How did a candidate from the N.C. coast end up running in the 12th District?

Republican Greg Dority was a candidate in search of a district.

The 51-year-old businessman lives in in coastal Beaufort County in the 3rd Congressional District. But that's been represented for years by fellow Republican Walter Jones Jr.

Since there's no residency requirement for congressional candidates, Dority ran in the Democratic-held 1st District in 2002 and again in 2004. This year, he saw that a Republican he considered stronger already had signed up to run.

So he looked at the 4th District, centered around Raleigh and Durham and represented by Democratic Rep. David Price. Again he saw that a stronger GOP candidate was in.

Finally he turned to the 12th District, which runs from Charlotte to Greensboro. And last week he filed, hoping to run against Democratic Rep. Mel Watt of Charlotte, which is 270 miles, or about 4 and a half hours, from his home in Little Washington.

"The 12th District is really being hurt hard," he says. "That's why I'm in this race, to talk a message of fiscal conservatism and what I think needs to be done to get people back to work."

Dority faces William "Doc" Gillenwater of Greensboro in the GOP primary. But he's already looking beyond that.

"I probably will not overwhelm it before the primary," he says, "but once the weather gets warm and the campaign season starts to crank up .... I’m going to be in that district a lot. And post- Labor Day, once we get into the sprint to the wire, I'll be there full time.”

Dority says he hopes to ride the wave of what he sees as a GOP year.

"I believe there is going to be a Republican tsunami that is going to be greater than '94 by a magnitude of, well a magnitude,” he says.