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Republican Governor Pat McCrory, whose prize accomplishment is a ranking system designed to take politics out of North Carolina road spending, wants to ignore his own creation to fund rural projects.

McCrory has proposed a $1 billion bond sale specifically for work that doesnt score well under the formula he instituted this year. A Transportation Department draft list of 20 potential projects showed them sprinkled around the state. Most were outside cities and 12 were in districts represented by Republican state lawmakers.

The system devised by McCrory, a 58-year-old former Charlotte mayor, is driven by data, focuses spending on economic centers and discourages projects in sparsely populated areas. The bond proposal is a peace offering to fellow Republicans, said Chris Fitzsimon, director of NC Policy Watch in Raleigh, which pushes higher spending on education and social services.

It certainly sends a confusing message, from a governor who has talked incessantly about a ranking system for roads, Fitzsimon said. It looks to me like hes trying to make amends.

McCrorys plan to send bond funds to Republican strongholds arrives at a critical juncture. After a taking control of all branches of government two year ago, Republicans tightened rules on voting and cut taxes and education spending. This year, the party is trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Kay Hagan in a race key to control of Congress.

Thomas Mills, a Democratic political consultant, said the the bond plan is designed to shore up support for McCrory and other Republicans.

Rural voters are their base, he said.

Ryan Tronovitch, a McCrory spokesman, referred questions to the state Transportation Department.

Mike Charbonneau, a spokesman for that agency, said the proposal lets the state take advantage of interest rates near historic lows.

North Carolina (NNC) has the top rating from Moodys Investors Service, Standard & Poors and Fitch Ratings. It can issue $1.2 billion in debt for transportation projects through 2017, according to a January report by state treasurers Debt Affordability Advisory Committee.

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McCrory Plan Channels N.C. Road Funds to Republican Areas

Republicans, who hold a majority of U.S. governors offices and legislatures, see a path to expand their dominance to unprecedented levels in elections next week.

The party that now controls 59 of the 99 U.S. legislative chambers has set a goal of attaining 66 of them, according to the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, which it said would be a modern-day record. Democrats are focusing on holding the power they have in a midterm election that almost never favors the party in the White House.

After Republicans took 21 new legislative chambers in the 2010 election, states cut taxes, restricted abortion and limited collective bargaining for public employees. State-level policy making is increasingly important with Congress and President Barack Obama deadlocked, said Tim Storey, an analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver.

You cant understate the impact of these elections on peoples lives and public policy, especially at a time when Washington is almost certainly going to remain gridlocked, Storey said.

Twenty-two of the 29 governorships held by Republicans are contested this year, among 36 states choosing chief executives, according to the National Governors Association. Nineteen Republicans and nine Democrats are seeking re-election, with open seats in eight states.

Predicting the national outcome is difficult because 11 gubernatorial races are rated toss-ups by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington.

In legislatures, Republicans control both chambers in 27 states -- three shy of the partys record of 30 after the 1920 election, Storey said. The party also claims control of Nebraskas unicameral, nonpartisan body, thanks to an edge in state voter registrations. About 15 chambers in 14 states could see a change of control in either direction, Storey said.

Prime Republican targets include the Iowa Senate, Kentucky House and New Hampshire House, which could provide dominance if they also retain the other chambers in those states, according to the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee in Washington.

If the Democrats werent able to make more substantial advances in 2012, when Obama won re-election, theyre pretty much in fantasyland thinking that theyre going to be able to make gains this year, said Jill Bader, a spokeswoman for the group.

Democrats pointed to five chambers where they think they can take control from Republicans, including the Wisconsin Senate. Their priority is keeping senate majorities in Iowa, Nevada and Colorado and the houses of representatives in Minnesota, New Mexico, Kentucky and West Virginia, said Kurt Fritts, national political director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee in Washington.

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Republican Goal: Two-Thirds of U.S. Legislative Chambers

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz says the Republican Party should learn from history that running a moderate candidate for president in 2016 wont galvanize voters and Hillary Clinton will be president.

The Texas Republican, a favorite of Tea Party supporters, said on CNBC today that the party needs to find a conservative candidate who can get voters to turn out -- someone like former President Ronald Reagan.

