2010 North Carolina Senate - Burr vs. Marshall

10/26/19 -- The polls here have closed somewhat, but Burr is still right around 50 percent and Marshall is well under 40 percent.  That's a lot of ground for Marshall to make up in seven days.

10/7/10 -- For a while this race looked like it would be competitive.  But Burr went on the airwaves after Labor Day, and has opened up a substantial lead in almost every poll.  This one is really slipping away from the Democrats.

----------Race Preview---------

If anything were to make us believe in curses, this Senate seat would be it. Since Sam Ervin retired in 1974, no one has managed to hold the seat for two terms: it elected Robert Morgan in 1974, who lost to John East in 1980, who committed suicide and whose appointed successor lost to Terry Sanford in 1986, who lost to Lauch Faircloth in 1992, who lost to John Edwards in 1998. Edwards’ polling numbers were awful in 2004, and he opted to run for the White House rather than re-election, at which point Republican Richard Burr won the seat.

This high level of competition isn’t surprising, as North Carolina has always had a substantial Republican presence, and had a split in the Democratic Party between progressives and conservatives. Jesse Helms succeeded in bringing the conservatives into the Republican Party, and northern immigrants to the Research Triangle Park area voted Republican. For a while it looked like North Carolina would become a solidly Republican state. But this didn’t happen, as moderate governors like Jim Hunt and Mike Easley kept some of the conservative Democrats in the fold, while suburbanites around RTP drifted toward the Democratic Party.

Burr’s opponent in 2010, North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, is in the mold of these successful Democrats. Her model will be Senator Kay Hagan’s 2008 race against Elizabeth Dole, where Hagan kept pace with the Republican before surging into the lead in the fall. Burr’s re-elect numbers haven’t been great. He’d be in greater danger if 2010 wasn't shaping up to be such a strong year for Republicans. Still, things could easily break against him.