Today's North Carolina Senate Primary Pits Rand Paul Against Mitt Romney

The Republican Establishment is trying to make a come back after badly losing two presidential cycles in a row with feeble and extremely unpopular establishment candidates, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Today's primary in North Carolina is their shot to nominate the Speaker of North Carolina's widely hated state House of Representatives. He has two anti-Establishment right-wing candidates opposing him, including Greg Brannon, who has been endorsed by Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Paul, Thomas Massie (R-KY), Ann Coulter, Erick Erickson, the Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks, and 2 seditionist gun groups, the National Association for Gun Rights and Gun Owners for America, that excite the extremists in the South's GOP base.



Just a few hours before Rand Paul's Brannon rally yesterday in the Charlotte area (Tillis country), Mitt Romney chirped in with his backing for Tillis. Jeb Bush, Mitch McConnell and Karl Rove are also backing him. The Republican/Chamber of Commerce Establishment is hoping to avoid a bloody, costly July 15 run-off between Tillis, who's trying to sound mainstream and Brannon, who's glad to sound anything but mainstream. Conventional wisdom holds that moderate Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan would have an easier time beating the extremist Brannon, but Tillis is so associated with the detested and dismally failed General Assembly that more astute observers think Hagan is better off running against him. CNN, of course, is always a good place to go for tone-deaf conventional wisdom:

For a Republican establishment still spooked by the ghosts of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock -- grassroots-backed conservatives who threw away winnable Senate races in recent elections with tone-deaf remarks about abortion-- Tuesday can't come soon enough.

In North Carolina, Republicans are watching closely to see if Thom Tillis, the state House speaker and maybe the party's best bet to unseat endangered Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan this November, can capture 40% of the vote in Tuesday's GOP Senate primary.

If he does, Tillis will become the party's Senate nominee, and Washington Republicans will breathe a little easier knowing they've dodged a long and expensive runoff battle between Tillis, the consensus frontrunner, and a flame-throwing conservative rival. Perhaps more importantly, Republicans will have picked a Senate candidate who doesn't immediately jeopardize their chances of defeating Hagan, whose approval ratings are dangerously low, and flipping a crucial swing state Senate seat into GOP hands.

...Tillis, a former IBM executive, has raised more than $3 million for his primary campaign and has about $1 million in the bank. Brannon, meanwhile, has the backing of national tea party outfits like the Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks, but the groups have provided little financial cover for the cash-strapped candidate. Brannon has just $206,000 on hand. Harris reported even less: Just $72,000, barely enough to fund a modest advertising campaign on cable news, let alone fund the final blitz of a credible statewide campaign.

Brannon is hoping that a last-minute visit to the state Monday by his top national supporter, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, might provide a burst of media attention and activist energy to push him into a runoff. It's a risky gamble for Paul: Republicans inside and outside the state are privately questioning his last-minute decision to help Brannon, who was recently found liable by a Wake County jury for misleading investors in a failed tech startup. Brannon is appealing the decision.

Harris, too, has national support. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has endorsed his fellow Baptist pastor. But Harris' in-state relationships are more valuable: The president of North Carolina's Baptist State Convention, Harris has in his corner a formidable network of evangelicals, still a powerful constituency in a Republican primary in the South. Tillis backers privately fret that Harris, polished and charismatic, would be a more dangerous opponent than the volatile Brannon in a runoff, but Harris has not marshaled the resources to broaden his name recognition beyond his Christian conservative base.

In a pair of recent debates, Brannon and Harris tried to outflank Tillis from the right, questioning his commitment to gun rights and his opposition to same-sex marriage, but Tillis stayed above the fray and kept his focus squarely on Hagan. He has made electability a selling point in his pitch to Republicans.

"If I thought any of the other candidates had as good a chance at beating Kay Hagan as me, I'd be on their campaign committee," Tillis told CNN in a recent interview inside his Raleigh office. "This is about securing a majority in the U.S. Senate. None of the other candidates have the experience or have taken the time to build a foundation to have a credible campaign in November. If the Democratic establishment is going to rain down heavy on North Carolina to try to keep Hagan, we better have someone who has the track record and the campaign strategy to have the support to match that."

...As he nears what could be the Republican finish line Tuesday, there are signs that Tillis is becoming more cautious with the general election on the horizon.

In 2012, Tillis eagerly embraced that year's version of the House Republican budget drafted by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. Questioned about this year's budget plan-- specifically if he supports Medicare vouchers-- Tillis punted. "I haven't studied it to the position where I can really give you a well-informed response," he said.

He was also asked which senators he admires and hopes to emulate if he gets to Washington. The names he mentioned-- "high-caliber" members like Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso and Texas Sen. John Cornyn-- aren't exactly tea party heartthrobs.

Gesturing to a bust of Ronald Reagan on his desk, Tillis characterized his work in the state legislature as "responsible and balanced," and he punctuated the interview by questioning the effectiveness of conservative hard-liners like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

"Mr. Cruz is obviously a brilliant member," Tillis said. "I think that he stands for a lot of things that we as conservatives stand for. But how do you mobilize that? How do you sell your colleagues and the American people on the things that are his priorities?"

Last minute polling from North Carolina-based PPP indicates that although Tillis is at the magic 40% mark that would avoid the runoff the GOP Establishment dreads, momentum going into this morning was with Brannon.

PPP's final poll of the North Carolina Republican Senate primary finds that Greg Brannon and Mark Harris are finally picking up some steam, but that it may be too little too late. Thom Tillis leads right at the 40% mark needed to avoid a runoff, followed by Brannon at 28% and Harris at 15% with the other candidates combining for a total of 8%. 11% of voters remain undecided so that should give Tillis the breathing room eeded to get over 40%, but it doesn't look as certain as it did a week ago.

The momentum has been on the anti-establishment candidates' side as the race has come to a close. Brannon's support has increased 8 points in the final week of the campaign and Harris' has increased by 4 points. Their increases in support come as voters report having seen more from their campaigns- they've each had an 8-9 point increase in the percentage that have seen their tv ads, while Tillis was already pretty much maxed out on that front.

Negative ads against Tillis have also started to take more of a toll. His net favorability rating with Republican primary voters has declined 9 points in the last week +32 at 56/24 previously to now +23 at 52/29. 73% of voters now report having seen negative ads against Tillis and they're having an impact-- among those who've seen them Tillis' favorability is only 47/38, and he leads Brannon just 36/35.