In the North Carolina Senate race, Democratic groups are outspending Republican groups going down the stretch by almost 2-1. According to the AP, the DSCC and Senate Majority PAC, Hagan allies, have reserved $11.8 million for the duration of the campaign. In contrast, GOP groups have $6.8 million, with Karl Rove’s group Crossroads GPS making up $5.7 million of that total.
The disparity is the largest in any competitive state except Louisiana, where Republicans are outpacing Democrats by a similar margin. Money spent by the candidates is not figured into that equation. In June, Kay Hagan had more than 5 times as much money cash-on-hand as Thom Tillis. Money can be moved around and Republicans might put more money into North Carolina.
However, outside groups have been pounding Hagan for a year now and haven’t taken her out. In a political environment that should be favoring Republicans, she’s proven remarkably resilient. Throughout September, polls have consistently shown Hagan maintaining a small but significant lead over Tillis. The latest, released yesterday, showed her with a four-point advantage.
Tillis and the Republicans have yet to find a message that resonates. Instead, they’ve been on the defensive. North Carolina is unusual in that the legislature is almost as unpopular as Congress and more unpopular than Obama. As Speaker of the House, Tillis has had difficulty putting distance between himself and his day job.
Hagan, for her part, has stuck to her message. She’s a moderate Democrat in a highly partisan body. She’s stood up to the president when she needed to and sided with him when it was in the best interests of North Carolina. So far, it’s worked.
The dynamic is getting set. The environment is much less fluid than it was even a few weeks ago. As Roll Call political analyst Stu Rothenberg said this week, “many Republicans are growing skeptical that Tillis can overtake the incumbent.” The national GOP seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach. If Tillis can’t make headway in the next couple of weeks, watch for the outside groups to start shifting money into other states.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Yup, Squirrel-Face is starting to look like a financial black hole. People seem resigned to Hagan as The Lesser of Two Weasels, which is probably unfair to Hagan, since she’s one of the most moderate voices in the Senate. Tillis has run an ineffectual, tone-deaf campaign, with is consistent with his aggressive, arrogant, and tone-deaf approach to running the House of Representatives. His tenure in the NCGA is a serious albatross around his neck, but picking fights with schools and UNC certainly didn’t help, either.
Tillis is certainly dropping money in my district on mailers, but honestly, do any of you folks read those things? In the current hyper-partisan atmosphere, the universe of persuadable voters that you can reach with junk mail has to be rather small. It’s getting consistently more difficult to reach voters under retirement age by television as well, although I have had to mute a few Tillis ads on youtube lately.