It was another week of bad news for Ted Budd as even members of Budd’s own party don’t have faith in his campaign. After The Assembly found Republican officials were worried that Budd had “blown it,” calling his campaign “terrible” and without a “vision,” new reports this week highlight concern from several GOP strategists that Budd’s “not fighting hard enough” and are nervous about his “reluctance to talk to the news media or voters” impacting his chances in the hyper-competitive U.S. Senate race.

Outlets are also highlighting his blatant hypocrisy “paying lip service” to child abuse issues while voting against investing $890 million in programs designed to prevent child abuse and help victims heal.

Read the highlights here:

Reuters: A competitive Senate race in North Carolina has Republicans worried

• In his campaign for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina, Republican candidate Ted Budd has described himself as a “conservative warrior” and a “liberal agenda crusher.” But some of his fellow Republicans worry he is not fighting hard enough.
• While Democratic candidate Cheri Beasley has spent the summer running TV ads and campaigning across the state, Budd has kept a lower profile, staying off the airwaves for months and devoting much of his time to private fundraising events.
• Former Governor Pat McCrory, who lost to Budd in a hard-fought Republican primary, told Reuters that Budd is running a “risk averse” campaign, while conservative radio host Brett Winterble lamented the lack of “fire and fury” in the race.
• Seven Republican strategists said in interviews that they are concerned that Budd is not doing enough to court independent voters, who now outnumber registered Republicans and Democrats in the politically competitive state.
• A senior Republican official in North Carolina said Budd’s reluctance to talk to the news media or voters will not help him attract unaffiliated women voters concerned about his strict opposition to abortion.
• “This is an issue that he needs to get in front of or else it could really hurt,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Assembly: Paper Elephant

• Yet it’s been hard to suss out who exactly Ted Budd is beyond his relationship to the former president. He does little media, he didn’t participate in primary debates last spring, and his limited number of campaign events this summer have been in deeply red territory.
• A June Civitas poll put Budd ahead of Beasley by 5 points. By August, the same pollster had them tied at 42.3 percent. Another, from Blueprint Polling, put Beasley ahead by 4. FiveThirtyEight now has them running neck-and-neck.
• The polling is making some Republican leaders, who agreed to speak about internal party politics on condition of anonymity, worry Budd’s losing a fight that was his to win.
• “I think Budd is running a terrible campaign,” one former official from the state Republican Party said. “He has not put forth a vision of what he’d do for the state. If I were the Democrats, this race is where I’d put a lot of money, because Budd has blown it.”

IndyWeek: To Address Child Abuse, Budd Should Vote to Put Money Where His Mouth Is 

• Wannabe U.S. Senator Ted Budd has a lot of thoughts about child abuse in public schools—so many, in fact, that he directed a letter to Gov. Roy Cooper demanding that the governor detail “procedures in place to protect children in North Carolina schools.”
• Here’s the rub, though: as a three-term sitting member of Congress, instead of paying lip service, Budd has had ample opportunity to vote for bills that would actually allocate money, some $890 million, to programs designed to prevent child abuse and to help victims of child abuse heal.
• And guess what? Budd passed.
• Budd would be better off to ask not what Gov. Cooper is doing to protect children in North Carolina schools, but to take a look at his own voting record and start making better spending choices for North Carolina’s children about whom he claims to care so much.

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