Most other years, it would have been a close race. This year, Republicans took it easily. Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) defeated Democrat Cheri Beasley Tuesday in the election for North Carolina’s open Senate seat.
Budd entered Election Day a solid favorite, but Democrats held out hope for a surprise. Ultimately, however, the election current was too much for Beasley.
Budd was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in the state’s contentious Republican primary but has since run a remarkably low-key campaign. After the primary, Budd notably distanced himself from Trumpian politics, but still ran a heavily conservative campaign on abortion, crime, and the economy.
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That approach could be significantly different from North Carolina’s most recent Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, who’ve struck a more moderate tone in representing the state. Tillis in recent years emerged as a bipartisan dealmaker, while Burr, who is retiring after this term, voted to convict Trump during the second impeachment trial.
Budd had long been favored to win the seat—as Democrats have slowly been distanced from the state with some expensive losses in recent cycles. North Carolina politicos repeatedly insisted Democrats’ national campaign arms needed to invest more heavily in the state for Beasley to win. But states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin continued to consume Democratic spending, while Beasley was largely left on her own.
Even prior to this year, North Carolina had become a sort of white whale for Democrats after the campaign of their 2020 nominee, Cal Cunningham, melted down after an extramarital sexting scandal was revealed. The state went to Trump over Joe Biden by 1.34 points in 2020.
