• The most recent survey of registered voters by the Democratic Public Policy Polling firm shows incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan with a 39-34 lead over GOP nominee Thom Tillis. Libertarian Sean Haugh gets support from 11 percent of those surveyed. That’s slightly higher than the 2-point margin Hagan enjoyed in the last poll, but with only 42 percent of voters approving of her performance (and 46 percent disappoving), she’s hardly a lock. President Obama remains underwater in the survey as well, with 53 percent disapproval and 41 percent approval.
• The Asheville Citizen-Times reports that the Hagan and Tillis camps swapped barbs over comments Tillis made in a 2012 television interview suggesting that Republicans should reach out more to Hispanics, blacks, and other minority voters who’ve tended, in recent years, to lean Democratic. (Must be a slow news day in Asheville.) Hagan called the remarks “offensive.”
• Among the arrestees at this week’s Moral Monday protest at the Legislative Building were two government-employee union chiefs who live in Maryland and Virginia and have no apparent ties to North Carolina. (CORRECTION: One of the union arrestees was born in North Carolina.)
• In Forbes, Patrick Gleason of Americans for Tax Reform chronicles the higher taxes and spending that would be needed to satisfy the Moral Monday movement’s demands.
