From the start, the Republican primary race between businesswoman Holly Grange and conservative activist and New Hanover County Board of Education member Tammy Covil has been a heated one.
Each candidate says she is a better choice to represent District 20, which covers a portion of New Hanover County.
Two-term Republican Rep. Rick Catlin decided not to seek re-election in the district, which the election monitoring organization North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation lists as strongly Republican.
Early in the race, Covil raised questions through an email sent to Grange about her family business, Osprey Global Solutions, which surfaced in the congressional Benghazi committee investigating Hillary Clinton’s handling of the U.S. consulate terrorist attack.
U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the special Benghazi committee, has said Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal pushed the then-secretary of state for greater military intervention in Libya, while simultaneously advocating a deal to grant Osprey a military contract with a transitional government after the fall of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with this race,” said Grange, a lawyer and 15-year Army veteran. “I think this is something she brought up to discredit me, and question my service to this country.”
Covil said she is not questioning Grange’s service to her country. Instead, she questions Grange’s apparent ties to a questionable business relationship that was part of the Benghazi investigation.
“Trey Gowdy inserted the Granges’ company into this,” said Covil.
Covil’s email is “totally without merit. Sidney Blumenthal has no connection, no financial interest in this company,” said Grange. “I think she is just grasping at straws because she is not comfortable she will win on the issues.”
Grange said unlike Covil, she is a “pro-business” candidate, and wants to improve “transportation infrastructure, curtail unnecessary regulation[s], and provide more efficiency in government services, as well as continue to reform the tax code, and keep taxes competitive with neighboring states.”
Covil, citing her experience in raising four children, sees this as an opportunity to “bring her experience, and knowledge, and leadership on education issues to Raleigh.
“Parental involvement is the key to closing the achievement gap. We have got to rebuild the family,” said Covil. “That’s the only way we are going to see success, and the closing of that achievement gap.”
Both candidates agree education is “top-heavy,” and should be decentralized from so much state control to more authority at the local level.
“We need to do something about the mushrooming” of state-level bureaucrats, said Covil. “They are making it more difficult for teachers to do their jobs. When it comes to allocating funding, more of the decisionmaking should be done at the local level.”
Grange said more money should go towards teacher salaries.
“To retain good teachers, we have to have competitive wages. Teachers should get merit pay for their performance as well,” Grange said.
Instead of merit pay for teachers, Covil said, she is more in favor of bonuses because merit pay is extremely difficult to quantify.
“If we could come up with a way that we could quantify it in a reliable manner, I could be supportive of it. I haven’t seen it yet,” Covil said.
Covil takes a free-market approach to school vouchers and school choice.
“Anytime you have a monopoly over anything, you’re not customer centered. The more opportunity you can provide to our customers, which is our students, the more customer centered you will be,” Covil said.
Both candidates criticized North Carolina’s failed Common Core standards.
“We don’t need a one-size-fits-all. The teachers did not have the resources to implement it properly,” said Grange.
Grange and her husband David have two children. She is director of community relations at Osprey Global Solutions, and serves on several local nonprofit boards. She is a certified NRA instructor in basic pistol, basic rifle, and personal protection in the home.
“I am one those people who thinks it’s best to be very involved in your community rather than be a spectator,” Grange said.
Covil is a Wilmington native, and small business owner. She and husband Tommy are the parents of four children. She has spent many years volunteering in various community organizations.
Barring a write-in or unaffiliated candidate in the Nov. 8 general election, the primary winner will fill the seat outright because no Democrats filed to run.