After Kay Hagan utterly spanked Liddy Dole earlier this month, and North Carolina turned blue at the Presidential level for the first time since 1976, it’s no surprise that Democrats are painting a fat target on the back of North Carolina’s remaining GOP Senator — Richard Burr. One possible candidate who’s received a lot of buzz is state Attorney General Roy Cooper, but another potential candidate is 11th District Rep. Heath Shuler, who will be starting his second term in the House next year. Shuler is very much keeping the door open to a statewide bid:
U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler is not yet sworn into his second term, but some Democrats hope he sets his sights two years from now on a run for the Senate.
That election would pit Democratic nominee Shuler, a star quarterback at Swain County High School and the University of Tennessee, against U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, who played defensive back at Wake Forest.
Shuler said he has not ruled out a run for Senate, but wants to focus now on Congress.
“First and foremost, I am going back to Washington and work on the economy,” Shuler said. “At this point in time we need to focus on the economy.”
As a popular figure in his western, Appalachian district, Shuler would offer a lot of strengths as a candidate. As for holding his open House seat, our friends at Public Policy Polling are optimistic:
The immediate concern is whether a Shuler run would cost the Democrats a Congressional seat that they reclaimed for the first time in 16 years just one election ago, but I think there is a strong bench in that district.
John Snow represents a very Republican eight county state Senate district contained completely within the 11th District and won every single one of the counties in his reelection bid this year even as Barack Obama won just one of them.
Joe Sam Queen is the Senator for a similarly Republican district in the Mountains. He won four out of six counties this year in his reelection bid: the two counties he lost are in the 10th District while the ones he won are all within the 11th.
If Shuler ran the Democrats’ recruitment should start with those guys since it’s imperative the Democrats nominate someone who’s shown an ability to win outside Buncombe County.
Believe me, I know Shuler would be an improvement over Burr, but I would hope we could get someone a little more progressive out of North Carolina.
but seriosuly, I’d like Miller to run. Right now the Durham-Raleigh area, and Eastern North Carolina, which is the most populous part of the state, has no senatorial representation. That being said I think Shuler with his base in the Applachian eastern end of the state would be the stronger candidate by holding down Republican margins their, winning Wake, Hanover, Mecklenburg, Greensboro, and Forsyth would be absolutely critical.
if only because he passes the backbone test by giving up a safe House seat to take on an incumbent.
In years past, few Democrats had the genitals to do this. To see one do that, who is a good fit for the state to boot, and who could likely hold it for a couple decades, outstanding.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
How ironic.
He’s too far out of the Democratic mainstream to get my help.
The last thing we can do is let a ripe seat go unchallenged.
I didn’t like Kay Hagan much but she was good enough I could actively support her. Heath is the 10th worst Democrat voting wise in the entire House and he’s not even on the PVI-Voting Index. He considered running as a Republican.
After Kay Hagan utterly spanked Liddy Dole earlier this month, and North Carolina turned blue at the Presidential level for the first time since 1976 we can afford better.
I hope Roy Cooper runs. He immediately puts it into the tossup category and if he has even decent fundraising it turns into Lean Dem.
I’d be fine with Schuler. Don’t let his social conservatism fool you, he’s actually quite progressive on a number of issues. Someone mentioned economic issues, and I’d like to add environmental issues. He got a 73% rating from LCV, and while that sounds low, it’s WAY better than anything his predecessor would have done and most of his low marks came not from bad votes but from absences. He’s also really into fighting global warming and personally credits An Inconvenient Truth for making him aware of the problem and how to fight it.
Still, I think Brad Miller would be our best choice. He has a strong base in Raleigh and Greensboro and can probably appeal to Charlotte. Plus, his district is fairly safe Dem territory, and he’s fairly progressive on most issues but can still appeal in marginal areas.
Sara Feigenholtz declares candidacy for Rahm’s seat. http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
She is a state representative from the east side of the district and is apparently very progressive. Probably the best candidate in my opinion.
he managed 40% against bev perdue, would only be 50 years old (oldish for a freshman senator but not too bad) is on the right side in the main street wall street argument, and has been elected statewide twice.
but we can do better statewide. Shuler is actually MORE conervative than Burr onone issue – stem cells. Burr voted for federal funding of stem cell research, but Shuler voted against it.
