A North Carolina Republican is attacking his Democratic opponent using a Daily Wire story that exposed Rep. Jeff Jackson hugging a convicted sex offender after receiving an LGBTQ award in 2022.
The ad is the latest development in Dan Bishop and Jackson’s contentious and high-profile race to be the state’s next attorney general. Bishop’s team is releasing the ad as part of a seven-figure statewide media buy in all major markets, The Daily Wire has learned.
“Child molester Chad Turner became one of Charlotte’s most notorious sex offenders,” the ad’s narrator says over a video of Jackson hugging Turner, first reported by The Daily Wire this month. “A few years later, Jeff Jackson accepted an award from him, and embraced Chad Turner.”
The ad then shows women watching the video of Jackson, reacting with comments such as, “This is wrong,” “everyone knew about this guy,” and “how could a mom of any child trust Jeff Jackson?”
“When it deals with children, there are no words,” says one of the women featured in the advertisement.
“I voted for Democrats before,” says a final woman. “I can’t vote for Jeff Jackson.”
“We frankly don’t know why Jeff Jackson embraced and accepted an award from a notorious sex offender,” a Bishop campaign spokesman told The Daily Wire. “It defies belief that Jackson somehow didn’t know – Chad Turner’s past has been a point of media and political controversy for nearly a decade.”
“Jeff Jackson likes to say in campaign ads he’s a ‘normal person.’ Sure, he seems pretty normal – aside from accepting awards from sex offenders at glitzy galas,” he added.
The Daily Wire published footage on Oct. 10 showing the December 13, 2022, Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce event where Jackson praised the work of LGBTQ activists on stage before embracing Turner, a registered sex offender and CEO of the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce.
Turner, who has not responded to requests for comment from The Daily Wire, was charged with three cases of lewd acts on minors under the age of 16. He accused the boys of lying, but authorities sentenced him to 10 years in prison after convicting him in July 2000 of fondling a 15-year-old boy.
He only served two years of this sentence, according to the Daily Mail, but remains a registered sex offender under the North Carolina Sex Offender and Public Protection Registry.
A Jackson spokesman previously told The Daily Wire that the congressman “did not know about an individual’s status,” and was simply given an award by a “local chamber of commerce for supporting economic development.” Jackson’s office did not say whether the congressman would return the award, or continue to work with the organization.
But Tami Fitzgerald, the executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, argued earlier this month that Jackson would certainly have known who Turner was, saying that his background was “common knowledge” in North Carolina political circles.
“This was common knowledge at the legislature, where Jackson served and carried water for Turner’s issues,” Fitzgerald told The Daily Wire. “It was also common knowledge and received widespread media attention in Jackson and Turner’s hometown of Charlotte. It is inconceivable that Jeff Jackson did not know.”
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