Countdown To A Carolina Showdown

To the surprise of some political observers from Chapel Hill to Capitol Hill, this year's North Carolina Senate race is shaping up as one of the tightest, most competitive of the 34 contests in November.

The race pits GOP Rep. Richard Burr, the handpicked White House candidate, against the 2002 Democratic nominee, Clinton White House chief of staff and multi-millionaire investment banker Erskine Bowles, who lost to Elizabeth Dole.

While there are no recent public polls in the race, Democrats point to the last survey, taken back in January, that shows Bowles leading Burr 45 percent to 40 percent. Democratic Party officials says private polls show Bowles leading by anywhere between five and ten points.

But Republicans say they've always expected a tight race, and dismiss the January poll as more a reflection of Bowles' statewide name ID than actual popularity. Republicans expect that once Burr starts running ads, his name identification will rise and help evaporate Bowles' advantage. Burr, party officials say, has more than six months to introduce himself to voters. In addition, Republicans point to North Carolina's GOP leanings and Bowles' time as a Clinton administration official as assets for Burr.

At the start of 2003, Bowles' political future was murky, at best. He'd just spent $7 million of his own money against Dole, and $13 million overall, but managed to get just under 45 percent of the vote. There were no prospects for another Senate race anytime soon, with fellow Democrat John Edwards looking like a sure-fire repeat candidate for a second term. Nor was there much daylight on the gubernatorial front with Mike Easley, a popular first-term Democrat, sure to run again in 2004. Worse, like much of the South, North Carolina looked like George W. Bush country through and through.

A lot can change in a year.

In September, John Edwards decided not to run again for the Senate to focus instead on his now-failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. North Carolina's economy has continued to struggle, especially in the textile, agricultural and manufacturing sectors, which have lost thousands of jobs to low-wage countries. And President Bush's coattails, while still long in North Carolina, might not have the kind of power they had in 2002 for Dole.

But, perhaps most importantly, political observers say Bowles – not known for his skills as a retail politician – has improved dramatically as a candidate since losing to Dole. Several people say Bowles, known more for his professorial manner and oversized eyeglasses than his backslapping and handshaking - seems "relaxed" for the first time on the trail.

Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the Cook Political Report, says: "I think he is much improved… he seems more comfortable on campaign trail."

Bowles also should benefit from being spared a bruising nomination fight like 2002, which allowed Dole to woo voters statewide while Bowles spent time and money running for the Democratic nomination. Because of re-districting fights in the state, North Carolina did not hold its primary in 2002 until September of that year, forcing Bowles to run two campaigns, one against Dole and one against fellow Democrats. No such distractions exist this time around.

In addition, despite losing in 2002, Bowles did a good job establishing himself with North Carolina voters, says John Aldrich, a professor of political science at Duke University. The beating Bowles took in 2002, Aldrich says, was not as bad as it looked on paper.

"He did not get votes in 2002, but there was a sense … it was a choice between two credible alternatives," Aldrich said. "It was not like he hurt himself. Most people just liked Dole more."

For his part, five-term congressman Burr was the pick of White House political adviser Karl Rove from the start and has benefited from that on the fundraising front. Burr announced on Monday that he'd raised an impressive $7.1 million since entering the race, including $1.25 million in the first quarter of 2004.

(Bowles said he'd raised $2 million in the first quarter of the year, bringing his total for the race to $4.1 million. Bowles has yet to tap his own considerable personal fortune in the 2004 race.)

Burr, a conservative Republican, has spent the better part of a year crisscrossing the state meeting voters and raising money, in part to counterbalance Bowles' considerable advantage on the name ID front.

"Burr gets my nose to grindstone award for this cycle. He's been going at this pretty strongly since day one," says Duffy.

Burr, of course, also starts out with a built-in advantage: the "R" next to his name.

Both Aldrich and Duffy say North Carolina has become more Republican-leaning in recent years. When combined with a presidential election featuring a popular Republican incumbent, Bowles starts off with a built-in disadvantage. In 2000, for example, George W. Bush beat Al Gore in the state by 13 points.

Duffy says that while the state is not as rock-ribbed Republican as some of its neighbors, most notably South Carolina, "in presidential year, you have to put a thumb on the scale for Republicans."

But, she adds: "It is not South Carolina. It is not Alabama. But, it's not Arkansas, either. It votes somewhere in the middle and has elected Democrats statewide."

While Sept. 11 and the subsequent wars have captured headlines in the Tar Heel State, home to several massive military bases, it's the economy that looks like the driving issue in the Bowles-Burr race.

When compared to 2002, when the economic struggles were felt most acutely in the state's urban areas, Aldrich says there's "more sense of shared misery than in 2002," with huge job losses in the textile, agricultural and furniture industries.

"It's a uniform pain that will take a while to subside," Aldrich said of the impact the state's economic woes could have this fall. "We were hit worse by things and broadly across the state."

What remains to be seen is what images voters will form of Bowles – a super-wealthy banker who, as a high-ranking member of the Clinton administration was a free-trade proponent – and conservative Republican Burr, who has a mixed record on free-trade votes in the Congress, including votes against trading rights for China but for free trade with Chile and Singapore.

"This race comes down to a simple question: Which one gets credibility on trade and jobs," said Duffy.

By Douglas Kiker