He also defended the controversial ad about Hagan's “godless money.”

“American needs to know what their candidate stands for and where they get their money from,” Jarman said.

Dole said she was proud of her accomplishments and it has “been the highest honor in my life to be elected the first female U.S. senator in North Carolina history.”

She recapped her career achievements, including jobs in the White House and as secretary of labor and transportation, and leading the American Red Cross. She asked her supporters to pray for Hagan's successful transition to the Senate seat, but Dole said she's not ready for retirement.

And, in an apparent reference to Hagan's ads suggesting the senator spent little time in the state she represented, Dole added: “Salisbury has always been my rock of Gibraltar, and my home has always been Salisbury.”

Both campaigns and their supporters put out a wealth of advertising, much of it negative. An Elon University poll conducted a week ago showed that 48 percent of those polled had a negative opinion of Dole's campaign, while 38 percent held a negative opinion of Hagan's campaign.

Dole was expected a year ago to easily win re-election. It would have been hard for any challenger to overcome the overwhelming name recognition of Dole, who ran for president in 2000 and served in the administrations of five presidents.

“Dole assumed, wrongly, that it wasn't competitive and that she wouldn't have a serious opponent,” said Ted Arrington, a political scientist at UNC Charlotte. “She waited too long to get going.”

(Staff writers Wade Rawlins, Dan Kane, Mark Johnson, Benjamin Niolet and Bruce Henderson contributed to this report.)

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