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 Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan's lead has faded in the final
stretch before the Nov. 4 vote. The latest polls show her tied or
with a slight edge over Republican challenger Thom Tillis in a
contest that will help decide which party controls the Senate.
Spending in the closely fought battle has surpassed $100 million,
according to the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, with more than
two-thirds of the money provided by outside groups.
Hagan's campaign said this week it was encouraged by early voting
data that showed higher turnout for Democrats than Republicans.
African Americans, who tend to vote Democratic, also are turning out
in higher numbers than at the same point in 2010.
"We're on a pace right now that we're very happy with," Hagan
campaign manager Preston Elliott said of the black vote.
Hagan will try to build on that momentum on Friday at an early vote
event with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in Raleigh. She
appeared with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last
weekend.
Tillis, speaker of the North Carolina House, enlisted 2012
Republican presidential nominee Romney to rally voters with him on
Wednesday, a day after U.S. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham
joined him on the trail.
"Thom Tillis is going to be the guy that makes a Republican majority
in the U.S. Senate," Romney told voters in Raleigh.
ADS BLANKET THE AIRWAVES
The heavy spending has resulted in a barrage of at least 101,800 TV
ads about the race, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Georgia's close Senate race had the next- highest number in the
country, with at least 65,000 TV ads.
Hagan, who beat Republican Elizabeth Dole in 2008 to win the seat,
said in an ad this week that Tillis had pursued a conservative
agenda in the state legislature that hurt the middle class, women
and public education.
"There's a huge contrast between me standing forward for North
Carolinians first on every issue and Speaker Tillis doing the
business of his special interest friends," Hagan said at a campaign
stop in Greensboro, where she emphasized her focus on equal pay and
healthcare access for women.
Tillis has portrayed Hagan as being in lock step with President
Barack Obama, who won North Carolina in the 2008 election but lost
the state to Romney in 2012. He criticized her for slow action
against Islamic State insurgents and not taking national security
threats seriously.
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“We need to get this country back on track, and our safety and
security is one of the first things we need to focus on,” he told
military members in Goldsboro this month.
As of Thursday, registered Democrats had cast nearly 49 percent of
the accepted in-person early ballots in North Carolina, compared
with 31 percent by Republicans and about 20 percent for unaffiliated
and Libertarian voters.
Early voting numbers overall were higher compared with same-day
totals in the 2010 midterm election, but Democrats and unaffiliated
voters showed the biggest increases, said Michael Bitzer, a
political scientist at Catawba College in Salisbury.
The effect unaffiliated voters will have on the Senate race "is the
great unknown right now," Bitzer said.
There are almost 2.8 million registered Democrats, 2 million
registered Republicans and 1.8 million unaffiliated voters in North
Carolina, according to state election data.
The Tillis campaign said it was confident its aggressive voter
outreach efforts would send him to the Senate.
"Thom has the momentum in this race," said Tillis spokeswoman Meghan
Burris.
(Additional reporting by Marti Maguire in Goldsboro, North Carolina
and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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