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He delivers pizza by night and runs for U.S. Senate by day. Sean Haugh, the Libertarian running for Senate in North Carolina, is among a dozen independent and third-party candidates nationwide who could shake up tight races for Senate and governor.

Haugh, 53, doesn't have a traditional campaign headquarters, so he suggests meeting at a hipster fancy doughnut joint in downtown Durham called Monuts.

He is wearing a T-shirt and wire-rimmed glasses that harken back to the 1990s, far from the typical dark suit uniform of most male politicians. He orders an orange-velvet and a lemon-praline doughnut and settles in at a high-top table in back for the latest of many sit-down interviews he's done this election cycle. Others have taken place at a Waffle House, a coffee shop and his campaign manager's basement, where he also films his campaign videos.

YouTube

Sean Haugh's campaign for US Senate involves quite a few YouTube videos shot in his campaign manager's basement.

Delivering Joy And Pizza

After the interview, he'll drive his silver Kia to the pizza place where he works as a delivery driver.

"I'm the deliverer of joy and relief to about 20 families a night," says Haugh. "When you think about why you order pizza, it's because you want to treat yourself or you just got home from work and you're so tired and you say, 'I don't want to cook, let's just order something.' So everyone loves the pizza guy."

And Haugh loves being the pizza guy — more than he thought he might. He gets to see five sunsets a week and says his job allows him to decompress after days spent campaigning. He asked us not to publish the name of the company he works for, to keep the corporate office out of it.

Haugh started delivering pizzas about a year ago, after an extended stint of odd jobs and applications that went nowhere. It turns out, he says, 2010 was the worst possible time as a man in his 50s to try to change careers. Before that, Haugh spent more than a decade working for the Libertarian Party.

His first job, while still in college, was as a paid petition-signature gatherer trying to get Ed Clark and David Koch on the ballot in all 50 states in 1980. His next job: selling merchandise for Greenpeace.

An Act Of Conscience

Sean Haugh ordered a lemon-praline and an orange-velvet doughnut at Monuts in Durham, N.C., where he was interviewed by NPR. Tamara Keith/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Tamara Keith/NPR

Haugh says he decided to run for Senate as an act of conscience, so there'd be someone on the ballot he felt like he could vote for. At first, he thought any votes in addition to his own would be a bonus.

"But now I really feel like the views I am putting out there to stop all war and stop spending more money than we have are really resonating all across the political spectrum," says Haugh.

He's polling around 6 or 7 percent, which is high for a Libertarian candidate. Most polls show his major-party opponents — Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagen and Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis — separated by just 1 or 2 points. And that's why Haugh is making people nervous.

"The third-party candidate is a pizza deliveryman — nothing against pizza delivery men — who is getting between 4, 5 and 7 percent of the vote," says Scott Reed, senior political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Sure, that's a concern."

Hagan and Tillis are both underwater when it comes to voter approval. Heck, voters nationwide are fed up. Reed says that creates an opening for third-party candidates, as protest votes. The Chamber, which wants Republican candidates to win, is targeting those voters directly.

Third-Party Candidates A Factor In Many Races

And it's not just North Carolina. A Libertarian candidate could force a runoff in the Georgia Senate race; an independent is polling well in Alaska; there's a wild four-way race in South Dakota; in Kansas, the independent candidate leads in some polls.

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A Guide To Third-Party Candidates

"All over the map, we're just seeing potential this year for these third-party candidates to have strange impacts on races in a way that I can't remember," says Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling group based in Raleigh.

Jensen says support for third-party candidates tends to fade as Election Day gets closer, but this year he expects them to do better than in the past.

Just Don't Call Him A Spoiler

Conventional wisdom suggests Libertarians like Haugh are more likely to pull votes from Republicans. But Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, says that's not the case. He says polls that ask people planning to vote for a third-party candidate whom they'd choose if that person weren't running find the vote split along the same lines as the rest of the electorate.

"They are not spoilers," says Winger. "Libertarians are generally drawing equally from people who'd vote Democratic and Republican."

Haugh agrees with this analysis and bristles at the term "spoiler." As he sees it, his platform is a combination of ideas from the left and the right. He's pro-choice everything, anti-war, and wants a smaller government.

His grandfather was a moderate Republican; his parents are very liberal.

"I was simultaneously raised by Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King, so you put them both together you get a natural-born Libertarian," says Haugh.

And because North Carolina is on everyone's Senate-race watch list, this natural-born Libertarian is bringing more attention to his party now, delivering pizzas, than he was able to do in a decade as a paid party operative.

In just one night, in 2003, Clay Aiken got 12 million votes.

