North Carolina’s final 2022 U.S. Senate candidates will be decided next week | WFAE 90.7

We’re going to discuss North Carolina’s U.S. Senate in this episode of Inside Politics: Election 2022. There’s an open Senate seat here, meaning the incumbent (Republican Richard Burr) isn’t running for reelection. And with North Carolina being a perennial battleground state, political watchers across the U.S. will be keeping an eye on the race.

The statewide primary is May 17, and the winners will be on the ballot for the general election in November.

While former state Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley is poised to be the Democratic nominee, there’s a more competitive matchup on the Republican side between U.S. Rep. Ted Budd and former Gov. Pat McCrory. To be clear, there are many other candidates on both sides running in the primary, but those three have the most name recognition and funding.

We’ll focus on that race and look ahead to the general election. And we’ll also talk about the other big political news of late and how it’s playing into campaigns: the leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade, putting abortion rights into the spotlight.

Our guests for this episode are Dallas Woodhouse, a former executive director of the N.C. GOP, and Jessica Taylor, a U.S. Senate analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.