If he reaches enough voters and swings his message right, Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy could have a chance in the 2010 U.S. Senate race, recent polling indicates.

To defeat U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., in next year’s election, he will need to be briefed on national issues and raise enough money to buy TV ads in key parts of the state, said Tom Jensen, communications director of Public Policy Polling, which took the poll.

But before all that, he would have to definitively say he’s running for Senate within the next month.

“I’m not ready to say, ‘Oh, yes, I’m going to do this,’” Foy said Thursday. “I need other people who think it’s a good idea and are willing to step up and support me so I’m able to project a path toward winning.”

In a recent telephone poll conducted between Oct. 2 and 4, 29 percent of respondents said they would prefer Foy to Burr, while 45 percent said they would vote for Burr over Foy. The remaining 26 percent said they were undecided.

FULL STORY