This sneaky-close race is likely to swing control of the SenateControl of the Senate may come down to the ultimate toss-up state, North Carolina, where former Judge Cheri Beasley and Republican Rep. Ted Budd are locked in an incredibly close race that has been overshadowed by mudslinging and hand-wringing in other marquee matchups.
Ms. Beasley, a Democrat, is the first Black woman to serve as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. She also counts herself as one of the “flippable five” who could pad the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the upper chamber of Congress.
The other four races feature Republican incumbents fighting to hold seats in Wisconsin and Florida and untested challengers running in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“I’m joining forces with Mandela Barnes, Val Demings, John Fetterman and Tim Ryan as ‘The Flippable Five’ to make sure that we get this done in November,” Ms. Beasley’s campaign said in a September fundraising pitch. “Our races are Democrats’ five best chances to flip a seat this year, and each of us is fully committed to ending the filibuster and making the Senate work for families across this country.”
Ms. Beasley will have to defeat Mr. Budd, a Republican who has represented the state’s 13th Congressional District since 2017 and cleared the primary field this year with an assist from former President Donald Trump, who won North Carolina in both of his presidential campaigns.
The candidates are vying to replace Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican who is retiring after three terms.
The race hasn’t received much national attention. It doesn’t have the eyebrow-raising negativity of the contest in Pennsylvania, where Mr. Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee, have fought over the correct name for a plate of raw vegetables and whether the Democrat’s recent stroke is off-limits for debate.
North Carolina will attract eyeballs in the final months of the campaign. Both candidates are fighting for every inch of support after a Civitas poll found that Mr. Budd and Ms. Beasley each received 42.3% support.
“It’s a dead heat. There are, of course, many races every cycle where candidates are within the margin of error, but I don’t recall anywhere the candidates have polled with the exact same number,” said Christopher A. Cooper, a politics professor at Western Carolina University. “At least in terms of the polling, it doesn’t get any closer than this.”................
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/sep/15/dead-heat-nc-race-could-swing-control-us-senate/
