The North Carolina United States Senate election of 1990 was held on November 6, 1990, as part of the nationwide elections to the Senate. The general election was fought between the

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

incumbent Jesse Helms and the Democratic nominee former

Mayor of Charlotte The office of the Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 a ...

Harvey Gantt. Helms won re-election to a fourth term by a slightly wider margin than the close election in 1984. Helms drew controversy for airing what became known as the " Hands" ad produced by Alex Castellanos. It showed a pair of white hands with the voiceover saying ''You wanted this job, but because of a law they had to give it to a minority.'' The ad prompted allegations of

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...

. The election received renewed attention in 2020 with the release of

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

miniseries '' The Last Dance'', which mentioned

Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded on January ...

superstar Michael Jordan refusing to endorse Gantt, who was seeking to become the first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

to represent

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

- Jordan's home state - in the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

Primaries

Republican primary

Democratic primary

Results

Footnotes

{{Jesse Helms

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

Jesse Helms 1990 North Carolina elections

Primaries

Republican primary

Democratic primary

Results

See also

Footnotes