Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican incumbent in North Carolina, is taking a low-key approach to this campaign. He's always won before, he seems to be postulating, even though he admits the dangers:
“I’m in the race of my life,” he tells hundreds of party activists gathered for a fish fry here at the home of stock-car racing legend Richard Petty. “I’ve got the toughest race I’ve been in, and it’s primarily because North Carolina is a battleground state.” […]
Burr said he’s not worried. He recalled his first Senate campaign, in 2004, when he ran against former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles in a race that Bowles appeared to lead until its final weeks.
A well-known Washington campaign forecaster met with him about a month before the election, Burr recalled: “He said, ‘What’s your plan?’ I said, ‘I got one.’ He said, ‘What is it?’ … I said, ‘Two days before the election, I’m going to go ahead, and I’m going to win.'”
“He went back, and he wrote this scathing article about how I had no campaign plan, and I ended up beating the president’s chief of staff,” he continued. “That’s how I look at elections.”
So he's in the race of his life, but he's not worried. So not worried that he's totally, completely embraced Donald Trump. "There's no separation between me and Donald Trump," he says. Because, hey, it's North Carolina and he wins there. Without a strategy, without campaigning until October. And by aligning himself totally with the worst presidential nominee in anyone's lifetime. Sure, that'll work.
That lackadaisical attitude has national Republicans freaking out, and has also forced them to divert $2 million worth of ad money into this state that wasn't supposed to have been a challenge. That's on top of the $8.1 million Mitch McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund rushed in last month.
Deborah Ross has made this a must-watch race and has been doing so for months. Let's get her over the top, and keep Republicans busy defending this seat while we're at it.
Can you chip in $3 to help Deborah Ross close the deal?
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