CQ Today: Dole Faces Fight in North Carolina Senate Race
CQ Today
By Marie Horrigan
June 29, 2008
North Carolina Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole holds the edge in her bid this year for a second term. But fluctuating polls over the month and a half since state Sen. Kay Hagan won the May 6 Democratic primary have raised questions about how solid and secure Dole is in her status as the favorite.
Hagan defeated four primary opponents with 60 percent of the vote, a strong showing that boosted her into a statistical tie with Dole in a poll taken shortly thereafter. A more recent survey released June 18 showed Dole with a more substantial cushion, but her 48 percent to 38 percent in that poll did not suggest that the contest is out of reach for the longshot challenger.
Dole enjoys near-universal name ID in the state where she was born and grew up before heading to Washington for a career that culminated in her appointments as secretary of Labor and secretary of Transportation by Republican presidents. She has national prominence as the wife of retired longtime Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee for president, and she staged a brief bid for the 2000 GOP presidential nomination.
Dole also has a big lead in fundraising, so much so that Hagan has estimated she would need to raise $10 million to have a chance to beat the incumbent. Hagan, according to her pre-primary campaign finance report, had raised $1.5 million but spent most of it during her primary campaign, leaving her with $317,000 as of April 15. Dole reported 10 times as much cash on hand — $3.2 million out of $6.7 million raised — as of the same date.
Based on these advantages, CQ Politics currently rates the race Republican Favored. The rating means Dole is viewed as likely to win, but that the possibility of an upset by Hagan cannot be ruled out.
Political analyst Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said Dole is the clear front-runner in the race, but that fortunes could change between now and Election Day. “Democrats are resilient and will find a way to make Hagan competitive,” he said.
Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan asserts that, while costly, the primary gave Hagan an opportunity to introduce herself to voters statewide and made her a more recognized figure. She also is now free to campaign full-time, as the state Senate’s annual session ended last week. This opens up her schedule after weeks of legislating during the week and campaigning on the weekends, with a focus on grass-roots events at local establishments such as diners and lunch counters.
For example, Hagan on Friday stopped at the Top Shell Mart in the North Carolina city of Wilmington as part of a gas station tour to discuss the effects of high fuel prices.
Flanagan said that the top issues for North Carolina voters are “bread-and-butter, kitchen table issues” such as gas prices, concerns about job outsourcing and paying for college.
Dole’s campaign, meanwhile, is focusing on her record in six years in the Senate. She already has put up two television ads that emphasize her senatorial clout on key issues — empowering North Carolina sheriffs to deport illegal immigrants who are repeat criminals, keeping open the state’s major military bases and supporting the tobacco quota buyout for farmers and growers.
“She is one tough lady — with major league clout,” narrators say at the end of the first ad. The second ad includes the slogan, “That’s clout. That’s Elizabeth Dole .” The campaign spent about $800,000 running the ads statewide, said Hogan Gidley, Dole’s communications director.
“The people of the state know Elizabeth Dole , they trust Elizabeth Dole and they just like Elizabeth Dole . And she’s been able to accomplish a lot in six years, and so that’s something we’re going to continue to run on,” Gidley said.
Democrats argue that Dole will be vulnerable because her strongly conservative voting record — since she won to succeed retired five-term Republican Sen. Jesse Helms in 2002 — has aligned her too often with President Bush, whose popularity in recent years has suffered even in parts of the Republican-leaning South. Democrats also contend that Dole’s party loyalties were over-exposed when she served as chairwoman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party’s Senate campaign unit, during a 2006 campaign that saw the GOP lose six seats and control of the chamber.
But Dole portrays herself as an independent lawmaker who has differences with Bush. “The Bush administration has been right on some issues. Tax cuts for everyone across the board. That’s an issue that resonates with North Carolinians because we believe we pay too much in taxes,” said Dole aide Gidley.
But he said she has broken with Bush on other issues, pointing to her opposition to Bush’s immigration proposal aimed at assimilating many currently illegal immigrants, as well as the president’s position on proposed Medicaid cuts and the tobacco buyout program.
“Senator Dole isn’t looking to see what the president’s doing. She’s looking to see what legislation is best for the state of North Carolina,” Gidley said.
Matthew Miller, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said that strategy may backfire. “I don’t think a Washington record is what the country’s looking for right now,” he said.
But political scientist Guillory said Democrats’ assertions that Dole is too much of a Washington insider may not be as detrimental as they might hope. “This state has had a history of making a distinction between federal candidates and state candidates,” he said, pointing to the fact that the state’s two senators are Republican but the governor and lieutenant governor are Democrats.
