NC’s 2022 Senate race will be a battle of the bases

North Carolina has had its battles royal for the U.S. Senate – Helms vs. Hunt in 1984, Helms vs. Gantt in 1990 – but never anything quite like what is shaping up for 2022.

The contest to replace retiring Sen. Richard Burr will not be just one race, but three. With the rare open seat, there will be Democratic and Republican primaries featuring prominent candidates with differing ideas of what their party should represent. The winners will face off in a general election – fueled by the nation’s polarized politics – that could decide control of the U.S. Senate.

“It’s not going to have the heavyweight personalities of a Helms-Hunt race, but North Carolina is right on the fault line of a divided country,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. He added that the contests for each party’s nomination are “probably going to be the most interesting primaries we’ve ever seen in a Senate race.”

That interest level grew considerably last week with the entry of two more candidates. Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley announced she will seek the Democratic nomination, and U.S. Rep. Ted Budd joined the field on the Republican side. Beasley and Budd will add pressure on their parties to commit to nominees who represent the parties’ bases.

Beasley, while relatively moderate in her political views, will nonetheless press Democrats to try to win a Senate seat with a Black female nominee. Beasley has won two statewide elections for the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, but a Senate contest is a much higher hill. Nationally, only two Black women – Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Kamala Harris of California – have ever won election to the U.S. Senate.

In North Carolina’s 2020 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, Democratic state and national leaders made an early endorsement of a white, male candidate with a military background – Cal Cunningham – over then-state Sen. Erica Smith, who is Black. Smith, who has left the legislature, is running for the nomination again. Though now likely to be eclipsed by Beasley, she welcomes the entry of the former chief justice.

“It is to be celebrated,” Smith told me.. “Black women have been the base of the party, but not supported as the face of the party.”

Will Democrats again favor another white male with a military background – state Sen. Jeff Jackson of Mecklenburg County? Most years, Jackson – a veteran, former assistant district attorney and a member of the Army National Guard – would be the Democrats’ prototype for winning the middle in a purple state. But in this polarized era, candidates that cater to the middle fail to stir enthusiasm among the base, an important element in primaries and in non-presidential-years when turnout ebbs.

On the Republican side, there’s also a split among major candidates over who will best represent the party’s base. Lara Trump, former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, is reportedly considering entering the race. If she doesn’t, Budd of Davie County and former Rep. Mark Walker of Greensboro will be vying for Trump’s supporters. They’ll both emphasize how they voted with Trump in Congress and would support him for another White House run.

As the Trump loyalists compete, the party’s third major candidate – former Gov. Pat McCrory – is left in an odd spot. Normally his name recognition and long tenure as Charlotte mayor would make him the Republican choice to succeed Burr. But McCrory has not been blindly loyal to Trump and Walker and Budd will hammer at that.

State GOP Chairman Michael Whatley said the GOP primary will revolve around Trump’s “America First” issues. “The Trump agenda is the driver,” he said.

David McLennan, a Meredith College professor who conducts the Meredith Poll, said both parties will have to make clear choices about what they represent. “There are question marks on both sides,” he said. “Will Republicans go with the more pro-Trump candidate? Will Democrats look for someone who can truly excite the base of the party?”

Whatever the answers and the outcomes, the candidates and the issues are already interesting and will only get more so.

“It’s going to be perhaps the most highly watched Senate race in the country,” Cooper said. “It is messy and it’s going to get ugly.”

Barnett: 919-829-4512, [email protected]