Known for its textile industry, North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District is now weaving a tight political race between incumbent Rep. Larry Kissell (D) and former sports broadcaster Harold Johnson (R).

According to a Public Policy Poll taken in mid-June, Kissell led Johnson at 41-35 percent. Since the poll, Johnson’s campaign has built up some steam after defeating businessman Tim D’Annunzio with 61 percent of the vote in the Republican Primary run-off election. Since then, political pundits such Charlie Cook and Larry Sabato changed their projections of this race from leaning Democratic to a toss-up.

The race gained further high profile status when national figures in the Republican Party such as U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney endorsed and financially supported Johnson.

“We’ve gotten great support from every corner of the Republican Party, from national leaders to tea party activists. Just earlier this week, Mitt Romney gave us $2,500 along with four other great North Carolina Republican candidates,” said Johnson.

Some GOP members from North Carolina gave support to Johnson during the Republican run-off election out of their disapproval for opponent D’Annunzio, who was viewed as a nontraditional Republican. In fact, state GOP chair Tom Fetzer called D’Annunzio “unfit for public office.”

Kissell has raised an estimated three times the amount of funding as his Republican adversary; he has over $300,000 in his war chest. Kissell’s staff noted that the congressman has kept his campaign local, receiving support from only Democrats within the state. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has attacked Johnson for his silence on whether or not he would stand with North Carolina families or Wall Street and special interest groups, arguing that he would encourage risky financial behavior that would cause another financial crisis.

In the past 10 years, Kissell, a former social studies teacher and textile worker, is the only Democrat to be seated in District 8, winning by a 10-point margin in 2008 against incumbent Robert Hayes (R), who held the seat for four terms. In every race in the past decade, the victor failed to win by a margin greater than 10.

Kissell’s staff is confident that he can prevail again, even without having Obama on the ticket, which boosted voter turnout by 20 percent in 2008. Kissell’s campaign manager Christopher Schuler noted that Kissell outperformed Obama in District 8 in the 2008 election.

“Congressmen Kissell has a record since arriving in Washington to vote for the people of his District and not for his party,” said Schuler.

Kissell has voted with the Democratic Party 96.3 percent of the time — above the Democratic average of 92.3 percent. He received national attention when he decided not to vote in support of the Obama-backed health-care bill.

“He (Kissell) agrees that we need to reform the system to make health care more available for people like you and me, but he was unwilling to make cuts to Medicare,” said Schuler.

Both candidates agree that the constituents of the district are most concerned with job security.

“I respect my opponent, but the fact is he isn’t getting his job done,” Johnson said. “He also voted for and supported the stimulus deal, which I oppose; $164 million in stimulus money has been spent in the 8th District but only created 150 jobs, most of them temporary.”

“It will be a goal of mine to help the disaffected people across the district and bring new industry to the 8th District,” added Johnson.

Schuler noted that Kissell plans to work on creating legislation that will protect textile workers in the district in order to re-energize the textile industry and expand the green sector economy.

“As a former textile worker for 27 years and a teacher he can identify with the people of the district and he plans on working on getting this district back on track,” added Schuler.

(Photo: Flickr Creative Commons/isafmedia; voteharoldjohnson.com)