Ellmers back on campaign trail with eye on Lt. Gov. post

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SILER CITY — Renee Ellmers is back on the campaign trail.

Ellmers served three terms from 2011-2017 in the U.S. Congress representing North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District — which included Chatham at the time — and is one of several GOP candidates whose name will be on the primary ballot next March aiming to become North Carolina’s next lieutenant governor.

For the last couple of years, Ellmers — who stopped by the Chatham News + Record office in Siler City last week to discuss her campaign — has worked as a southeastern regional director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Atlanta, appointed to the post by the White House.

“In 2016, with the presidential race, I was a big supporter of President Trump,” she said. “I was the first woman in Congress to endorse him. And there weren’t a lot of folks in Washington, or around the country, who really thought he was going to win. But I stuck with him, through thick and thin. In turn, he gave me a political appointment to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.”

She found the work with DHHS to be a “fabulous job,” she said.

“But I was there in Atlanta,” she said, “watching some of the craziness happening out of Washington. For instance, the Judge (Brett) Kavanaugh hearings, what they put him through. So I started thinking how can I come back to North Carolina and really get some things done that we need to do in North Carolina and continue to be supportive of President Trump in elected office.”

In March, she announced plans to seek another elected office.

“I knew that [Lt. Gov.] Dan Forrest certainly was going to be running for governor,” she said, “and that he would have fulfilled two terms, so I started looking at running for lieutenant governor.”

The 55-year-old Ellmers, a registered nurse, says health care is a central issue in her campaign.

“Lieutenant governor,” Ellmers said, “is a great office to hold to leverage for certain issues that I believe we need to be concentrating more fully on, especially as Republicans, one of which is health care.”

Her background as an R.N., her experience in Congress “dealing with legislative issues” and her more recent experience with Health and Human Services “from an administrative perspective” position her, she said, to take on the lieutenant governor’s job and use the post to work towards improving health care for North Carolinians.

“I think a lot of people feel like the lieutenant governor seat is not one, as I’ve heard people express to me, of great power,” Ellmers said. “I really don’t look at it that way.”

She hopes to use the state post — second only to governor — to better address health care, an issue she said fellow Republicans “aren’t talking about enough.”

“Health care costs are too high,” she said, while “accessibility is too low. And we have to improve the quality of care. You hear a lot from hospitals. You hear a lot from insurance companies. There really isn’t anyone out there protecting and fighting for patients. I started realizing that the lieutenant governor, part of the Council of State, could really be that person.”

Ellmers continues to strongly align herself with President Trump.

“I believe wholeheartedly in border security,” she said. “I am a ‘Build the Wall’ girl.”

Of the president, she acknowledges some may question his “tone,” but she remains a fan.

“I love his results,” she said. “He’s getting results.”

A newcomer to the state’s political scene in 2010, Ellmers, who lives in Dunn, defeated seven-term Democratic incumbent Bob Etheridge in by 1,489 votes and thereafter served three consecutive terms in Congress. In the 2016 Republican primary, Ellmers was defeated by fellow Congressman George Holding. She said she wasn’t bitter, or angry, about the political defeat two years ago..

“I’m a big believer,” she said, “that God has a plan for all of us and that things happen for a reason.”

And she hasn’t considered another run for Congress, feeling that her voice “was drowned out” in Washington. She’s hoping to work towards her goals — which in addition to a strong focus on health care includes job creation and improving public education — at the state level.

“We’re already paying a lieutenant governor’s salary,” she said. “Why not increase the workload that the lieutenant governor can do?”

Managing Editor Randall Rigsbee can be reached at rigsbee@chathamnr.com.

Ellmers

Ellmers