Hagan Won't Say Whether Obama Has Done a Good Job

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) still can’t say whether President Obama is doing a good job. 

In an interview with WSOC-TV, which Republican groups highlighted Wednesday morning, Hagan would not give an up or down opinion of Obama’s job performance. Instead, she opted to describe Obama’s effort as a “very difficult job.”

WSOC: Do you think the President has done a good job?

Hagan: You know, once again, this election is not about the President, he is not on the ballot. Speaker Tillis is trying to make that happen. 

WSOC: But regardless of what your opponent is saying, do you think the President has done a good job?

Hagan: I think we look at what’s happened in our country today, whether it’s Afghanistan, Iraq, the issue right now in ISIS, Ebola, there are so many things that have hit our country. And that he’s got a very, very difficult job. And I think everybody with a 24-hour news cycle wants instantaneous answers. They want everything they can go back and, you know, 20-20 hindsight is always sort of the answer. But I think he’s got a very difficult job. 

Watch: 

Congressional Quarterly reports Hagan has voted with Obama 99 percent of the time this year. The president is unpopular in the Tarheel state, and Hagan is facing a tight reelection against state House Speaker Thom Tillis. 

The combination has had Hagan twisting herself into pretzels to avoid being tagged as an Obama “yes woman,” which would potentially give Republicans a sound bite to play in campaign ads.

“Kay Hagan continues to run away from her partisan record of rubber-stamping President Obama 99 percent of the time, putting his failed agenda ahead of North Carolina,” Tillis spokesman Daniel Keylin said Wednesday in reaction to the clip. “As even President Obama recently said, a vote for Kay Hagan is a vote to continue his failed policies.”

Also, Wednesday morning, Republican America Rising PAC and the North Carolina Republican Party highlighed other instances in the WSOC interview where Hagan muddled through questions that have dogged her in the final months of the cycle: her numerous absences from Armed Services Committee hearings and her repeated regurgitation of the so-called Obamacare “lie of the year” that Americans could keep their plans if they liked them. 

Watch WSOC question Hagan about her absences: 

Watch Hagan avoid answering to whether she regrets saying people could keep their plans under Obamacare: 

With the election less than a week away, the race is in a dead heat, with recent polls finding Hagan and Tillis in a statistical tie. The Real Clear Politics Average has Hagan with a one percentage point advantage.