NC-5: A potential upset?

North Carolina's incumbents are all pretty safe; particularly on the Republican side. We've said for awhile that Patsy Keever in the Eleventh might be the best hope for a pick-up.

But apparently Jim Harrell (seen here sporting a spiffy new web site) in the highly-conservative Fifth District might be giving Republicans a run for their money.

The Fifth - which almost nominated uberconservative Republican Vernon Robinson but wussed out in the end by nominating only slightly less offensive Virginia Foxx - consists of all or parts of Iredell, Alexander, Wilkes, Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany, Surry, Yadkin, Davie, Stokes, Rockingham and Forsyth Counties. It's Richard Burr's old stomping grounds, and hasn't been considered competitive enough to even watch.

But Harrell, a Surry County Commissioner, is making inroads. He's got bipartisan campaign chairs and has the advantage of running in an open seat.

An internal Harrell campaign poll shows that voters who know of both candidates, 49 percent prefer Harrell and 44 percent prefer Foxx. Here's the rub: Harrell has 40 percent name recognition, and Foxx has 80 percent. That's a pretty huge gap. But Foxx's negatives are pretty high due to the nasty Republican primary and runoff.

Harrell starts running tv ads really soon, so his name ID should go up dramatically. Who knows? Maybe we can get a surprise pick-up in the Fifth and send another North Carolina Democrat to Congress.

Volunteer or Contribute. It'd be great to keep Virginia Foxx out of Washington D.C.