The Senate race in North Carolina may well be one of the most competitive of the 2022 midterms. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) isn't running for reelection and the state routinely hosts some of the closest statewide races in the country.
But Democrats biggest challenge? Convincing national groups to give it the same kind of attention as other hotly contested Senate races have received.
North Carolina Democrats are pleading with outside groups to spend more heavily in the race, fearing that they're squandering one of their best chances at flipping a Republican-held seat this year.
Democrat Cheri Beasley, a former state Supreme Court chief justice, is deadlocked in polling against Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), the Republican nominee. And she's outraising him significantly.
Still, Republican groups have poured in millions of dollars more than Democratic ones. While Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), has made a seven-figure investment in the state, the group has spent far less than its Republican counterpart, the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), which has already reserved more than $27 million worth of ads this fall.
At the same time, Democrats are bracing for a new wave of Republican spending from MAGA Inc., a new super PAC formed by allies of former President Trump. Budd, you'll recall, was endorsed by Trump early on in his primary campaign.
One thing that may be holding Democratic outside groups back? Time and again, the party has come close to notching big wins in the state but fallen short. In 2020, for instance, Trump carried the state for a second time in a row, while Democratic Senate nominee Cal Cunningham narrowly lost to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) after facing a high-profile sex scandal.
But Democrats also say Beasley's campaign is different. She's played up her credentials as an impartial former judge unafraid to break with her party when necessary, and if elected in November, she would become the state's first Black senator.
Budd, meanwhile, hasn't been subjected to the same kind of scrutiny as other Republican Senate candidates. While he's staked out hard-right positions on everything from abortion access to election integrity, he hasn't suffered from any major gaffes and is seen as being more disciplined on the stump.
Democrats, however, say that it would be unwise to give Budd a pass. He voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election and has declined to say whether he would accept the results of this year's election. He also signed on as a co-sponsor to a House bill introduced earlier this month that seeks to ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
"Ted Budd is just plain vanilla," Bruce Thompson, a longtime North Carolina Democratic consultant, said. "He seems like a nice guy when you talk to him so therefore he hasn't gotten in trouble with sound bites. But there's a voting record, and I think Democrats need to do a better job at getting that out there."
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