In any case, to speak to the topic of the thread, I will be extraordinarily surprised if Taylor resigns. The way Taylor wins tough elections is he waits until the last six weeks and then dumps however much money into his campaign that he needs to win, and to date it's worked. I rather doubt he'll see himself as more vulnerable than in 2000 and 2002 when he had major allegations of tax evasion (though Sam Neill was a far inferior challenger).
Besides that, however, I would venture that John Armor (Billybob) is gonna have a really huge uphill climb to push Tom Apodaca, Wilma Sherrill, Nathan Ramsey, Carl Mumpower, Joe Dunn, etc, etc out of the way for the GOP nomination if it comes open.
Or maybe I should say that I doubt Taylor sees himself as much more vulnerable than in 2000 and in 2004. Although early in 2002 it seemed he may be, since the late-breaking ethics allegations from 2000 might've had more time to sink in, Neill's campaign never really got off the ground in 2002, as he was rightly written off by just about everyone, since he couldn't seal the deal in 2000 (or even make it all that close).
Taylor probably doesn't see himself as much more vulnerable this year than in 2004 against Patsy Keever. Patsy Keever was a far more experienced campaigner by comparison to Heath Shuler. She was from the population center (Buncombe Co) whereas Heath Shuler is from Waynesville, and is very slightly subject to the 'carpet-bagger' charge since he had settled in Knoxville TN until he decided to run against Taylor (I doubt that'd make any difference though).
Keever's campaign didn't really sink until the last few weeks when she seemed like a flip-flopper on abortion and same-sex marriage.