CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The race for North Carolina’s open Senate seat between Republican Rep. Ted Budd and former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, has so far stayed consistently tight.
In a midterm election year when conventional wisdom suggests that Republicans are poised to win seats, Beasley is trying to keep her momentum heading into the final weeks of the campaign, while Republicans are hopeful Budd is pulling ahead. Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in the Tar Heel state since 2008, while Republicans need to hold onto the seat in an effort to win back control of the Senate.
“Taking into account all of the basic midterm election dynamics we think of, this should be an advantage Republican race. I think it still is, but the margin is just really tight,” Michael Bitzer, a politics professor at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., said. “Whether the polls are accurate depictions of that snapshot in time or whether something will break, potentially to help the Republicans build a little bit of a cushion by Nov. 8, we’ll just have to kind of wait and see.”
