Perhaps the most exciting race in North Carolina Tuesday--or at least the one that holds the most promise for directly affecting North Carolinians--will not be who goes to the U.S. Senate, but rather who gains control of the state's General Assembly.
Although none of Durham's races are particularly contested--only one of the Senate or House Democratic candidates in the city and none in Duke University's district have a Republican opponent--this year's race for both the state Senate and state House could reap historic results.
Policy specialists list redistricting and budget concerns as the two most variable concerns that could shift control of the statehouse from Democratic to Republican control. Currently, the Democrats have a 35-15 majority in the Senate, but control the House by a much slimmer 62-58 margin.
Ted Arrington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said that the Republicans will in all likelihood retake the House, where the GOP held a majority from 1994 to 1998. However, it is less likely that Republicans will take control of the Senate, which has been under Democratic control for nearly a century.
"There are about a half-dozen Democratic incumbents in districts that are a lot more Republican than they used to be," Arrington said. "That determines who's going to win the Senate."
Republicans will need to take 11 seats from the Democrats in the Senate to win control.
Arrington added that although some specific issues arise in local elections-such as a bridge needed off the coast or roadwork in an unpaved area of the mountains-most candidates run on the basis of party affiliation and name recognition.
"If there is an issue, it is obviously the one the Republicans have been trying to create, which is taxes and spending," Arrington said.
Analysts point to North Carolina's current budget woes as the Democrats' largest headache this election cycle. The $14.3 billion budget the Democratic-controlled legislature passed with Democratic Gov. Mike Easley this fall sharply limited or cut back spending in many areas. Next year's budget will be riddled with even more financial difficulties unless the economy rebounds, state leaders have warned.
Republican Rep. Franklin Mitchell, House minority whip, said Easley and the Democratic-controlled assembly are to blame for the state's budget woes.
"The taxes were raised and people were very upset about it," he said, adding that some Democrats have been forced to vote in favor of tax hikes because of party pressure.
House Minority Leader Leo Daughtry said he thinks state agencies have been duplicating services and that has resulted in wasteful spending.
"We have deficits that are serious," he said. "People are so fed up with the management in place."
State Democrats tell a different story, however, in which spending has been cut as much as possible without prompting drastic reductions in services.
Amy Fulk, spokesperson for Democratic Sen. Mark Basnight, president pro tempore, defended the Democrats' work on the budget, which cut 3 percent of state spending.
Fulk added that in spite of the national recession and the budget shortfall, Democratic legislators were able to protect money for education and investments in economic growth.
"Fourty-five states are going through the same problems we are," she said. "We did a pretty good job protecting the things that matter."
Fulk said that, in contrast, Republicans would cut spending for job training programs, education initiatives and other non-profit money used for rape crisis centers and domestic violence programs.
"If you look at the substance of what [the Republicans] say, they're really bad ideas," she said.
Mitchell said Republicans would make state agencies justify every dollar of state money they received. He added that the legislature usually looks only at the budget's expansion, not the entire appropriation. "We're going to adopt a zero-base budget," he said.
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With the likelihood of Republican control in the House and a more evenly-split balance in the Senate, the process of next year's budget may be even more rancorous than this year's.
Andrew Taylor, an associate professor of political science at North Carolina State University, said this year's campaign is a growing sign that Republicans are giving Democrats more of a challenge in local and state politics.
"The Democratic party has dominated [at the state level], although [U.S.] congressional delegations have changed [between parties]," he said. "Republicans haven't been able to organize greatly at the grassroots level, but they're catching up."
Sen. Tony Rand, the Senate Majority Leader, said that regardless of the election results, his party would continue to push for things like education and health.
"In modern times, [the Democratic Party's] success... has stood for the kind of programs we've enacted and the way we've conducted government," Rand said.
"Those of us in the Senate will work with whoever is in the leadership of the House. We'll work for the problems that North Carolina faces the best way we can."