RALEIGH: This week, news outlets reported on candidate for U.S. Senate Cheri Beasley’s strong efforts to build a “winning coalition” in North Carolina and noting that the “nation might find control of the Senate hangs on” the outcome in the North Carolina Senate race.
Outlets reported that Cheri is focused on running a “North Carolina’ flavor style campaign” that “shows up in the way Beasley champions issues she believes everyone can get behind, such as lowering health care costs, supporting small and rural towns, and expanding benefits for families, such as the child tax credit and paid family leave.” The 19th highlighted Cheri’s ability to evoke “energy and excitement from a diverse range of people” and described Cheri as “thoughtful,” “measured and steady,” qualities that people “seem to love about her.” The 19th also detailed Cheri’s commitment to “courting” rural voters and her campaign’s “targeted outreach” to “not only with Black voters in cities but also those in rural communities who tend to be overlooked by politicians from both major parties.”
Veteran Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne reported that while Cheri focuses on running a “North Carolina-centric race,” the column reports that Congressman Budd “is trying to nationalize things.” With her “systematic” campaign, the column also notes that Beasley has turned her “North-Carolina centric” Senate race “into one of the closest in the country.”
Outlets also reported on the launch of Cheri’s new “For the People” Get Out the Vote Tour, “a statewide tour across North Carolina” that will include “public forums in Asheville, Lumberton and Elizabeth City” and “additional ‘community conversations’ in counties across the state.” WLOS reported on Cheri’s stop at “a farm in Yancey county” to speak to “rural voters” in Western NC as part of her tour and “effort to reach more rural voters who may have had limited access to view the latest debate between her and Republican candidate Ted Budd.”
Read the highlights below:
The 19th: Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?
By Candice Norwood
October 11, 2022
The Beyu Caffe was standing room only as people packed into the spot in downtown Durham, less than two miles east of Duke University.
Walking up to the stage at the Black-owned coffee shop, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cheri Beasley was greeted by a chorus of claps and cheers from the crowd, a multiracial mix of young and older supporters.
The moment captured what she needs to win in November: energy and excitement from a diverse range of people. If she wins, Beasley will make history as the first Black woman to be elected U.S. senator from North Carolina. The Senate currently has no Black women.
Beasley has already been elected statewide multiple times, as a state district court judge and a state court of appeals judge.
Academics, advocacy groups and voters frequently describe Beasley as measured and steady, attributes that many supporters at the Beyu Caffe seem to love about her.
“She is thoughtful, she’s calm,” said Fay Mitchell, 68, a resident of Durham. “In her presence, in her marketing, she makes overtures for a broad spectrum of people. So she’s branded herself as someone that we can all relate to.”
Beasley’s two decades as a judge included serving as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court; she was the first Black woman to hold that position. That judicial experience required her to evaluate issues without political commentary, and likely factors into her demeanor on the campaign trail. But being a Democrat and a Black woman running for a statewide seat in North Carolina also requires a certain balancing act, experts told The 19th.
“We do a lot of ticket-splitting here in North Carolina, so for Democrats in general, you have to run a very North Carolina flavor of race – running a campaign that is broad enough so that you don’t isolate that small universe of voters that are open to vote for a Democrat, even if they may not be registered as a Democrat,” said North Carolina state Sen. Natalie Murdock. “Justice Beasley knows what it takes to be a Black woman that is running statewide.”
That “North Carolina flavor”-style campaign shows up in the way Beasley champions issues she believes everyone can get behind, such as lowering health care costs, supporting small and rural towns, and expanding benefits for families, such as the child tax credit and paid family leave.
“Access to health care – doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat, Republican or independent – these are real issues all over the state,” Beasley told The 19th. “We have issues that impact our climate and impact people and our livelihoods every single day. These are not partisan issues.”
She added that she’s prepared to fight for her state without getting “caught up in the pettiness of partisan politics,” though she has been a vocal supporter of abortion rights in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Despite being overshadowed in the national spotlight by other midterm races, the contest between Beasley and Budd has emerged as one of the country’s most competitive in a high-stakes election season when Democrats stand to lose control of the Senate.
