It seems Kay Hagan is making some tentative moves. Last week, the North Carolina Senate Democrats sent out an invitation for a fundraiser with Hagan as the headliner. Political prognosticator Charlie Cook says that if she runs, the race will start out as toss up. And rumor has it that she requested a poll by the DSCC.
Cook is probably right if money is the main consideration–and it probably is at this stage in the cycle. Hagan raised a pile of money in her unsuccessful 2014 re-election campaign. In addition, incumbent Richard Burr is still relatively undefined. A recent Elon University poll showed his job approve at 32% positive, 34% negative and 33% unknown.
However, Burr’s anonymity has also been his strength. As another prognosticator, Stu Rothenburg, points out, he’s never been flashy but he’s always been savvy. He’s kept a low profile but he’s made very few political mistakes and Burr comes across as moderate in both his demeanor and his politics. There’s not much to hate about him, even if there’s not a whole lot to love. Finding an emotional punch against him will be difficult and GOP groups are already running warm and fuzzy ads to shore up his standing.
Hagan, in many ways, is like Burr. She never had a big profile as a Senator. She did her job, did it competently, and kept her head down. However, GOP groups and the Thom Tillis campaign spent around $50 million last year driving up her negatives and, according to some polls, they are still painfully high. Starting a campaign with an approval rating underwater by double digit is a pretty deep hole.
However, the Senate race will probably be third fiddle in North Carolina. The presidential and gubernatorial contests will take the lead. Presidential politics always set the tone of an election year and North Carolina Democrats believe they have a candidate in Attorney General Roy Cooper who can take out incumbent Governor Pat McCrory. Two less than inspiring candidates could leave the Senate race as afterthought.
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 >
This donor won’t be sending her another dime.
Hagan was the honorary co-Chair of the Third Way – that totally disqualifies her from anything needing a humane person. She is a DINO Blue Dog! And, she is not going to change at this stage. And, looks like she went out of her way to estrange (means piss off) the African American community, 20+% of the Democratic community in NC. She is a banker and lawyer, a poisonous combination, coupled her closeness to the sclerotic pack pack of Royalists and Tories who have wrecked the NC Democratic Party over the past 30 plus years, including all her mentors and buddies, such as Hunt. Hagan again, rather have a tooth canal without anesthesia. Also, Hagan listened to her rich friends at Lillians and otherwise and moved her campaign to Wake County to punish NCDP to keep it from getting a few shekels from the Combined Campaign for 2014. Democrat, not on your life!!!
I wrote my own name in when it came to Hagan. I didn’t need to see anything from Tillis to be furious at Hagan for her Bipartisanship, and the endorsement of the Keystone Pipeline.
NC has so many hogs the renewable natural gas captures engineered by NC State researchers out does the pipeline!
There are the yams made for conversion to biofuel the military jets can burn. None of this grand happier possible future mentioned.
These renewables offer more jobs.
Hagan had the opportunity to show NC to the nation as a technology leader. NC State has a reputation now rivaling MIT. If she doesn’t know this, and what it means, it must be there is someone at NC State to blame. It is too much to expect her or anyone on her staff to find out such things for themselves.
Is Kay Hagan in Beltway heaven, a cog in the echo chamber that gives us nothing to cheer for?
It is then the horror of Tillis, and Burr, to be the reason only for such empty suits seated. US Democracy fails us because of the quality of the people elected. Mediocrities rise to the top day after day.
I believe something else was imagined.
‘and GOP groups are already running warm and fuzzy ads to shore up his standing’
That’s because his standing has sagged in his own Party, at least amongst the activists. But unless and until Democrats can find a SERIOUS challenger, he’ll coast.
Come on… Kay Hagan, again. Well I guess Burr draws Elaine Marshall 2.0 in 2016. Damn shame Democrats cannot field anyone better. I voted against Tillis but I want do that again in 2016. I will join a lot of Democrats and skip that line and move on down to other races.