Free Republic

Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC), the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina, holds nearly a five percentage point lead over his general election opponent, Democratic nominee Cheri Beasley, according to a Cygnal poll released by the John Locke Foundation Thursday.The poll asked voters: “If the general election for U.S. Senate was held today, and you had to make a choice, who would you vote for?” Of the respondents, 45 percent selected Budd, who received President Donald Trump’s backing in the primary, while Beasley, a former chief justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court, garnered 40.3 percent of the...

Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to hold on to their ultra-narrow Senate majority this year in a midterm election cycle that has several of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents facing voters amid rising inflation and surging gas prices. Republicans need to net just one new seat this year to reclaim control of the upper chamber. Still, Democrats are more optimistic about their chances of holding their Senate majority than they are their House majority and are eyeing several opportunities to flip GOP-held seats.

Former President Trump and his allies are struggling to clear the Republican field in North Carolina’s wide-open U.S. Senate race and galvanize GOP voters around his preferred candidate, Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.). Despite winning the former president’s endorsement early on, Budd has so far failed to become the runaway favorite in the GOP primary and has regularly trailed his chief rival, former Gov. Pat McCrory, in polling. That set off an effort by Trump and Budd’s allies to nudge former Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) out of the race by promising an endorsement if Walker runs instead for a Greensboro-area House...