Working in Beasley’s favor are the efforts of grassroots organizations pushing to register new voters, and engage more young people, communities of color and rural voters. In 2020, an estimated 1.8 million of the state’s 7.3 million registered voters did not cast ballots.
This means at least some rural voters will be a necessity for Beasley, and she has spent campaign time courting them. She touts that she has traveled to all of the state’s 100 counties, 80 of which are rural.
Beasley’s approach includes targeted outreach to churches, HBCUs and historically Black sororities and fraternities. She is working to connect not only with Black voters in cities but also those in rural communities who tend to be overlooked by politicians from both major parties.
“Nobody pays attention to rural communities. Nobody’s talking to those voters and asking them, ‘What do you care about?’ ‘What keeps you up at night?’ ‘What’s on your mind,’” said Bonnie Dobson, who works with Down Home, a North Carolina-based civic engagement organization focused on small and rural towns. As a Black woman in Mebane, North Carolina, a town of about 15,000 people, Dobson has felt this first-hand.
All of Down Home’s eight county chapters have endorsed Beasley for Senate. Dobson said she thinks Beasley’s judicial experience and focus on people’s core values make her an appealing candidate for the potential voters she speaks with.
Washington Post: Opinion: The Senate majority may depend on a November surprise
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
October 12, 2022
Sometimes, the quiet voices end up ringing the loudest.
Cheri Beasley, the first Black woman to serve as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, has gone about the business of running for U.S. Senate without clamor.
While news media and party committees obsess over Senate races in, say, Georgia (for obvious reasons) and Pennsylvania, the 56-year old Democrat has turned the battle here into one of the closest in the country.
So in November, the nation might find control of the Senate hangs on whether Beasley’s, well, judicious but systematic campaign pushed her past Rep. Ted Budd, the former president Donald Trump favorite nominated by the Republicans. A poll released this month by WRAL News in Raleigh, N.C., found Beasley just one point behind Budd.
She doesn’t mind a bit if her contest is seen as a local affair. “We’ve really been running a North Carolina-centric race,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “We are talking with folks all across the state. We’ve been to all 100 counties, and we have always been focused on the things that people here care about.”
It’s Budd who is trying to nationalize things. He is unapologetically robotic in describing his opponent as a “rubber stamp for Joe Biden,” invoking it during their recent debate three times in one 30-second answer.
Like many Democrats in states Biden lost in 2020, Beasley is not embracing the president, but she does point to the good things Democrats have accomplished. She hits Budd hard for voting against the Inflation Reduction Act’s controls on pharmaceutical prices and said he was “voting against North Carolina” in opposing the Chips and Science Act, which she said would bolster “our manufacturing and tech sector.”
Price has been pushing the national party to get more involved here and noted that Beasley won two statewide court races and lost her election for a full term as chief justice in 2020 by just 401 votes, even as Biden ran 74,483 votes behind Trump in North Carolina.
The Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade has further moved expectations in favor of both Beasley and Democratic state legislative candidates.
Budd clearly knows he is vulnerable on the question. He struggled during last week’s debate to insist that while he had “always been pro-life,” he had also “always been about protecting the life of the mother,” something that’s not clear from his past statements. Beasley hit back hard. “The bottom line is Congressman Budd wants to be in between a woman and her doctor,” she said. “There is no place in the exam room for Congressman Budd.”
When I asked Beasley how her background as a judge might affect her work as a senator, she was quick to draw another contrast. “Respect for the rule of law really ought to matter as policymakers are making decisions about people’s everyday lives,” she said. She charged that Budd — who called the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack “just patriots standing up” — supported “election subversion” and “praised the mob that stormed the Capitol and rioted and injured and killed hundreds of law enforcement officers.”
Democrats watching Beasley’s race should remember this: In nearly every cycle, there is a Senate outcome that no one expected. In 1984 in Kentucky, a Republican county judge-executive surprised the nation by winning a Senate seat by 5,000 votes. His name was Mitch McConnell.
Original source can be found here.