That wasn't quite enough to win American Idol's second season, but his soaring vocals won him a record contract and legions of fans known as "Claymates."

Now, he needs far fewer votes — maybe 200,000 — to win a congressional seat representing the rural center of North Carolina. The odds are against him. Aiken is a Democrat in a district where the Republican incumbent Rep. Renee Ellmers won by 15 percentage points two years ago.

"I've always been an underdog," says Aiken. "I walked into that audition on American Idol and people went, 'What?' I get that."

He was a skinny kid with spiked red hair who didn't look like a pop star. Aiken was actually rejected on his first try and drove to Atlanta to audition again.

"I don't have a problem being an underdog. It's never hurt me in the past," he adds.

Aiken barely made it out of this spring's Democratic primary, beating his opponent by fewer than 400 votes. Since then, Aiken has visited countless community festivals, civic group meetings and even a couple of high school football games.

Two Custom Cheers And Countless Selfies

It's a blowout. Terry Sanford High is on its way to beating Douglas Byrd 50-0. But the cheerleaders have something else to cheer for — or rather someone else.

"I need a cheer," says Aiken when members of the Douglas Byrd cheerleading squad ask him to shoot a selfie. "I've got to have a cheer ladies."

"When we say vote, you say Clay. Vote. Clay. Vote. Clay," they cheer, pompoms glistening under the stadium lights.

Tamara Keith's post on Vine

Both schools' cheerleading squads gladly come up with Clay-inspired cheers, and he gladly shoots selfies, encouraging them to post to Facebook and Twitter. He has taken so many photos on the campaign trail, there's even a hashtag: #selfieswithclay.

And that's the thing that separates Clay Aiken from your average underdog congressional candidate: People recognize him.

Ever the candidate, Aiken is quick to change the subject from American Idol (How much of a jerk was Simon Cowell anyway? That was a long time ago. Did you know you were runner-up before it was announced? Yes.) to the upcoming election. He says he entered the race because he was fed up with Congress and, in particular, the incumbent, Ellmers.

He's running on issues like education and helping veterans. In a debate, he went after Ellmers for not doing more to keep an Airlift Wing at nearby Fort Bragg. Ellmers hit back.

"It's almost as if as an entertainer you believe that you can just go in with a song and dance," said Ellmers with an attack she repeated throughout the televised debate. "That isn't the way that it works."

A Debate About Gay Marriage

Back at the football game, a man approaches Aiken behind the home-team bleachers.

"Serious question: I want to know where you stand," says Terrence Becker. Becker wants to know where Aiken stands on a federal judge invalidating North Carolina's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

"You wanna know where I stand?" asks Aiken rhetorically. "You don't know where I stand?"

Aiken is gay. The story made the cover of People magazine in 2008.

And thus begins a heated five-minute debate about gay marriage. In the end, they agree to disagree. Becker says there's no way he'd vote for Aiken, but it seems unlikely he had planned to before the discussion, either.

A crowd forms, patiently waiting for campaign stickers and selfies. Walking away, Aiken is almost puzzled by what just happened. This isn't a defining issue for him or his campaign.

"It's the first time that's come up," says Aiken, "the first time the entire time we've been in the campaign that's come up."

Hanging Up The Microphone

One thing that does come up, repeatedly, is a request.

"Can you sing a little melody?" asks a woman at the football game. "Just a little bit."

It happens everywhere he goes. And the answer is always "no." If he wins, Aiken says, then he'll sing again.

"But you won't be singing to me personally," she pleads.

Then, in a singsong sort of voice, Aiken says, "Vote for me, vote for me."

The next day at a festival in the town of Goldston, Aiken pauses to watch a group of young women sing. He took a vow not to sing during the campaign, in part so he'd be taken seriously.

"What would have happened today if I had gone up there and sang? Everyone would have come around, they would have talked about it. But that would be what they left talking about," he says.

Win or lose, it's not clear whether Aiken will have a music career when this campaign is over.

Aiken used to share a manager with the Dixie Chicks, who suffered severe backlash from some of their fans because of a comment critical of George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq War. Just coming out as a Democrat, Aiken says, will automatically turn off part of his fan base.

"It's something that I had to recognize before I decided to run — that in addition to having to give up what I was doing for the year, that very possibly I might have to give it up for good," says Aiken.

And he's OK with that.

Election Day is two and a half weeks away and early voting has already started in many places. So here's a recap for all those trying to keep track of the flurry of last-minute legal activity involving state voting laws:

Arkansas: The Arkansas Supreme Court has struck down the state's voter ID law. A county circuit court judge found the law unconstitutional in May, but stayed his decision pending appeal. That meant that the ID law would have been in effect for the November elections. Now it won't be. The state's high court found that requiring voters to show a photo ID imposed a new qualification for voting, violating the state's constitution.

