It’s another bad week for Congressman Ted Budd, as the INDY Week reported on his lackluster campaign, highlighting that he is sticking to the “Republican strategy” of not wanting “to make public appearances,” nor  “wanting the media to cover them,” noting that “it seems like Budd doesn’t want anybody to know who he is” perhaps because “Budd is uncomfortable with himself.” 

If that wasn’t bad enough, a Republican strategist interviewed in the article claimed that Budd’s Democratic opponent Cheri Beasley’s advertising campaign “is more effective” than Budd’s, saying Beasley “comes across to me as a person” while “Budd talks like a politician.” 

The article also called out Budd for being beholden to corporate special interests, including taking money from Big Oil the day after voting against a gas price-gouging ban and in a “glaring display of corruption,” Budd “voted in support of corporate special interests after taking $30,000 worth of trips on their dime.” 

Read the highlights here: 

INDY Week: Budd and Beasley Are Polling Neck and Neck But They’re a Study In Opposites

• In July, a day after accepting the maximum campaign contribution from big oil PAC Continental Resources, Inc., Budd voted against legislation that would lower gas prices and protect consumers from price gouging by big oil companies.
• In 2019, Budd voted against lowering consumer drug prices just days after taking thousands of dollars from two Big Pharma PACs.
• In perhaps the most glaring display of corruption, Budd has voted in support of corporate special interests after taking $30,000 worth of trips on their dime, traveling to places like Miami, Palm Beach, and Oslo, Norway, and staying in $900-a-night luxury resorts.
• Budd’s critics accuse him of being a hypocrite. He promotes himself as an ally to farmers but made millions off a family business scheme that bankrupted the company AgriBioTech and cost farmers $50 million in losses.
• Despite demanding that Gov. Roy Cooper do more to explain how “those in positions of power in North Carolina are acting proactively to protect children,” Budd has passed up opportunities to address child abuse time and again, voting against bills that would have provided a composite $890 million in funding for child abuse prevention services.
• And for all his efforts to come off as a Constitution-abiding everyman, Budd has refused to say whether he accepts the results of the 2020 presidential election, called the January 6 insurrection “just patriots standing up,” and recently cosponsored a bill that would impose a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
• Even people who know Budd personally aren’t sure whether they’ll vote for him in November. 
• Budd is following “the Republican strategy,” of not making public appearances. “They don’t want [the media] to cover them. They want to do it all under the surface.”
• After months spent distancing himself from Trump, Budd took the stage with the former president and shouted “Make America Great Again.” After proclaiming his support for farmers, veterans, and child abuse victims, he votes and behaves in ways that work against them. And after more than a decade of selling firearms, he says that Beasley is the one abetting criminals.
• To close his speech at the Trump rally, Budd touts his adherence to his family’s motto, “Just do what you say you’re gonna do.”
• “That’s how I’ve operated throughout my life,” Budd says. “That’s how I’ve served in the U.S. Congress, and that’s the kind of U.S. senator that I’m gonna be.”
• After he says it, he inhales, holds his breath, and frowns, like maybe he knows it’s not true.