What was good news for Republicans in March — a record-breaking number of candidates vying for nomination to Democrat-held congressional seats — has become bad news this summer. The GOP has three congressional runoffs scheduled for June 22, a development that’s sure to drain resources and could dilute candidates’ strength in the general election.

One of those, the 8th Congressional District stretching from Charlotte to Fayetteville, is especially important because it’s one of five dozen competitive seats nationwide that could decide whether Republicans win control of the U.S. House from Democrats.

Raeford businessman Tim D’Annunzio, the top vote-getter in the May 4 primary, faces former sports broadcaster Harold Johnson. The winner will take on incumbent Rep. Larry Kissell, a freshman Democrat who benefited from President Barack Obama’s coattails in 2008.

In recent weeks, Republican leaders have denounced D’Annunzio as unelectable due to his checkered past, which includes drug use and run-ins with the law. North Carolina GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer went so far as to call D’Annunzio “unfit for public office” and the five Republican members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation have endorsed Johnson.

If D’Annunzio prevails, the party would be forced to concede the seat to Kissell, said GOP consultant Ballard Everett.

“You’ll have a lot of Republicans who will probably either support Kissell, more because they don’t support D’Annunzio, or they may not vote in that particular race,” he said.

Critics also see D’Annunzio’s religious views as a problem. In divorce records from 1995, his ex-wife claimed that D’Annunzio said he had found the Ark of the Covenant in Arizona.

At a press conference May 24, D’Annunzio refused to comment about his past and called on Fetzer to resign. But he reversed course two days later, extending an olive branch to GOP leaders and addressing questions about the allegations.

“I don’t fault anybody in the Republican Party,” he said. “I want these people to come back.”

Then, in another apparent reversal, D’Annunzio threatened to sue Fetzer for $5 million. Around a dozen D’Annunzio supporters gathered outside the GOP’s state headquarters Thursday to protest the party’s criticism of their candidate.

Michael Vasu, a political science professor at N.C. State University, said the race has morphed from an election into a conflict. “I think that the principal underlying reason is ideological,” he said, with D’Annunzio arguing he’s much more conservative than Johnson and is not beholden to the GOP establishment.

Friendly fire Down East

Meanwhile, in the neighboring 7th Congressional District, more Republican infighting has erupted. Ilario Pantano, an Iraq war veteran, won the primary with 51 percent of the vote, but runners up Will Breazeale and Randy Crow haven’t faded into the background.

At a press conference in May, Breazeale and Crow called on Pantano to step aside from the nomination, claiming that he couldn’t beat incumbent Democratic Rep. Mike McIntyre.

They questioned Pantano’s tenure at the Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs and pointed to an Iraqi shooting incident that Pantano was involved in. Pantano was cleared of murder charges.

In response, a group of Iraq war veterans called on Breazeale to return $1,000 in donations to his campaign. Breazeale, also an Iraq veteran who was the 7th District Republican nominee in 2008 and lost handily to McIntyre, said he wouldn’t return the cash.

Ballard said that Republicans are “circling the wagons and shooting inwards” when they need to be united.

“It’s a tough district to win because McIntyre appeals across the line,” he said. “He’s a very tough guy to defeat. The moment you start fighting amongst yourselves, you really give the advantage to him.”

Sleeper districts

Republicans also have runoffs in the 12th and 13th congressional districts, both considered safe for their Democrat incumbents.

In the 12th, Greg Dority came within about 700 votes shy of winner Scott Cumbie in the primary. Cumbie was just short of snagging 40 percent and avoiding a runoff. But Dority, who claimed 34 percent of the vote, still called for one.

Neither candidate lives inside the 12th District, an arrangement that’s legal under federal law. Cumbie hails from Winston-Salem, on the border of the district, and Dority lives hundreds of miles away in eastern North Carolina.

The winner will face Rep. Mel Watt, a Democrat who has represented the 12th since its creation after the 1990 census. The district follows the I-85 corridor from Charlotte to Greensboro.

In the 13th District — also represented by a Democrat, Brad Miller, since its formation after the 2000 census — Republicans Bill Randall and Bernie Reeves are in a tight runoff. The district covers the north-central part of the state.

Reeves came within 135 votes of Randall in the primary. Since then, the race has turned ugly as Reeves has leveled a charge of plagiarism against his opponent.

According to a blog post on his website, Reeves accused Randall of lifting his charter of principles from conservative journalist M. Stanton Evans and U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican from Massachusetts.

Randall acknowledged the plagiarism but said that a former campaign worker uploaded the information without his knowledge.

David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.