Elected 1998, seat up 2004 Born: June 10, 1953, Seneca, SC Home: Raleigh Education: NC St. U., B.S. 1974, U. of NC at Chapel Hill, J.D. 1977 Religion: Methodist Marital Status: married (Elizabeth)

Career:

• Professional: Practicing atty., 1978-98.

DC Office: 225 DSOB 20510, 202-224-3154; Fax: 202-228-1374; Web site: www.senate.gov/~edwards

State Offices: Asheville, 828-285-0760; Charlotte,704-344-6154; Greensboro,336-333-5311; Greenville,252-931-1111; Raleigh,919-856-4245.

Committees:

• Commerce, Science & Transportation: Aviation; Communications; Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce & Tourism; Science, Technology & Space; Surface Transportation & Merchant Marine.
• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions: Aging; Public Health.
• Intelligence (Select).
• Judiciary: Antitrust, Business Rights & Competition; Crime & Drugs; Immigration; Technology, Terrorism & Government Information.
• Small Business.

John Edwards is a Democrat elected in 1998 to a seat that has been under a kind of jinx: No one has been re-elected to it since 1968, and it has switched back and forth from party to party in each election since 1980; in his three decades in the Senate, Jesse Helms has had seven different colleagues. Edwards was born in South Carolina and grew up there and in Robbins, in Moore County, where his father was a supervisor in a textile mill and his mother ran a furniture refinishing business. He was the first in his family to go to college, at North Carolina State, then went to the University of North Carolina Law School. He started off defending recording companies accused of pirating Elvis Presley records, then moved to Raleigh in 1981 and became a plaintiff's personal injury lawyer, working hard to prepare cases (he was one of the first trial lawyers here to use focus groups) and fluently and persuasively presenting them in down-home style to juries. He was good at it, winning verdicts of $152 million; with 30% or more going to the lawyer, this enabled him to amass a fortune variously estimated at $20 million to $50 million. In January 1997 he won $25 million in compensatory damages for a nine-year-old girl from Cary horribly injured by a faulty swimming pool drain--the largest personal-injury verdict in North Carolina history.

At about this time Edwards began thinking about running for the Senate. He had not run for office before, had not even voted in every election, and said he could not remember whether he had first registered as a Democrat or Republican. But he did have strong views on some issues, and proved to have acute judgment in spotting the political weakness of incumbent Republican Senator Lauch Faircloth. In the years since his surprise victory in 1992, Faircloth, a wealthy hog farmer and long-time insider in Democratic politics, had a voting record as conservative as Jesse Helms' and had been a strong critic of the Clintons in various investigations. Some better-known Democrats dropped out of the race, and Edwards' main rival in the May 1998 Democratic primary was D.G. Martin, former lobbyist for the University of North Carolina and a nearly successful House candidate in 1984 and 1986. "I am prepared to raise and spend whatever is necessary," Edwards said in February 1997, and spent $3.2 million of his own money and ran ads about his background and views. He promised to be a "people's senator, someone who speaks for all the people of North Carolina, not the special interests," and he refused to take money from PACs or Washington lobbyists. The ads were criticized for suggesting that he was born in North Carolina and that he worked his way through college loading UPS trucks (he worked there for six months). But Edwards outspent Martin 4-1 and, needing 40% to avoid a runoff, won 51%-28%.

The contrast between Edwards and Faircloth was vivid. Edwards was articulate, charming, young (45 and a three-time marathon finisher); Faircloth was wrinkled with his 70 years, the embodiment of an older, rural, conservative North Carolina that many natives and newcomers wanted to leave behind. Faircloth, recognizing the threat, ran ads against Edwards in the primary, saying that he was a trial lawyer who earned millions suing doctors and driving up health care costs. He continued the negative approach, despite the voters' contented, pro-incumbent mood, throughout the campaign. Edwards proposed they pool their money and, instead of running ads, buy time for televised debates; Faircloth, less than eager for debates with a highly competent trial lawyer, would not even allow photographs one of the few times their paths crossed on the campaign trail. Edwards ran positive ads, and called for hiring teachers, building schools, an HMO patients' bill of rights, fixing Social Security. Occasionally his inexperience showed. He said credit unions should be taxed like banks, then backed off; he refused to say how he'd vote on tobacco bill, then later said he would have voted to kill it. But as former political consultant and Hotline founder Doug Bailey said, "Edwards is an extremely effective television-age communicator. This is a guy who has very gifted communications skills and a mind behind the skills." This was a big-spending race: Edwards spent $8.3 million, nearly three-quarters of it his own money; Faircloth spent nearly $9.4 million, including $1.7 million of his own. Faircloth started to slip in the polls and even changed pollsters in October; Edwards edged to a lead, and won 51%-47%. In this race, as in Helms', the Democrat carried younger voters, the Republican carried the elderly; Edwards won 55%-44% in the Raleigh-Durham area and ran well in traditionally Democratic east Carolina counties.

