Are Democrats sleeping on their chance to flip a Senate seat in North Carolina?

Democrats have not won a seat in North Carolina since 2008 and they might leave a strong candidate on the table, Eric Garcia reports

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Democrats are hoping that they can pull off a secret victory in North Carolina. They just need to get the national Democratic Party on board.

Former Senator Richard Burr is retiring at the end of this year. A former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he served three terms and last year voted to convict former president Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

The party nominated Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of North Carolina’s Supreme Court, to be its nominee in a largely conflict-free primary after state senator Jeff Jackson dropped out of the race.

Conversely, Mr Trump endorsed Representative Ted Budd instead of former representative Mark Walker and former governor Pat McCrory in the Republican primary.

North Carolina has a history of electing senators who often keep their head down but also deliver for the state. While two of its most famous senators might be Republican Jesse Helms, the right-wing firebrand who opposed civil rights and LGBTQ+ rights, and John Edwards, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee whose career ended in scandal when it was revealed he cheated on his wife when she had cancer, for the most part, it has preferred senators who remained out of the spotlight.

Pope McCorkle, a Democratic consultant and a professor at Duke University, told The Independent last month that both of the candidates are low-key in their own way.

“And both Beasley and Budd, or at least so far, have not been going that flamboyant route,” he said.

Mr Burr and Senator Thom Tillis both voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, while Mr Tillis and Texas Senator John Cornyn helped negotiate the bipartisan gun bill with Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Currently, Mr Tillis is in the middle of negotiations with senators about codifying same-sex marriage into law.

By contrast, Mr Budd voted to object to the 2020 presidential election results, opposed the infrastructure bill and same-sex marriage in the House. The owner of a gun shop, he voted against the bipartisan gun bill as well.

“Budd has got more of a thread of the needle in that he's trying to act like he's Richard Burr's fraternity brother, good guy, but yet, ‘I'm also a Trumper,’” Mr McCorkle said.

“He's got to stay Trumpist but he's also got to seem kind of like Burr and Tillis, like a little distant from him. So it's really tricky. And Beasley's got to find more votes.”

A statement from Kelci Hobson, a spokesperson from Ms Beasley’s campaign, highlighted her pragmatism and tried to paint Mr Budd as an extremist.

“There is a clear choice in this election as election-denying Congressman Budd continues to lead the charge on a national abortion ban with no exceptions, refuses to commit to upholding the election results of the Senate race, and cozies up to big pharmaceutical companies while voting against lowering prescription drug costs,” she said in a statement.

Democratic Senate candidate Cheri Beasley campaigns ahead of the midterms (Getty Images)

As a result, Mr Trump has campaigned for Mr Budd earnestly, as was the case when he visited Wilmington last month. But Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, told The Independent before the rally that Mr Trump was a benefit and a burden to Mr Budd.

“If Trump were to focus on inflation and Ding Biden on crime and Ding Beasley, I’d tell you fantastic,” he said. “He’s not going to do that.”

But while Mr Trump did mention his grievances about the 2020 presidential election, he also dinged Ms Beasley for her record on crime. Nonetheless, Mr Heye said that Mr Trump’s rallies don’t focus on the candidate.

“These events are Trump rallies,” he said. “They are not rallies for that candidate. The candidate will get on stage. Trump will hopefully say something nice.”

At the same time, despite being a staunch conservative, Mr Budd has not stood out in the way that other Republican Senate candidates like Dr Oz in Pennsylvania, JD Vance in Ohio, Blake Masters in Arizona, Herschel Walker in Georgia or even incumbent Senator Ron Johnson in Wisconsin have through making inflammatory remarks.

“These are quietly competent candidates, I think that’s part of it,” Chris Cooper, a professor at Western Carolina University, told The Independent earlier this month. In addition, he said that Democrats are focused on defending Senate seats in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and New Hampshire.

“So I think the Democrats feel like their money is better spent holding what they got than trying to gain, and because of that, Republicans have not responded with their own loud campaign,” he said.

But as a result, that has meant that many people have not paid as much attention to the North Carolina race, Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist, told The Independent in September.

“I think this is the big sleeper race of the cycle,” he said. “There's always one every cycle that people, when they tune in in October are like, ‘Oh my God, this race is dead even. It's very tight.’”

Republican candidate Ted Budd greets Donald Trump Jr as he campaigns for Senate In North Carolina (Getty Images)

Governor Roy Cooper nominated Ms Beasley to serve as chief justice, but in 2020, she narrowly lost her bid to win the seat by 401 votes in the same year that President Joe Biden lost the state, as did Cal Cunningham in his senate race against Mr Tillis. Shortly thereafter, she announced her run for Senate.

“I believe the fact this has been a sleeper of a race has accrued to Beasley's benefit because the race has not been nationalised the way some of these other races have been for the last three or four or five some six months,” Mr Jackson said.

At the same time, Republicans have poured money into the race. An analysis by AdImpact Politics found that the Senate Leadership Fund, which is aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has spent $34m in North Carolina in advertising. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has spent $5m on its own and spent $2m together with the Budd campaign.

Conversely, Senate Majority PAC, which affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has dropped only $13m and did not track any money from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Women Vote spent $3m on its own and $2m jointly with Senate Majority PAC. Still, Mr Schumer pledged to send $1m to North Carolina’s Senate race last month, Politico reported.

Democrats likely have not invested as much in the state as they have elsewhere since they still remember the heartburn of other tight races. In 2008, Senator Kay Hagan beat Elizabeth Dole the same year that Barack Obama became the first Democratic nominee to win the state since Jimmy Carter.

But Democrats have been on a losing streak ever since. In 2010, Mr Burr trounced Secretary of State Elaine Marshall. In 2014, Mr Tillis narrowly beat Ms Hagan. Then in 2016, Deborah Ross, now a congresswoman, lost by six points after the national Republican Party salvaged Mr Burr’s campaign the same year Donald Trump won the state.

In 2020, Senator Tillis narrowly beat former state senator Cal Cunningham by less than two points after it was Mr Cunningham had an affair with a woman. Mr Trump beat Mr Biden by slightly less than he beat Hillary Clinton but Mr Cooper, the Democratic governor, won re-election that year.

And there are signs that Democrats’ unwillingness to spend combined with Republicans’ onslaught of spending has had consequences. A new Eastern Carolina University poll released this week showed that Mr Budd’s lead grew from three percentage points to six points with Mr Budd at 50 per cent and Ms Beasley at 44 points. This came after months of polling showing the two locked in a tight race.

Mr Cooper said that Democrats might be ignoring the bigger picture though.

“The Democrats may be missing something is that yeah, they haven’t won in a while for the Senate race, but they have won gubernatorial elections,” he said. “Even when they’ve lost the presidency, it’s been by razor-thin margins. If North Carolina isn’t purple, then there’s no such thing as a purple state.”