• Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan tells The Associated Press she would welcome President Obama to North Carolina to help her campaign for re-election.
• Bloomberg News profiles the crowded Republican U.S. Senate primary, including the battle of GOP proxies in Washington who have thrown their support to different candidates.
• By the time you have read this, Dr. Greg Brannon, one of Hagan’s Republican rivals, will have spoken and met voters at Freedom Christian Academy in Fayetteville. Brannon won the straw poll conducted Saturday by the Henderson County Republican Party with 66 votes. House Speaker Thom Tillis and Baptist minister Mark Harris each received 11 votes, former Shelby Mayor Ted Alexander seven votes, and former state lawmaker Jim Snyder one. Last last week, right-leaning Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, no fan of the Tea Party, took a swipe at Brannon for statements he’s made questioning the safety of vaccinations.
• WRAL looks at another Republican challenger for the Senate, Wilkesboro nurse Heather Grant, who has making a run at the top tier of candidates by running an energetic, grass-roots campaign.
• Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson, a Democrat who’s the only judicial candidate facing a May 6 primary (against Republicans Jeanette Doran and Eric Levinson), spoke with the Gaston Gazette about open government.
