USA Today/Suffolk poll: Hagan up by 2

Throughout its history, North Carolina has always had a substantial Republican presence in the northwest mountain area. The Democratic Party was split between progressives and conservatives, and as the national Democratic Party moved leftward, it created an opportunity for Republicans to fuse the more conservative Democrats with the Republican rump and create a majority.

Jesse Helms was the first Republican to succeed in bringing those conservatives into the GOP while, at the same time, northerners flocking to the Research Triangle Park brought an even more pronounced Republican bent to the state. For a while it looked like North Carolina would become a solidly red state.

But this didn’t happen, as moderate governors like Jim Hunt and Mike Easley kept some of the conservative Democrats in the fold, while suburbanites around RTP drifted toward the Democratic Party. In 2002, Elizabeth Dole successfully held Helms’ seat against Democrat Erskine Bowles. Dole was fairly quiet in the Senate, and drew what was thought to be a fairly mediocre opponent in state Sen. Kay Hagan. Dole led Hagan handily for much of 2008, often breaking 50 percent in the polls. But Hagan pulled close after the Democratic convention, and then broke the race open after the financial collapse. She led the Democratic ticket in the state, running ahead of both Barack Obama and gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue.

Hagan herself has had a reasonably uneventful term. She faces two basic challenges. First, she has mostly backed the national Democratic agenda, and second, she can’t rely upon the surge in African-American turnout that accompanied Obama’s run for office and helped to propel her across the finish line. Democrats attempted to manipulate the Republican primary to increase the chances the GOP would elect a candidate who would implode, but voters nominated House Speaker Thom Tillis. He is the face of an unpopular legislature, but neither Obama nor Hagan is particularly popular in the state either. Polls show a tight race, but Hagan is below 45 percent, and is in deep trouble.

Polling Data