In the Senate, Edwards' voting record is mostly liberal, but in February 2000 he joined the moderate Senate New Democrat Coalition. On the Banking Committee he worked on privacy issues, and at Tom Daschle's request worked for a compromise on HMO reform. After Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, he pushed hard for disaster aid, threatening to hold up Senate proceedings in November; in time the state got more than $250 million. He did not announce his position on permanent normal trade relations with China until the last minute in September 2000; he was evidently worried about the effect on the textile industry, but recognized that North Carolina could gain export jobs in pork, poultry, furniture, telecommunications and software and ultimately voted for it. On the proposal to build jetties at Oregon Inlet in the Outer Banks, he opposed then-Governor Jim Hunt and Senator Jesse Helms, who wanted the Army Corps of Engineers to build it, and with the Clinton administration favored keeping the land under the Interior Department. He was leery of the United Airlines-USAirways merger. He brought in longtime University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith to testify for his bill to outlaw betting on college and other amateur sports. Edwards made an immediate favorable impression in the impeachment debate: He was one of three Democrats to preside over the depositions of Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan and Sidney Blumenthal, and his floor speeches were rated by many as the most effective during the debate.

There was little in Edwards' brief Senate record to make him a national figure, yet he was Al Gore's runner-up choice for the vice presidential nomination. The reason is his appealing manner. Though he is now rich--he sold his law practice for $5 million and bought a $2.2 million house in Washington near Hillary Rodham Clinton's--he still has a common touch. He has an appealing family, touched by tragedy: his 16-year-old son was killed in a car crash in 1996 (a consolation call came from Jesse Helms, who had been impressed by the young man in an awards ceremony in Washington). For all Edwards' charm he is also persuasive and capable of making complex arguments understandable and undercutting an opponent's; as one Republican senator says, "Never yield the floor to John Edwards." Political consultants Bob Shrum and Tad Devine pressed Gore to pick Edwards for VP; after he was passed over he spoke to the national convention delegations from Massachusetts, New York and California--filled with big contributors--and Iowa as well. He declined the chair of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee and declined to be chief spokesman for the Gore campaign in Florida. And he was abashed when in November 2000 he was named as the sexiest politician in People's "Sexiest Man Alive" issue. Three months later, Edwards was in Iowa addressing the Drake University Law School's annual dinner in Des Moines. In February 2001, he co-sponsored John McCain's patients' bill of rights legislation, a high-profile stance perhaps taken to enhance his national image.

Election year 2004 presents Edwards with some difficult choices. His seat comes up in North Carolina, and there is little doubt that he will be a strong candidate for reelection, but he may also be running for president. He has an obvious fundraising base in trial lawyers and a moderate record and demeanor that may be appealing to many Democrats, though he could compete for that constituency with his sometime jogging partner, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. In the meantime, Edwards has seats on the Commerce and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committees, and may have an opportunity to show legislative skills he has had little chance to display.

Group Ratings
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2000	85	67	85	100	88	90	12	40	12	9	15
1999	90	--	100	78	92	--	15	41	8	--	--

National Journal Ratings
	1999 LIB	--	1999 CONS		2000 LIB	--	2000 CONS
Economic	58%	--	41%		90%	--	7%
Social	81%	--	12%		66%	--	21%
Foreign	71%	--	24%		72%	--	15%

Key Votes of the 106th Congress
1. Educ. Savings Accts. N 2. Prescrip. Drug Benefit Y 3. Delay Ergonomic Standards N 4. Phase Out Estate Tax N 5. Review Movie Violence Y 6. Gun Show Bckgrnd. Checks Y		7. Ban Part.-Birth Abortion	N
8. Broaden Hate Crimes List	Y
9. NATO War in Serbia	Y
10. Table Cuba Travel Ban	Y
11. Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty	Y
12. Perm. Trade with China	Y

Election Results
1998 general	John Edwards (D)	1,029,237	(51%)
	Lauch Faircloth (R)	945,943	(47%)
	Other	36,963	(2%)
1998 primary	John Edwards (D)	277,468	(51%)
	D. G. Martin (D)	149,049	(28%)
	Ella Scarborough (D)	55,486	(10%)
	Robert Ayers Jr. (D)	22,477	(4%)
	Other	35,551	(7%)
1992 general	Lauch Faircloth (R)	1,297,892	(50%)
	Terry Sanford (D)	1,194,015	(46%)
	Other	85,984	(3%)

Campaign Finance
1998	Receipts	Receipts from PACs	Expenditures
John Edwards (D)	$8,420,983		$8,331,382
Lauch Faircloth (R)	$9,370,462	$1,963,934	$9,375,771