A year ago, North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole appeared to hold a safe Republican seat in a solid “red” state. But as her victorious Democratic challenger Kay Hagan put it tonight, “What a difference a year makes.”

Political strategists will, no doubt, spend the upcoming months analyzing this race and come up with a slew of factors that led to Dole’s defeat. But voters already have their ideas.

I received this email on Facebook from Steve, a FOX News viewer in Charlotte, NC:

Her advisers blew it with the Anti-God ad. Lots of people have moved here from the North and are good Christians but, they are Democrats. I am a staunch Republican but, I took offense to it. Especially since I was aware of Kay Hagan’s faith.

Steve is referring to an ad the Dole campaign launched last week, attempting to link Hagan to an atheist group.

The issue stems from a September fundraiser Hagan attended in Boston. Among some 40 individuals hosting the event was an adviser to Godless Americans, a political action committee that lobbies for separation of church and state.

Dole’s ad was an apparent appeal to the GOP’s conservative base. But the move may have appeared awkward coming from a senator who was generally considered a moderate Republican. And attacking her opponent on religion was a long shot, given that Hagan is a Presbyterian church elder and longtime Sunday school teacher.

As I type this blog, a massive crowd, is cheering the arrival of Kay Hagan, the Democrat who defeated Republican U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina.

“What a difference a year makes,” Hagan says, commenting on the doubts she faced when she first entered the race against what, then, appeared to be a safe Republican Senator in an historically “red” state.

“To the North Carolinians who didn’t vote for me, I am going to be working hard for the next six years to earn your vote,” she says, adding that the solutions to the problems facing North Carolina and the United States do not carry party labels. “Stop the partisan bickering. Work together and get started fixing things right now.”

She promises the crowd help for small businesses and the middle class, which she predicts will be the driving engines of an economic recovery.

The speech ends. The crowd cheers.

The band is playing and Kay Hagan’s supporters cheer each time the TV monitors deliver favorable news of Democratic gains throughout the nation. But the loudest cheers came when Hagan became the projected winner in her run against Republican incumbent Senator Elizabeth Dole.

The crowd now awaits Hagan’s victory speech here in a packed atrium of the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.

Related Post: The U.S. Senate Race: Holy War in North Carolina.