The North Carolina Senate Race Is On | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Charlotte Pence Bond.

    GOP House Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina and Cheri Beasley will face off in November for the North Carolina Senate seat after Senator Richard Burr (R) did not seek reelection, setting up a heated contest in the swing state.

    Representative Budd's fundraising dollars from the beginning of last year until June 30, 2022, come in at over $6.3 million total. From April of last year until June 30 of this year, Beasley raised over $16 million.

    The race is considered to be one of the closest in the nation as Senate Republicans push to gain a majority over both chambers of congress.

    Cheri Beasley, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, raised over $7.42 million in the second quarter of 2022, which is over twice what she raised in the last quarter, per her campaign, according to the News Observer.

    The number would beat a prior second-quarter fundraising record established in 2020 by Democratic senate nominee Cal Cunningham. Cunningham raised $28.3 million in the third quarter of that year.

    As of April 27, Budd had reported totals reported at over $4.5 million. Budd's campaign reportedly referenced Beasley's announcement in a fundraising email last week, stating, "we cannot let her overwhelm us in fundraising."

    Budd won the primary in a field of 14 Republican candidates. Beasley was previously a chief justice of the state Supreme Court and secured 81% of the May 17th primary vote in a field of 11 candidates.

    Beasley released an attack ad against Budd on Friday, pointing to the cost of insulin for Americans. Her campaign told Axios that the television spot cost six figures, and will be shown throughout North Carolina.

    "If you live outside the U.S., a month's supply of this insulin costs about $16. But here, it's more than $220. And get this, when Congress had a chance to do something, politicians like Ted Budd voted against it," Beasley tweeted on Friday.

    "It's time to stand up to the drug companies and put you first," she concluded.

    In a statement to Axios, Budd senior advisor Jonathan Felts said, "It's only July, but Cheri Beasley is already a desperate candidate out of ideas and forced to fall back on the same distorted negative attacks that delivered Democrat losses in N.C. over the past decade."

    Last week, Budd posted a video on Twitter, linking Beasley to Biden's policies, saying, "my opponent, Cheri Beasley, she has supported Joe Biden every step of the way. Beasley supports Biden's reckless spending. Beasley supports Biden's tax increases. And Beasley supports Biden's war on American energy."

    He added, "Cheri Beasley would vote to continue each and every policy that has made life worse for North Carolinians."