• 7th District GOP candidate Woody White, a New Hanover County Commissioner, airs his first TV ad in the Wilmington market, saying his Republican opponent David Rouzer is too close to the Washington Republican establishment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGvioq9OaQU

• A new Civitas Institute/Survey USA poll shows House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, with a double-digit lead in the GOP primary to challenge Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan. This mirrors the results of a poll commissioned last week from the same polling firm for WRAL. Of interest: While Tillis leads Dr. Greg Brannon 27-13 (a similar margin to that in last week’s poll), the Rev. Mark Harris finished third with 9 percent support and Wilkesboro nurse Heather Grant received 5 percent. In the WRAL poll, Harris got only 6 percent and Grant 11. A large share of voters remain undecided, 38 percent.

• The News & Observer’s Rob Christensen lists the GOP primaries for the 7th District and the Senate as two of seven “races to watch” in the coming weeks.

• Vince Coakley, who’s running for the GOP nomination in the 12th Congressional District, moderates a panel sponsored by the Rowan County Tea Party Patriots featuing five of the U.S. Senate Republican hopefuls: Brannon, Grant, Harris, former Shelby Mayor Ted Alexander, and former state lawmaker Jim Snyder.

• WECT-TV in Wilmington profiles the race for chief justice of the state Supreme Court and the unexpected decision by Superior Court Judge Ola Lewis, a Republican, to make a last-minute switch and file against Justice Mark Martin, another Republican, rather than Democratic Justice Cheri Beasley for another seat on the bench. Yours truly makes a brief appearance in the video report.