If Republicans run another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney, we will end up with the same result, which is millions of people will stay home on Election Day, Cruz said. And if we run another candidate like that, Hillary Clinton will be the next president.

Cruz said the former Republican presidential candidates are all decent men and patriots, but they didnt get voters to turn out the way Reagan did in 1980.

In the interview, Cruz discussed his view of what will happen if the Republican Party embraces a nominee such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. It echoed the comments this week of Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, vice chairman of the Republican Conference, who told Bloomberg News in an interview that Bush, 61, might represent the wrong direction for the party.

Bush, the son of President George H.W. Bush and brother of President George W. Bush, is a favorite of many establishment Republicans who want to avoid nominating a less-seasoned candidate in 2016.

Cruz, asked about Bush on CNBC, said, I like Jeb. Im a fan of Jeb Bushs. Cruz said he would wait to see if Bush decides to run.

The only way for Republicans to win, I believe, is to run a candidate who runs as a strong conservative with a positive, optimistic, hopeful message, Cruz said.

Cruz drew parallels to the 1980 election in which Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter, who had served one term. He said the U.S. economy is in a similar state of stagnation and that an internationally naive foreign policy by President Barack Obama has lead nations such as Russia and Iran to be opening laughing at and mocking the president.

We need to learn from history, Cruz said today. We need to look to history for what works and what doesnt.

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Cruz: Moderate Republican Wont Win Presidency in 2016

Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton has a whopping 13-point lead over Democrat Mark Pryor in a new poll

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) Heres the good news for Republicans hoping to take over the Senate: Fresh polls released Thursday show a couple of their candidates with leads in key races.

The not-so-good news? Analysts are newly warning that control of the chamber wont be decided next week. So its too early for the GOP to declare victory.

The newest surveys show a lead for Republican Cory Gardner in Colorado and for the GOPs Tom Cotton in Arkansas, two battleground states that could help decide Senate control in the midterm elections. A Quinnipiac poll has Gardner leading incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall by seven points. In the new Arkansas Poll, meanwhile, Cotton is ahead of opponent Mark Pryor by a whopping 13 points. Pryor, like Udall, is a sitting Democratic senator.

See MarketWatchs midterms page

Gardners lead widened by two points since the last Quinnipiac poll. The Arkansas Poll is an annual survey, and is the best showing for Cotton of recent polls, including an NBC/Marist survey taken through Oct. 23 that showed the Republican congressman leading by just two points.

Republicans need a net six seats to win control of the Senate on Nov. 4, and prevailing in these two races would help clinch victory.

Election forecasts from the Upshot, fivethirtyeight.com and Sabatos Crystal Ball all point to a Republican takeover.

While many races remain close, its just getting harder and harder to envision a plausible path for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate, wrote Larry Sabato and his team on Thursday. Ultimately, with just a few days to go before the election, the safe bet would be on Republicans eventually taking control of the upper chamber.

Note that eventually. As they write, theres a decent chance Senate control wont be decided on Election Night, given likely runoffs in Louisiana and Georgia.

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Capitol Report: Latest crop of Senate battleground polls show Republican momentum

BOULDER As many as 10 newly appointed Republican election judges are expected to be trained and in place by sometime Saturday to join the teams of workers charged with verifying Boulder County voters' signatures on ballot envelopes, county GOP chairwoman Ellyn Hilliard said Wednesday.

"I think we have things straightened out," said Hilliard, who earlier raised concerns about how few GOP judges the Boulder County clerk and recorder's office had hired to participate in overseeing the processing and tallying of voted ballots.

The Colorado secretary of state's office became involved, investigating how Boulder County recruited and appointed its 2014 general election judges as well as the makeup of the judge teams, which aren't supposed to include more than one member from any specific political party.

"We're trying to work on solutions to move the election forward to where the party chair and the party and the people can have some confidence in the process," deputy secretary of state Suzanne Staiert said Wednesday.

Read more of the article Boulder County: Up to 10 new Republican election judges added at TimesCall.com.

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Boulder County: Up to 10 new Republican election judges added