Democratic Senate Primary

I've had several people ask me when we're going to do a poll seeing how Roy Cooper and Heath Shuler would do against each other in a primary.

The answer, I hope, is never. It's really hard for me to imagine the two of them both running for the seat. Each has a perfectly good gig now that they can keep for as long as they want. With some exceptions, losing in the primary isn't usually very good for your future career.

I would imagine if Cooper wants to be the nominee, he's going to be the nominee. Some other folks might run in the primary, like happened against Kay Hagan last year, but I don't imagine anyone of much stature who could run a particularly strong campaign doing that.

If Cooper passes, it seems like it would be Shuler's for the taking.

But I'd be very surprised if they didn't resolve this between themselves, so we won't be doing any polling on that unless it somehow becomes a reality.

We'll test a third candidate against Richard Burr in February and I'll post a thread for your suggestions closer to the time.