Stage to be set for momentous 175-day sprint to November 8 Election Day for the 2022 primary arrives tomorrow, but in North Carolina the general election campaign has already begun for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, a race that is expected to be one of the costliest and combative in state history.

Presumed Democratic nominee Cheri Beasley faces an uphill fight, but will bring plenty of experience and funding to the effort Absentee ballots are starting to roll in and in-person early voting began Thursday in this year’s U.S. Senate primary, an election in which nearly all of the focus is on the bare-knuckled fight in the Republican race. But even before that’s decided, the country’s top political prognosticators are out with predictions for the fall.

It’s an overworked phrase, but for all the focus put on fundraising, polls, gaffes and dark money PACs, elections really do come down to turnout. This year, the mix of voters who show up at the polls, what motivates them to do so and, of course, the totals they post when the ballots are counted will determine the outcome of North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race and, in this era of razor thin partisan margins, perhaps control of the chamber itself.

Another potential change in the date of North Carolina’s 2022 primary election, this one initiated by the Republican majorities in the state legislature, is reverberating through races statewide, including the battle for the GOP nomination in the race for Richard Burr's soon-to-be open U.S. Senate seat. On Wednesday, General Assembly leaders fast-tracked a bill through both chambers that shifts the current May 17 primary date to June 7.

Jeff Jackson dropped out of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and offered a full-throated endorsement of Cheri Beasley Thursday in another twist in the closely watched election. In a two-minute video message to supporters released Thursday morning Jackson, a four-term state senator from Charlotte, said it was time for Democrats to rally together...

Filing season for the 2022 elections opened in true North Carolina style Monday, with the state Court of Appeals suspending filing for newly-drawn congressional and legislative districts under court challenge. That didn’t prevent filing from opening at noon as scheduled for North Carolina’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, just as a shakeup in both the Republican and Democratic primaries has narrowed the field and the focus of the contests.