Kay Hagan, the Democratic challenger, was elected in 1998 to the North Carolina Senate where she has served as one of the chief budget writers since 2003. Before entering politics, Hagan was vice president of NCNB, the state's largest bank at the time, which eventually became Bank of America. Hagan graduated from Florida State University then earned a law degree from Wake Forest University in 1978.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole began her long political career in 1965 with a job in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. She became the first female secretary of transportation as part of President Reagan's administration and became secretary of labor under President George H.W. Bush in 1989. In 1991, she became president of the American Red Cross where she worked to expand the organization's disaster relief services. She was elected to the Senate in 2002 and led the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2006 mid-term elections. Her husband, Bob Dole, was the Republican presidential nominee in 1996.