Budd and Beasley Push to Make North Carolina’s Senate Race Boring

The candidates want a generic race when political realities are anything but.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Ted Budd smiled and stood patiently behind the podium Friday night, waiting for the chants of “lock him up” to die down.

“He wants to hire 87,000 more IRS agents to treat all of these working families like tax cheats,” Budd said of President Joe Biden. “Come on, folks.”

Budd, a congressman running to replace retiring Sen. Richard Burr, usually presents himself on the campaign trail as a generic Republican opposing the “Biden/Beasley agenda.” But the setting for his speech on Friday—a raucous Donald Trump rally at a Wilmington airport—served as a reminder that securing his party’s nomination depended on Trump’s endorsement.

Budd’s opponent, Cheri Beasley—a career judge and the first black woman to serve as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court—hasn’t campaigned with Biden, as Budd’s campaign constantly points out. But she focuses on kitchen-table issues and insists that “this race is not really partisan.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Larry1914

    Planning to vote for Budd. Voted for McCrory in the primary.

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  2. Elwood

    I wish we knew in advance when anyone from The Dispatch was in town… they’d get free drinks.

    My wife and I are fighting over this one and may end up cancelling each other out. Feels pretty lame when this could well decide direction of the Senate.

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    1. LucyTrice

      I expect my husband and I will cancel each other out, too.

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  3. Ingenero.lux

    I’ll note - if the rally this past Friday was at a Wilmington, NC airport, it was at THE Wilmington, NC airport. I’m not entirely sure why it would be at the airport of all places - it’s kinda a strange venue, though I know there’s plenty of room where they have the air show, or did when I lived there - but there is only one.

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    1. LucyTrice

      It was held at a private hangar, for what that's worth. No idea why.

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      1. Ingenero.lux

        Now that’s really weird. Wilmington isn’t lacking for better venues than that. At least it wasn’t at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

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  4. BSamuel

    I live in Raleigh, so I see the occasional Beasley sign, but what seems to be at an incredible fever pitch is the mayoral/city council elections in Raleigh. The NIMBYs are motivated, vocal and aggressive. My wife says we shouldn't put up any yard signs for anyone the NIMBYs don't like because it would seriously alienate us from neighbors. Anyway, I know this is off base from the senate election, just wondering if any other Raleighites are seeing the same thing (and maybe Steve wants to send Kevin Williamson to Raleigh to investigate...)

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  5. Richard Kennedy

    He made America great. Period. He might do it again? I can think of all sorts of things Trump brings to the table. But whatever it is that is Trump, America can be great if he wins an election? We are in trouble. Trump is pushing 80! Then the deluge!? I gotta say campaigning really isn’t interesting anymore. The platitudes don’t even make sense.

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  6. Karin

    I would really like to see Cheri Beasley win this race.

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  7. KR

    Even their political ads are boring. If they are gonna saturate the ad space, at least have fun or interesting ads.

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    1. LucyTrice

      Cheri Beasley 's ads don't insult my intelligence. I'm good with that, after the last election cycle.

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  8. Avatar photo
    CynthiaW

    I'm getting phone calls about how bad Beasley is. It's annoying. If I were getting calls about how good she is, or about how good/bad Budd is, that would be annoying, too.

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    1. Avatar photo
      MG

      I keep getting the youtube ads (I'm sure they're on tv) warning me that Cheri Beasley accepted money from lobbyists and PACs... which honestly felt like one of the weakest political attack ads I've ever seen. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k0hKC2RPeg&ab_channel=SenateLeadershipFund)

      Nearly every single politician, and most definitely competitive US Senate candidates, receives money from lobbyists and PACs. They don't even specify which lobbyists or which PACs! At least that would tell me something about her policy preferences or how she might behave as a Senator.

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      1. Avatar photo
        CynthiaW

        Yes, I've seen that on YouTube as well: sometimes on animal videos and sometimes on Spanish church music.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Psmangelsdorf

      Fortunately I haven't gotten calls or even mail yet about the US Senate race (I live in the greater RDU area), but I get (literally) daily mail about the state senate race. It got annoying about a month ago, and has only gotten worse.

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      1. Avatar photo
        CynthiaW

        I don't think we're getting much election-related U.S. Mail here, but Son E often throws things away before I see them.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Psmangelsdorf

          Well I can tell you that Planned Parenthood is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very worried about Republicans getting a super majority in the NC legislature that could (gasp) over-ride the Governor.

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          1. Avatar photo
            wj

            I wish everyone were as worried about that. NC is basically a 50/50 state.

            "Competitive" authoritarianism is not great.

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          2. Avatar photo
            Mandy

            That tracks with the mailings I'm getting. Lots of mail opposing Cheryl Russo for State Senate for that reason. I'm sympathetic to the postcards because I'm "pro-choice-with-limits", but the most annoying thing to me about Russo's candidacy is that her very own website says virtually nothing about where she stands on anything. It's baffling.

            As for the US Senate race, the TV ads are definitely picking up. Ugh.

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          3. Avatar photo
            CynthiaW

            That makes sense for them.

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