Lexington's Cunningham Makes U.S. Senate Run Official

Candidates around the state made their initial pitches to voters as filing began for the 2020 races. Democrat Cal Cunningham appeared in Lexington to announce his long-anticipated bid for U.S. Senate.

Cunningham made multiple stops across North Carolina including one at the Barbecue Center restaurant in his hometown where he talked about representing a state that has featured close races in recent years.

“I want to make sure I'm a voice for a state that is an evenly divided state, and that's gonna take extra work and a lot of listening,” he says.

Democrats see a good chance to flip the seat. A recent poll from High Point University found incumbent Republican Thom Tillis with just a 31 percent approval rating statewide, but Tillis got some good news when prospective primary challenger Garland Tucker decided not to enter the race.

Cunningham's entry in the race is not a surprise; he's been campaigning for months. He's a former state senator and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is Cunningham's second run for the U.S. Senate. He lost in a runoff to Elaine Marshall in the 2010 Democratic primary.