When George Holding first ran for Congress, I wrote a series of reports about how campaigns are built day to day. Now, four years later, George has a primary with Congresswoman Renee Ellmers and I’m going to do the same thing again.

I should point out, at the beginning, I’m not unbiased. I worked with George’s father, uncles and brother in Jesse Helms’s campaigns. I’ve known George for over thirty years and I’ve worked for his campaign, making TV ads. (I should also add I worked with Congresswoman Ellmers the first time she ran in 2010, when she defeated Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge.)

A month ago, George was running for reelection in the 13th District – without a Primary. Then a federal court turned the world turned upside down by telling the State Legislature to redraw North Carolina’s Congressional Districts – and an odd thing happened: The legislators picked George’s district up, airlifted it across the state, and dropped it in the rolling foothills of the Piedmont.

Not one person in the district George has represented for four years now lives in what’s called the ‘New 13th District.’

Next the legislators redrew Congresswoman Renee Ellmers’s District – the old 2nd District – removing 7 of 9 counties. Then they moved most of the people George had represented in Wake County into Congresswoman Ellmers’s ‘New 2nd District.’

When the smoke cleared, 63% of the voters in the ‘New 2nd District’ were people George had represented for four years and 13% were people Congresswoman Ellmers had represented during the same time.

The remaining 24% of the voters were from other districts.

The ‘unexpected’ happens and, in politics, when it does there’s no time for star-gazing. George had to do two things quickly: 1) Start raising money for a Special Primary Election on June 7. And 2) take a poll.

When the poll was done it showed that, in the 63% of the District George had represented for four years, he led Ellmers by over 20 points. Conversely, in the 13% of the District Ellmers had represented she led by a similar margin.

In the new part of the district neither George or Renee were well-known.

According to the poll, Ellmers also has a couple of additional challenges.

In this new district 51% of the voters describe themselves as Very Conservative, 23% as Somewhat Conservative, 22 % as Moderate and exactly 1.3% as Liberal.

Renee, it turns out, is philosophically out of step with voters – when asked whether they saw Congresswoman Ellmers as a Conservative, Moderate or Liberal voters said she is:

            Very Conservative                  4.7%

            Somewhat Conservative        18%

            Moderate                               37%

            Liberal                                     15%

In a district where 74% of the voters are Conservative, Renee Ellmers is viewed by 52% of the voters as a Moderate or Liberal.

We also asked voters how they view ‘Washington Politicians’ and the answer was simple: They’re universally loathed. We then asked who they viewed as a Washington Politician – Renee Ellmers or George Holding. And the answer was Renee hands down.

We asked questions about issues and I may write more about down the road but for now one will do: Right off the bat, Renee’s campaign came out swinging, attacking George, saying he’d voted against the ‘Farm Bill’ while Renee had voted for it – so George was going to lose the support of farmers.

But, it turns out, the Farm Bill’s not really a farm bill – it’s a Food Stamp Bill. 80% of the spending in the bill goes to pay for Food Stamps. George voted against it because he wanted to cut Food Stamp spending, require workfare, and require drug-testing.

When asked about Renee’s attack on George, 75% of the voters agreed with George while only 7% agreed with Renee.

And that’s where George stands: He has a substantial lead. There’re a fair amount of undecided voters. Who dislike Washington Politicians. And disagree with Renee’s attack on George.