Roy Cooper or Elaine Marshall would be much better choices. They more more progressive and have already won statewide.
Just a few things –
1. to whoever said Raleigh-Durham doesn’t have senatorial representation, I say, so what! They had it as recently as Helms and Edwards, both from Raleigh. Those of us from WNC haven’t had anybody since Sam Ervin, and before that, I believe it was that crazy Robert Reynolds.
2. Shuler won every county in his district, some of which are small but produce significant GOP margins. If he can pull this off in an election year, then he should do decently and prevent them from racking up margins out there.
3. I doubt we’ll have a major was like 1994. I was a Hillary supporter, but I firmly believe Obama and the leadership have learned from past lessons and will govern accordingly.
4. Cooper loves being AG and could stay in it as long as he wanted. He could run for senate, lose, and still get to be AG. He broke 60% this year – unheard of for any race in NC history and the only one to do so this year.
5. Thank you LanceS for defending Mary Fant Donnan! As someone who worked his tail off for her, I got a little angry when I saw her referred to as “weak” (or week, rather). The elevator thing is more key than you know – I have tons of anecdotal evidence just from my own personal circles about people who were about to vote Straight Dem except for Berry because “shes a kindly old grandma who inspects elevators and I’ll safe when I see her” and other crap like that.
that was alot, I’m done.
Says that Cooper and Moore are interested.
http://www.newsobserver.com/po…
Run Roy, Run!
Let’s rally around one candidate instead of having a bruising, divisive primary that could cost us the general election. The good news is that it seems like in North Carolina we have a number of good candidates. I’ll leave it to people in NC to determine who’s the best candidate. But, what about Roy Cooper, Brad Miller, Mike Easley, and Grier Martin?
Even if we didn’t have to sacrifice Shuler’s House seat, don’t we want to keep him there to solidify that district in Democratic hands for elections to come?
What do those from NC say about the Senate election?
I say, let’s rally around one strong candidate, whomever the best one is, and let’s elect him or her to beat Burr.
Does seem like the best candidate to me right now. Look at the importance of having a clear field. We saw it prove beneficial this year in NH, New Mexico, and Colorado. Judging by the closeness of Merkley’s victory over Gordon Smith, I have to assume that his primary against Steve Novick did in fact hurt him in the general.
did not come up prominently above. Why?
Until we see the Obama coalition consistently vote in elections, I agree that it’s probably best to hedge our bets. I’m also under the impression at this point that Cooper, Miller or Schuler would do equally well against Burr.
You’re missing the other side of the GOTV equation. Here in NC it is very difficult to get Republicans out to vote in non-Presidential elections. That’s why Democrats traditionally run much better in the off year elections, and it is why the Burr seat switches every election – the Republicans always win it in Presidential years and the Democrats win in the other years. It’s also probably why, as another poster noted, the people elected to this seat seem to be rather extreme. Obama changed things this year, but generally we should expect a more liberal than average NC electorate in 2010 since so many Republican voters just don’t care. If you want some evidence, look at Robin Hayes’s results through the years – always a touch fight in off years, and prior to 2008 much easier wins in Presidential years.
2010 is probably not going to be a year where we want to have to be defending a bunch of open seats. Thats one of the reasons why we lost so big in 1994.
would be if elizabeth edwards’ cancer went into remission, and she ran for her husbands old senate seat. john may be a douchebag for what he did, but elizabeth is golden. more and better elizabeths, liz, not liddy!
but the two most prominent–Hagan and Perdue–were endorsed by EMILY’s List.
kerry may have gotten elected, had she been veep in 04 instead of john. either way, the wrong edwards went into electoral politics.
but does the insurance commissioner, or the State Auditor even publicise their opinion on abortion or gay rights? I mean, they’re so irrelevant to their job that I dont think anybody even cares.