North Carolina now has some hot congressional races - but covering them is difficult, as some areas are taken for granted by one party (or candidate) and written off by the other. Nowhere is this as true as the U.S. Senate race - in which Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) is in a very tight reelection race against state legislator and Tea Party darling Thom Tillis, while this county is seen as hopelessly-safe Republican territory for all congressional races this year.
Contact with a Tea Party source weeks ago found none of the candidates coming to this county - at least not on any significant basis. The Tea Party source - who is at the level that the Tea Party and Republican Party merge - made clear that each candidate had written off or taken for granted this county and significant areas of neighboring Guilford County.
Nonetheless, something to cover in the Senate race did appear this week here in Burlington: signs placed by Tea Party group FreedomWorks (below) tying Sen. Hagan to Obamacare - which is very unpopular in this state. They appeared along major roads - and I stopped and photographed this one, aware that past photos of yard-type signs from political campaigns had sold for me. I then uploaded the photos to a news-photo agency.

A Tea Party-placed sign ties Sen. Hagan to (unpopular) Obamacare.