Ohio: The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to block a lower court ruling that would have prevented the state from cutting back its early voting period. That means that instead of starting early voting on Sept. 30, Ohio voters had to wait a week. The decision also cut out early voting during evening hours and on Sunday, Oct. 26th. However, there will still be early voting in Ohio on the weekend right before Election Day. Opponents said the early voting cuts would hurt minority voters the most. The state countered that Ohio still offers more early voting than other states.

North Carolina: The U.S. Supreme Court stayed a federal appeals court decision to block part of the state's sweeping new voting law. The appeals court had ruled that two provisions — eliminating same-day voter registration and prohibiting the counting of ballots cast in the wrong precinct — should not go into effect this year, while the law is being challenged. The Supreme Court disagreed. Two justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented. Ginsburg noted that the appeals court found that the state law "risked significantly reducing opportunities for black voters."

Wisconsin: The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a federal appeals court ruling that had allowed the state's voter ID law to go into effect this year. So, at least for now, Wisconsin voters do not have to show a photo ID at the polls. Three justices dissented — Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Even so, Alito expressed concern about imposing the new ID requirement — which had been on hold — so close to the election. He said it was "troubling" that the state sent out thousands of absentee ballots without the ID requirement. Those ballots were at risk of being rejected, but will now be counted.

Texas: Civil rights groups have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state's new voter ID law — one of the strictest in the nation — from remaining in effect this year, while the law is being challenged. A decision is expected soon. The emergency request comes after a federal judge found the law unconstitutional because it placed a disproportionate burden on black and Hispanic voters, who are less likely to have the required government-issued photo ID. But a federal appeals court agreed to stay that decision, leading the voting groups to turn to the Supreme Court for relief.

Arizona and Kansas: One other noteworthy case is pending. It involves a requirement by Arizona and Kansas that voters show proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The states are suing to get the federal government to change its registration form to reflect that requirement. The case is before a federal appeals court and a decision could come before Election Day. If not, voters in those states who used the federal registration form — and haven't shown proof of citizenship — won't be allowed to vote in state and local elections. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says he thinks only a few voters will be affected.

Those are the highlights. The Supreme Court has shown a reluctance to allow major voting changes to be put in place right before an election. But it hasn't ruled on whether these laws are constitutional. That's expected to happen after the election, and more likely next year.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

In a bit of a twist, the archives of the late, great crime novelist Elmore Leonard have come to rest at the University of South Carolina, the school announced Wednesday. Leonard, long known as the "Dickens of Detroit," chose Columbia, S.C., over the Motor City to house his collection after visiting the school last year, just months before his passing.

It was Leonard's tour of the university's literary archives — a walk among the original manuscripts of writers such as Ernest Hemingway and George V. Higgins — that persuaded him. And the choice came quickly: On the flight home to Detroit, Leonard made his decision, according to his son, Peter.

While Leonard was known for his spare writing style — he "had a contempt for putting pretty clothes on hard, direct words," NPR's Scott Simon remembered — he left behind his fair share of those words. More than 450 drafts of manuscripts, ranging from his early Westerns to his best-known novels, will join scrapbooks, typewriters and even a few Hawaiian shirts in the collection.

Samples of the archives went on display Wednesday, and The Associated Press reports that the whole collection is expected to be ready for researchers' eyes in about 18 months.

McSweeney's Makes A Change: McSweeney's is going nonprofit. Founder Dave Eggers says he hopes that the San Francisco publishing house — the force behind a number of books, the magazine The Believer and, well, McSweeney's (the quarterly literary journal) — will become a 501(c)(3) group within a year. Eggers tells the San Francisco Chronicle why: "You know, the taste of the editors and the staff ran toward really worthy books and worthy undertakings and anthologies and series that ... didn't necessarily indicate profit."

Stretch Break: Electric Literature has an infographic's bounty of useful yoga poses for writers who, really, are hoping mostly just to dodge the blank page. Stretches include "Navel-Gazing Poet," "Blurb-Begging Novelist" and, naturally, the "Plot Twist."

Klein's Prize: In a week thick with awards, it's best not to forget neglect our friends north of the border. Journalist and activist Naomi Klein has won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize, Canada's richest prize for nonfiction ($60,000), for her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Klein hopes the prize helps expand the book's otherwise "lefty audience," the writer told Publisher's Weekly. "It's all about having the debate, and you can't have the debate unless everybody is talking to each other."

Before The Afterlife: Oh, and you heard, right? Wolverine died Wednesday. But be calm, says Glen Weldon: He's not dead dead.

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