A North Carolina man running for Congress hit the jackpot this month after winning over $757,000 in the lottery, boosting his campaign’s coffers just weeks before voting starts.
Josh McConkey, an emergency doctor and U.S. Air Force Reserve Colonel who served in Iraq, announced his bid for Congress in February 2023.
He is running against nearly a dozen other Republicans for the seat and the major cash infusion, he says, could not have come at a better time.
‘This is divine intervention,’ McConkey told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview this week. ‘There’s there’s no other way to explain it, the timing is just absolutely perfect.’
‘I don’t play the lottery a lot. I’m literally just filling up with gas and look up in the window and say, ‘hey, you should buy some tickets.”
‘This happened for a reason,’ he continued. ‘I don’t believe in luck.’
Early voting beings on February 15, and McConkey was awarded the $757,000 prize on February 2.
Josh McConkey won $750,000 in the North Carolina lottery and told DailyMail.com that he plans on using his winnings to fund his campaign for Congress

McConkey is a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves and served as a flight surgeon in Iraq
The flight surgeon is running as a Republican for North Carolina’s 13th District, encompassing many of the neighborhoods south of Raleigh.
The area, currently represented by Democrat Rep. Wiley Nickel, was recently redistricted and now heavily favors the GOP.
‘Literally God is reaching out and giving me the opportunity to get out my message of security, safety and service,’ he told DailyMail.com.
The doctor was on his way to drop off his son at gymnastics practice when he pulled over to fill up with gas on January 31.
At the pump there was a bright LED sign that said the lottery prize was close to $800,000.
So the physician decided to purchase a ticket online.
That following evening, he received an email telling him he had won, and that he needed to log in and fill out some forms.
‘There’s no way I’m gonna click on that link,’ he recalled thinking, assuming it was a scam.

McConkey works as a physician emergency medicine, where he deals with fentanyl overdose patients frequently

After moving to North Carolina in 2012, McConkey served at a veterans hospital and as an assistant professor at Duke University
After calling over his wife, Elsa, to confirm what he was seeing, they were both in disbelief, he told DailyMail.com.
The next morning Elsa went to drop off the kids and McConkey went to the lottery claim center.
After confirming his identity to the lottery employees, they led him to a secured room and handed him an oversized check worth $757,577.
McConkey, who works primarily in emergency rooms, told DailyMail.com he is running for office to put an end to put an end to the fentanyl crisis that has killed tens of thousands of Americans in recent years, and hundreds of his own patients.
‘This Biden administration’s failures get dumped on me every single day,’ he said. ‘As an emergency physician, I am the one that looks at these parents in the face and tells them that their son or daughter has died.’
‘I’m running to secure the border and stop kids from dying because I see it every day,’ he added.
The Republican primary election for North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District will take place on March 5.
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