. so if you see this kind of district go down for republicans, much like the conor lamb seat, remember that pennsylvania special election, it would be a sign of a pretty broad suburban recoil from the president. you would start to see words like floodgates opening is what you would see. yes. now the flip side of this is ron is that the republican dan bishop, and you heard president trump talking about it, trying to tie to nancy pelosi, calling
ninth district by 12 points in 2016. dan mccready, i m the democrat running. reporter: democrat dan mccready has been campaigning for more than two years. my wife and we had three when we started 27 months ago, we have four now. reporter: mccready lost to republican mark harris by 905 votes. the state s board of elections refused to against a political operative working for the republican s campaign. we saw what we know now was the largest case of election fraud in modern day american history. let me tell you the easy thing to do when we saw that would have been to throw in the towel. i chose to fight. mr. president, we re not tired of winning. reporter: bishop is betting that doubling down on the trump agenda will bring him a victory in this conservative leaning
him an extreme radical leftist. i think it s important, this is a district that divides between suburban, ex-urban and rural. you have a piece of it that s in mecklenburg county where the democrats made big gains from 2016 to 2018. then the next county out is a kind of classic county called union county where democrats made more modest gains. if you see those reversed in this result, i think it would be a sign that particularly in these kind of outer reach districts for democrats, that message of pinning the party as radical are able to hold some of those traditionally republican white collar suburbanites. mccready is trying to run the 2018 play book, put his head down, avoid these big fights and focus as much as possible on bread and butter issues, particularly health care. we did hear the president talk about religion suggesting the democrats weren t so much
district. so in district nine, is a vote for dan bishop a vote for donald trump? i certainly will go to washington and work very aggressively to help president trump. reporter: the campaigns and outside groups have combined to spend millions on television, a sign of how high both parties view the stakes heading into 2020. our family can t afford dan bishop. reporter: mccready a former marine and self-described political moderate admits that some of the debates playing out in his party s presidential primary pose a challenge for him in the district, especially as tv ads. dan mccready, a liberal backed by radicals. reporter: his opponent and the president attempt to paint him as an ultraliberal. do you think like you re running against dan bishop or donald trump? i m running against donald trump. unfortunately for him he s not running against a socialist.
avoid what they see could be a litmus test for 2020. it s the final race of 2018. we got a chance to change this country, and that s why we re here today. and while north carolina s ninth district do-over election may technically be dan versus dan, it also poses an early 2020 test for president trump. a vote for any democrat tomorrow in north carolina is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the american dream. reporter: at an election eve rally for republican candidate dan bishop, the president making it clear that tuesday s results are about more than one election. tomorrow we take the first steps to firing speaker pelosi and winning back the house in 2020. the gop putting a lot of time and money into winning this reliably republican seat. president trump carried the