Did Romney Just Tip the Scale in North Carolina GOP Senate Primary?

He sure put his thumb on the scale. Tom Dougherty explains:

Former Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, announced his endorsement this morning, on the eve of the GOP primary, for Speaker of the North Carolina House, Thom Tillis. In an email, Governor Romney said:

Tomorrow, North Carolina Republicans will go to the polls to nominate a candidate for US Senate. Today, I am writing to urge you to support my friend Thom Tillis in that race.

Now more than ever, Americans need problem-solvers in Washington, DC. Thom is a conservative who has been solving problems in North Carolina as Speaker of the House and I am confident he will do the same in Washington.

In 2012, you gave me a critical victory over Barack Obama in this state. I know firsthand that North Carolinians want a new kind of leadership in Washington – and I know that Thom Tillis will provide results-driven leadership that you can be proud of.

Tomorrow is the first step in regaining a majority in the US Senate. I hope Thom and I can count on your vote tomorrow in this critical primary!

Is Romney’s eleventh-hour support enough to propel Tillis to more than 40% of the vote in tomorrow’s primary, thereby avoiding a runoff against the second-place finisher?

In and of itself, it can only help and hardly hurt Tillis’ chances; and it may be tight by many indications; but a close inspection of the last two polls from Public Policy Polling, spaced a week apart, reveal possible indications that the numbers may favor Tillis more than the toplines suggest.

Read the whole thing to get those numbers Tom mentioned, but I’ll add one more thing.

I’ve noticed a real sense of regret, maybe even a newfound respect on the for Romney since he lost the election. It’s nothing I can quite put my finger on, but in everyday conversations, on the blogs, Twitter, there seems to be a sense — even from folks like me who claimed I’d do the “walk of shame” back to my car after voting for him — of what the nation lost when Romney lost.

It’s hard to believe he would ever have made a great president, but it’s impossible to think he wouldn’t have been a huge improvement, even if only in simple decency, over the man we’re now stuck with until 2017.