Senate Republicans face a difficult electoral map this November--23 GOP seats up for reelection, compared to only 12 for Democrats. The open GOP seats in Virginia (which most consider already lost to former Democratic Governor Mark Warner), Colorado, and New Mexico look very challenging. Moreover, several other Republican incumbents are also in competitive races.

This Rasmussen poll from North Carolina could signal a new headache. It shows incumbent Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole in an extremely tight race (she’s in a statistical tie 47%-48%) against a relatively unknown state Senator named Kay Hagan, who won the Democratic nomination in last week’s North Carolina primary. Dole led Hagan by 13 points a month ago, according to an earlier Rasmussen poll.

A couple caveats, however, about the survey deserve mention. The political environment in North Carolina specifically and the country in general are short-term factors, both pulling down Dole and helping Hagan for now. For example, the Tar Heel state just witnessed a very spirited Democratic primary--one that captured a great deal of local as well as national attention. I expect this drove up the Democratic identification numbers in the state, which boosts Hagan. Second, slumping GOP identification nationally is most likely translating to North Carolina as well--another source of headwind in early polling. Third, looking at the crosstabs, it’s clear State Senator Hagan is not well known to many North Carolina voters. Among many key subgroups, a significant number of voters say they are "not sure" about whether they are favorable or unfavorable toward Hagan. This could spell trouble for the State Senator if the Dole campaign aggressively paints her as out of step with more moderate-to-conservative North Carolina voters.

But that takes a lot of money and other resources. Given all the races around the country where Republicans will need to invest, a tight race in North Carolina is trouble the GOP had hoped to avoid.