For all his disappointment at a Senate campaign gone bust, Mark Walker must derive a bit of satisfaction from having Pat McCrory’s fate in his hands. Former Congressman Walker has announced that, tomorrow, he will declare his political intentions for the remainder of the year. If he stays in the US Senate race, he’ll split the right-wing vote with Ted Budd and keep McCrory viable. If he moves down to run for United States House, he’ll clear the path for Budd to make McCrory a three-time loser.

Right now, it’s fairly clear that Walker’s presence in the race is the only factor preventing Ted Budd from taking a lead over our state’s only governor ever to lose reelection. In a poll from the John Locke Foundation, McCrory leads Budd 24%-18%. Walker’s support fits in between the frontrunners’ numbers like a well crafted puzzle piece, getting the 6% needed to separate Budd from McCrory. In a two-way race with only McCrory and Budd, the Locke Foundation Ted Budd leads the former governor by a point. Walker appears to be siphoning off support from his fellow Trumper and keeping Pat McCrory narrowly ahead.

This dynamic makes sense. Despite slightly different emphases and very different temperaments, Ted Budd and Mark Walker resemble each other fairly closely. Both are populist-leaning right-wing conservatives from the North Carolina Piedmont. Walker represented the Triad area when he was in Congress, and Budd currently represents a sliver of the western Piedmont stretching from the Triad exurbs to the outskirts of greater Charlotte. Both men have tied themselves closely to Donald Trump. Both men present themselves as conservative warriors. So, without Walker in the race, it stands to reason that Budd will gain enough voters to propel himself ahead of Pat McCrory.

McCrory, for his part, inadvertently revealed the weakness of his candidacy with an internal poll that showed him with only 30% of the vote. At the outset of the race, McCrory was miles ahead of either Walker or Budd–indeed, Walker actually led Budd, though neither had significant support. As McCrory’s own poll says, the failed governor has suffered major attrition in his support. And the lost votes have for the most part gone to Ted Budd, whose Trump endorsement is becoming more widely known and who may inhabit the strongest position as we advance toward primary day.

What does this mean for the Democrats? Despite McCrory’s repeated defeats in statewide races, he would likely be a stronger candidate than Ted Budd. He still has a more moderate profile, certainly in comparison to the raging MAGA-head Budd. And he has the stature of a former governor and the help of one of the state’s very best Republican consultants, Paul Shumaker. If Ted Budd does deal a humiliating defeat to the hapless Pat McCrory, Democratic frontrunner Cheri Beasley will find herself in a contest with a man who comes across as an extremist and has no experience in appealing to voters outside the right-wing fringe. Fasten your seatbelts.