GOP’s Bishop wins NC special election

(AP) – Conservative Republican Dan Bishop has won a special election for an open House seat in North Carolina, averting a demoralizing Democratic capture of a district the GOP has held for nearly six decades.

But Bishop’s narrow victory over centrist Democrat Dan McCready didn’t erase questions about whether President Donald Trump and his party’s congressional candidates face troubling headwinds approaching 2020.

Bishop is a state senator best known for a North Carolina law dictating which public bathrooms transgender people can use. He tied himself tightly to Trump, who staged an election-eve rally for him, and Tuesday’s voting seemed no less than a referendum on the president.

Trump quickly took credit for the triumph, proclaiming a “BIG NIGHT FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY” on Twitter.