NC Senate race takes shape with attack ads on Day 1 of general election
It didn’t take long for the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina — expected to be one of the key battles for determining control of the chamber — to get heated.
Just hours after Democrat Cal Cunningham secured his party’s nomination and incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis did the same, the Tillis campaign released a general election ad, trying to tie Cunningham to Democratic presidential candidates. The North Carolina Democratic Party dropped its own statewide digital ad, hitting Tillis over past comments about Social Security and Medicare.
Cunningham, a lawyer, former state senator and former Army prosecutor from Lexington, won 57% of the vote in the Democratic primary in complete but unofficial results. State Sen. Erica Smith, a high school teacher and engineer from Northampton County, won less than 35% and three other challengers finished under 4%.
Tillis, a former speaker of the North Carolina state House, won the Republican nomination with more than 78% of the vote with three GOP challengers trailing in single digits. Tillis earned 141,789 fewer votes in his primary than President Donald Trump did in his, but both candidates won every county.
Libertarian Party candidate Shannon Bray and Constitution Party candidate Kevin Hayes will also be on the ballot in November.
The outlines of the general election contest between Tillis and Cunningham has been taking shape for weeks, if not longer, heightened by outside Republican spending for Smith and the enormous stakes of the race.
Tillis, 59, has embraced President Donald Trump fully, called out his Democratic challengers as socialists and radical and is seeking to make sanctuary cities and illegal immigration a top issue.
“I want to keep working with President Trump to create jobs, boost wages, secure winning trade deals, rebuild our military, improve health care for veterans, combat sanctuary cities, and confirm well-qualified judges to the federal bench,” Tillis said in a statement Tuesday night.
His first ad highlights Sen. Bernie Sanders more than former Vice President Joe Biden, who won North Carolina on Tuesday and is in a tight race with Sanders for the nomination. The ad also replays several times Cunningham’s commitment to support his party’s ticket. Cunningham voted for former candidate Pete Buttigieg for president.
Cunningham, 46, wants to keep the focus on health care — including Republican challenges to the Affordable Care Act, and funds that were diverted from North Carolina military bases to fund construction of a wall on the southern border with Mexico — while painting Tillis as part of a corrupt Washington.
In the digital ad, the Democrats criticized Tillis for his vote on Trump’s tax cuts, saying most of the benefits help the wealthiest, and said Republicans want to cut Medicare and Social Security to pay for it.
“In the push and pull of Washington politics, Thom Tillis has decided there are things more important than representing North Carolina,” Cunningham said at a party for Democrats on Tuesday night. “He has put his own political interests, and serving the special interests, ahead of North Carolina’s interests.”
Unexpected issues — North Carolina confirmed its first case of coronavirus on Tuesday — are sure to twist the race in unforeseeable ways.
The race is expected to be tight — and closely watched by outside observers. Tillis won the seat in 2014 by less than 46,000 votes and 1.5%. Politico calls the race a toss-up, as does Inside Elections. Cunningham led Tillis 48% to 43% in a recent NBC News/Marist poll.
It may ultimately determine which party controls the Senate in 2021.
Republicans hold 53 seats in the 100-member Senate. Any realistic path toward a Democratic majority includes flipping current GOP seats in at least three of these states: North Carolina, Colorado, Arizona and Maine.
The Cunningham campaign is confident its primary messaging, aided by nearly $13 million in spending from outside groups, helped define its candidate to North Carolina voters. And it said the $3 million spent by a Republican group aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky showed the GOP’s fear of Cunningham.
The campaign spelled out its confidence in a public memo after Tuesday’s victory. And the Tillis campaign put out its own memo Wednesday, stating its theory of the election.
Tillis and Cunningham may have plenty of time to argue their differences before voters. In January, Tillis challenged whoever won the Democratic nomination to a series of five debates, beginning in April. Cunningham accepted.
But the battle will also be waged on the airwaves.
Tillis’ 2014 victory against incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan was the most expensive in U.S. history at that point with combined spending of more than $120 million by candidates and outside groups.
More than $20.6 million was spent in the 2020 primary, making it the most expensive race in the country so far, according to Advertising Analytics, which tracks political ads and spending. Of that figure, $17 million was spent in the Democratic primary.
Cunningham enjoyed strong fundraising in the pre-primary period, raised nearly $1.4 million between Jan. 1 and Feb. 12, according to campaign finance reports. Tillis reported raising $700,000 during that same period. But as of Feb. 12, Tillis had $5.4 million cash on hand and Cunningham had $1.4 million.
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This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 3:10 PM with the headline "NC Senate race takes shape with attack ads on Day 1 of general election."
