Posted:
Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) was narrowly defeated by North Carolina state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) on Tuesday in one of the nation's highest-profile Senate races.
The Associated Press called the race for Tillis after the polls closed, with the Republican leading Hagan by 2 percentage points. Libertarian pizza deliveryman Sean Haugh trailed far behind.
Hagan, who was first elected to the Senate in 2008, was considered one of this electoral cycle's most vulnerable Democratic incumbents. The Tar Heel State race was closely scrutinized as one that might contribute to a new GOP majority in the Senate. Republicans went into Tuesday's election needing to pick up six seats to gain control of Congress' upper chamber.
North Carolina's expensive television topography, with multiple key media markets, also helped drive spending in the contest to $111 million, making it the first general election Senate race to pass the $100 million mark.
The campaigns and their affiliated outside groups spent heavily on turnout efforts in a state that President Barack Obama won by just 11,000 votes in 2008 and lost by nearly 100,000 votes in 2012. While Tillis' campaign worked to tie Hagan to Obama, frequently repeating the claim that she had voted with the president '96 percent of the time,' the senator's campaign did the opposite by trying to de-nationalize the race. In debates and on the airwaves, Hagan and her surrogates reminded voters of Tillis' leadership in the North Carolina legislature, which passed education spending cuts, new restrictions on abortion clinics and voting rights restrictions.
Tillis, in turn, worked to distance himself from his record as speaker and to moderate some of his policy stances in order to neutralize Hagan's attacks. He announced new support for making birth control available over the counter. And after he had campaigned in the GOP primary on his opposition to expanding Medicaid coverage to some 500,000 North Carolinians under the Affordable Care Act, he said during the general election that he would ' encourage' North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) and the state legislature to consider a Medicaid expansion.
National Republicans harbored concerns that Tillis should have resigned his state House leadership role in order to campaign full-time. He was busy presiding over the North Carolina House through July. But Tillis caught up as autumn progressed. He seized on Hagan's admission that she had missed a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Islamic State to raise money in New York City. Hagan's campaign countered by pointing out that Tillis had missed legislative sessions himself to engage in fundraising.
Still, the senator appeared to feel the need to counter Tillis' foreign policy attacks. In October, she became one of the first Democrats facing a close re-election contest to call for a temporary travel ban on non-U.S. citizens from countries in West Africa affected by the Ebola virus.
Below, more live updates on the 2014 midterm elections: -- Samantha Lachman
As the North Carolina race tightened, the State Board of Elections released data showing that early voting was up 20 percent compared to the last midterm election in 2010. Last year, the GOP-controlled state legislature had repealed same-day registration, cut the early voting period by a week and ended out-of-precinct voting. Proponents of those measures argued that the early voting totals meant the restrictions hadn't had the vote-suppressing impact that opponents had suggested they would.
On Tuesday, however, reports emerged of voters being turned away because they were still showing up to vote at the wrong precincts. Voting rights advocates had also suggested that a backlash to the new restrictions might motivate people who otherwise would not have voted.
-- Matt Ferner -- Kate Sheppard
Read more here.
Read more here.
HuffPost's Dave Jamieson reports:
Massachusetts on Tuesday became the third state in the nation to guarantee paid sick days for workers, with voters decisively approving a sick-leave ballot initiative, 60 percent to 40 percent.
Under the measure known as Question 4, employers will have to provide their workers with one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours they work. ... Workers can use the time when they're ill, injured or need to tend to a medical condition, or when a spouse, child or parent needs to be cared for.
Read more here.
--Matt Ferner
-- Laura Bassett
Read more here.
Koch-backed group starts ads in #Louisiana Senate runoff (from @AP) #LASen http://t.co/RSOw5C6HSE
- Melinda Deslatte (@MelindaDeslatte) November 5, 2014
HuffPost's Laura Bassett reports:
Voters in Colorado rejected an anti-abortion ballot measure on Tuesday that would have granted personhood rights to developing fetuses from the moment of fertilization.
The ballot measure, known as Amendment 67, would have amended the state's criminal code to include fetuses in the category of 'human' and 'child.'
Read more here.
HuffPost's Paul Blumenthal reports:
Read more here. -- Amanda Terkel -- Samantha Lachman
Read more here.
HuffPost's Mariah Stewart reports:
Entities 0 Name: Tillis Count: 8 1 Name: Hagan Count: 7 2 Name: Senate Count: 5 3 Name: North Carolina Count: 5 4 Name: Laura Bassett Count: 2 5 Name: Matt Ferner Count: 2 6 Name: GOP Count: 2 7 Name: House Count: 2 8 Name: Samantha Lachman Count: 2 9 Name: Amanda Terkel Count: 1 10 Name: Melinda Deslatte Count: 1 11 Name: Thom Tillis Count: 1 12 Name: State Board of Elections Count: 1 13 Name: Associated Press Count: 1 14 Name: Congress Count: 1 15 Name: Sean Haugh Count: 1 16 Name: Dave Jamieson Count: 1 17 Name: Massachusetts Count: 1 18 Name: Pat McCrory Count: 1 19 Name: Obama Count: 1 20 Name: Paul Blumenthal Count: 1 21 Name: North Carolinians Count: 1 22 Name: Sen. Kay Hagan Count: 1 23 Name: Kate Sheppard Count: 1 24 Name: Barack Obama Count: 1 25 Name: Senate Armed Services Committee Count: 1 26 Name: Colorado Count: 1 27 Name: Mariah Stewart Count: 1 28 Name: Islamic State Count: 1 29 Name: West Africa Count: 1 30 Name: North Carolina House Count: 1 31 Name: New York City Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1Af76oV Title: Costly U.S. Senate race in North Carolina in dead heat Description: Credit: Reuters/Chris Keane Voters cast their ballots at the Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina November 4, 2014. More than $108 million has been spent on the contest, according to the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation. Yet the candidates remained nearly tied ahead of Election Day, with the RealClearPolitics poll average showing Hagan up by just 0.7 percentage point.
