Mark Harris
RepublicanU.S. Representative, NC-8| Age | 60 (b. 1966-04-24) |
| Gender | Male |
| In office since | 2025-01-03 (~1 yrs) |
| Race / ethnicity | White |
| Religion | Baptist (Southern Baptist; ordained pastor) |
| Education | BA in political science, Appalachian State University; M.Div. and D.Min., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary |
| Prior occupation | Baptist pastor (Senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Charlotte; later lead pastor at Trinity Baptist Church, Mooresville); former president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina |
| Military service | No |
| Birthplace | Winston-Salem, North Carolina |
| Marital status | Married — Beth Harris |
| Children | 3 |
| Residence | Charlotte, North Carolina |
| Notable relatives | Son John Harris, an assistant U.S. attorney, testified at the 2019 state hearing into the 2018 NC-9 election |
Pending research: languages · openly lgbtq.
Career & politics
| First elected | 2024 |
| Committees | Committee on Agriculture · Committee on Education and the Workforce · Committee on the Judiciary |
| Caucuses | Freedom Caucus |
| Ideology | Member of the House Freedom Caucus; describes himself as a social and fiscal conservative |
Financial
| Beaten Path Road property, Mooresville/Iredell County, NC | real_estate · $500,001–$1,000,000 · 2023 |
| E and V Harris Properties, LLC (25% interest), Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, NC | business_owned · 2023 |
| Apple Inc. (held via managed mutual fund) | stock · 2023 |
| Bank of America Corp. (held via managed mutual fund) | stock · 2023 |
| Exxon Mobil Corp. (held via managed mutual fund) | stock · 2023 |
Scandals & crimes ledger
resolved — 2018 NC-9 election decertified for absentee-ballot fraud; new election ordered
Harris led Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District in November 2018, but the State Board of Elections refused to certify the result amid evidence that a paid operative Harris's campaign hired, Leslie McCrae Dowless, ran an illegal absentee-ballot harvesting scheme in Bladen and Robeson counties. After a multi-day evidentiary hearing in February 2019 - during which Harris's son John Harris testified he had warned his father about Dowless - the five-member board voted unanimously on February 21, 2019 to order a new election. Harris, who said a recent illness affected his testimony, agreed a new election was warranted and did not run in it. Harris was never criminally charged; on July 15, 2020 Wake County DA Lorrin Freeman announced there was insufficient evidence to support a criminal case against him. Dowless (a separate individual) was indicted on state ballot-fraud and federal Social Security fraud charges; he pleaded guilty to federal financial crimes and the remaining charges were dropped when he died in April 2022.