The latest polls show that the gap between Cheri Beasley and Ted Budd continues to narrow, while the candidates’ differences on key issues have sharpened ahead of what could be their one and only debate. Budd, who avoided debates during an extended and contentious GOP primary, agreed to go toe-to-toe with Beasley, who faced nominal opposition and no debates in the Democratic primary, on Oct. 7. The event will air on Spectrum News and be moderated by Tim Boyum.

With the start of early voting just seven weeks away, Democrat Cheri Beasley continues to run stronger than pundits had projected. It’s probably just a coincidence that the Pantone company chose "Very Peri," a vibrant purple, as its 2022 color of the year, but it would be hard to find a better shade to describe North Carolina’s electorate. Both are trending this fall.

In her attempt to break the Democratic Party’s streak of losses in U.S. Senate races, Cheri Beasley has billed herself as a different kind of Democrat. Over the past year, perhaps the most convincing case for that has been the stops on her itineraries.

Pivotal contest that some had already conceded to the GOP is shaping up to be closer than expected With less than three months to go before the start of early voting, North Carolina’s closely watched contest for an open U.S Senate seat remains as close as it is contentious. Going into summer the race between Rep. Ted Budd and former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley appeared tilted in favor of the Republican.

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.