ELIZABETHTOWN, N.C. — Chris Council, a 53-year-old African American landscaper, is fired up about Democrat Dan McCready’s campaign for Congress.

“I’m not a betting man, but he’s going to win this race,” Council said after attending a McCready event in this 3,500-person town, the county seat of Bladen County, North Carolina.

Council is the kind of base Democratic voter McCready needs to turn out in the 9th District, where early voting begins Wednesday ahead of the Sept. 10 special election.

Bladen County has a special significance too. Along with nearby Robeson County, it was ground zero last year for a Republican ballot fraud scandal that resulted in the 9th District election being thrown out by state officials and a redo election, with a new GOP nominee, being ordered.

President Donald Trump carried the district by 11 points in 2016. When counting completed last fall, Republican Mark Harris led McCready by just 905 votes. Bladen was one of two counties Harris carried, but an unusually high percentage of registered voters had requested absentee ballots.