How Much Trouble Is Richard Burr in?

rollcall.com ^ | 5/4/15 | Stuart Rothenburg

[cotton1706]

North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr apparently is easy to underestimate.

The former Wake Forest football defensive back (he played at 6’1’’, 200 pounds as a sophomore in 1975, according to the university’s Athletic Media Relations Department) served five terms in the House and is now in his second term in the Senate. He is the Tar Heel State’s senior senator and, more importantly, chairs the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, a particularly meaningful position given terrorist threats to the United States.

But Burr, who lost or dropped a couple of bids to join his party’s Senate leadership, has never been as high-profile or grandiloquent as some of his Senate colleagues. And each time he runs in a competitive contest, observers tend to focus on his weaknesses, not his strengths.

“In his home state,” wrote The New Republic in the summer of 2010, a little more than two months before he was re-elected to a second term, “Burr is anything but a star.” The magazine went on to describe him as “a blank slate” and assert his poll numbers were “uncomfortably low because voters don’t really know who he is.”

But if Burr isn’t flashy, he has a real interest in public policy, and he has plenty of political savvy. I will never underestimate him — as I did a number of years ago.

Burr’s House seat moved around a bit but always was anchored around Winston-Salem and included a string of counties along the Virginia border. He lost his first bid for Congress, to incumbent Democrat Stephen Neal in 1992, and his open-seat victory two years later was competitive. But after that, he didn’t need to break a sweat running for re-election.

[cotton1706]

Here is Burr's conservative voting record. He SHOULD be in trouble! And don't anybody give me that bull that we need to protect and reelect every republican senator! We did that last year and McConnell and his cronies were ALL reelected, and they're bowing before the democrats at every turn!

Burr (NC) - 2016 - 71% (Average) - 55% (CReview) - 58% (Heritage) - 74% (CFG) - 84% (ACU) - 83% (FreedomWorks)

[Blennos]

Many of us here in NC know exactly who and what Burr is. He is a huge disappointment, voting GOPe is too many cases. At election time, he is just another of the many “hold your nose” candidates. I wish we could reincarnate Jesse helms, a true conservative.

[kalee]

I want him out. His office haas given me nothing but excuses when I have contacted them about issues such as Obamacare and immigration. I hope there is a strong conservative challenger for him in 2016.

[Tupelo]

I use 75% average conservative rating as my Mendoza Line for Republicans. So Burr at 71% is a little too low for me.

[grumpygresh]

I’m not from NC but isn’t Burr a big backer of the intel agencies? Is he still supporting all of the incursions on 4th amendment by the NSA and DHS, TSA?

If he is, he’s a worthless totalitarian tool and not worthy of support.

[woweeitsme]

Unfortunately, at 71%, he’s probably in the upper tier of conservative voting.