One of the most heated battles of the 2014 election is set to begin.
North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis captured the Republican nomination Tuesday, the Associated Press reported, avoiding a potentially calamitous runoff in the process. Tillis will now face Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, who is considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the Senate.
After Tillis secured the victory, the establishment Republicans and groups that supported him began the high-fiving.
Rob Engstrom, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's national political director, said the Chamber was "proud to have aggressively supported his primary campaign." American Crossroads, which spent more than $1.6 million on ads over four weeks in the primary, said it "was clear from the start that Thom Tillis is the only proven conservative" who can defeat Hagan.
Jahan Wilcox, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, tweeted (then deleted) a potential preview of the Kentucky Senate primary: "Next up is that fraud Matt Bevin!" Wilcox said of the Republican challenger to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Establishment Republicans who rallied around Tillis said it was important for him to avoid a runoff. Many Democrats saw obstetrician Greg Brannon as a "Todd Akin-in-waiting," referring to the 2012 Senate candidate in Missouri.
One source close to the Hagan campaign told Business Insider it didn't really have a preferred outcome on Tuesday. On one hand, a runoff would have been beneficial with the two Republican candidates slugging it out for another two months. On the other, it could also benefit Hagan to have a clear opponent it could start to define as soon as possible.
Ben Ray, a spokesman for the Hagan campaign, gave a preview Tuesday night of how the campaign will look to define Tillis.
"Speaker Tillis’ Washington special interests succeeded in dragging him across the finish line, but they’ll find that defending his record in the fall is much more difficult than brushing off underfunded challengers," Ray said.