Richard Burr has his hands full.

For the first time since he went to Washington 22 years ago, he faces a double whammy: a strong opponent and a bad year for Republicans.

You can see his problem in the first ad for Deborah Ross. It tags Burr, sans socks, as the worst kind of Washington politician, one who makes Washington work for him but not for North Carolinians.

Most striking is how strong Ross is on TV. She comes across as tough, smart and likeable. That’s a powerful combination.

No wonder Burr is ducking debates.

A lot of Republicans – and Democrats – dismissed Ross because she worked for the ACLU. But that’s old thinking.

Ross can make the ACLU a plus, not a minus. Like Kizir Khan, she can whip out the Constitution and say, “This is what I fought for.”

North Carolina voters are more urban and college-educated today. They like an organization that protects individual liberties against government overreach. Millennials like it. Even Trump voters like it.

Burr was elected to the House in the 1994 anti-Clinton Newt Gingrich wave. He beat Erskine Bowles for the Senate in 2004, a good Republican year, and was reelected in the 2010 Tea Party wave, after Elaine Marshall was bled dry in the Democratic primary.

Even after two terms in the Senate, Burr is little known by voters. He made himself a lame duck by saying he won’t run again. Now, his boat is being dragged down at both ends, thanks to Trump and Pat McCrory. Polls show Ross even with him.

Conventional wisdom always misses wave elections, and conventional wisdom could be missing how strong Ross is this year.