Civitas Institute Finds Burr, Challengers Relatively Unknown in North Carolina

Here are the take-away numbers:

“While Senator Burr enjoys a slightly higher overall favorable rating than the other two, none of the three potential candidates are widely known among the electorate,” said Francis De Luca, executive director of the Civitas Institute. “Congressman Shuler is a virtual unknown outside of his district in Western N.C.”

Current N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper and US Congressman Heath Shuler are among the two most publicly speculated candidates to challenge Burr.

“Despite being in office an additional three plus years, taking over the highly publicized Duke lacrosse case, and just recently spending in excess of $2.5 million on re-election, Attorney General Cooper has only marginally improved his favorability since October 2005,” said De Luca.

Civitas tested voters’ opinion of Roy Cooper back in October 2005:
Favorable: 23%
Unfavorable: 4%
Unsure: 25%
Not aware: 47%

“All three candidates have a tremendous amount of work to do to familiarize themselves with voters over the next two years. It is almost as if voters are starting off with a blank slate of candidates to choose from for their next US Senator,” De Luca concluded.

Source: Civitas Institute

Please allow me to introduce you to Congressman Heath Shuler...




And Congressman Shuler wasn't through running...a couple of days later, he ran from Richard Bernier of the URTV program "Sound Off Buncombe".

If Congressman Shuler is indeed interested in "trying out" for the U.S. Senate, he'll find that a lot more people will be interested in seeing debates, and it won't be so easy to duck with a whole state watching. I certainly hope the Main Stream Media won't be as deep in his pockets as they are out here in the west...