Richard Burr finally has a challenger. Except it’s not a Democrat. Instead, it’s someone who plans to challenge the incumbent senator from the right – Paul Wright, to be exact.

Wright might be a familiar name to voters in the 4th congressional district. He was the Republican challenger to Rep. David Price in 2014. In a pre-election interview, Price remarked that his opponent had been “invisible” so if you don’t remember him, that’s why. (Not that visibility would have helped him much in the heavily Democratic 4th.) Before that, he ran for the Republican nomination for governor, winning a scattering of votes in a contest easily won by Pat McCrory.

So even though Wright is a former State Superior Court judge and not a “some random guy”, he looks more like a perennial candidate than a serious threat to Burr. The only “serious” threat to Burr (with a very loose definition of serious) would probably be from Mark Meadows, the anti-establishment congressman who wants to remove Boehner from the speakership. But Meadows has already ruled out a run, he and Burr are on good terms, and a poll from PPP found Burr crushing Meadows in a hypothetical primary race.

Thus, Burr has nothing to worry about in a primary. So why do we care? The percentage Burr gets in the primary should tell us a little bit about what trouble he’s in, if any. In 2010, Burr was renominated over some no-names with 80% of the vote. Typically, anything below that indicates discontent with the party. One overlooked result from the 2014 primary was Kay Hagan’s weak performance (77%) with Democrats – which should have been an indication that for conservative Democrats, Hagan and Obama were one and the same. Sure enough, in the general, Hagan’s numbers in counties where conservative Democrats dominated looked similar to Obama’s.

It will be particularly interesting to compare Burr’s performance with McCrory’s. Neither are Tea Party firebrands but I’m guessing Burr will do better, as it seems groups on the right are just as unmotivated about taking on our senior senator as the Democrats.

A serious threat to Burr from the right is almost certainly not in the works. But a contested primary, regardless of the credibility of some of the entrants, can tell us a lot about how voters feel about an incumbent. A party only weakly unified behind Richard Burr could provide an opening for his eventual Democratic challenger.

John Wynne

John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.