GOP establishment candidate wins N.C. Senate nomination

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May 8 2014

North Carolina's Senate race is being closely watched because the incumbent, Democrat Kay Hagan, is considered one of the most vulnerable this campaign season because of her support of the health law. Also in the news, The Washington Post does some fact checking in regard to the latest round of Obamacare attacks, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launches a major ad buy.

The Associated Press: NC Lawmaker Wins GOP Senate Nomination
North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis captured the Republican nomination to oppose imperiled Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan Tuesday night, overcoming anti-establishment rivals by a comfortable margin in the first of a springtime spate of primaries testing the strength of a tea party movement that first rocked the GOP four years ago. … Hagan is among the Democrats' most vulnerable incumbents in a campaign season full of them, a first-term lawmaker in a state that is ground zero in a national debate over the health care law that she and the Democrats voted into existence four years ago. Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, has run about $7 million worth of television commercials criticizing Hagan for her position on the law (5/6).

The Washington Post's The Fact Checker: New Obamacare Attacks: A Round-Up
We are going to do a quick round-up of two recent claims about the Affordable Care Act. We can't always get to them, and indeed the quote above was first spotted by our colleagues at PolitiFact. But it is simply too good to pass up. We also regret not finding the time to fact check the radio ad by Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), which claimed that GOP hopeful Thom Tillis (R) had said that Obamacare was a "great idea" (Kessler, 5/7).

The New York Times: Chamber Of Commerce Makes Ad Buy Supporting Pro-Business Republicans
Though the ads range in topic, President Obama's signature health care law figures significantly into several of the commercials. The ad for Mr. Heck, a doctor, warns that the Affordable Care Act has led to "higher taxes, increased premiums and fewer choices" (Parker, 5/6).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.