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HIGH POINT — As U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan strode into a furniture showroom this fall, there was little doubt the first-term Democrat was in her element.

“I’ve always been a big fan of the market,” Hagan told Matthew Briggs , CEO of Four Hands, as they toured his collection of made-in-North Carolina furniture at the semi-annual trade show.

The visit was part of a regimen of public appearances that the Greensboro resident makes when the Senate is off for more than a couple of days. It’s a part of being a sitting senator that her predecessor, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole , neglected — to her electoral detriment.

Hagan acknowledges that working large rooms and banks of television cameras is an art she had to work on when she ran for office.

Nearly three years since her election and a good way off from putting together a re-election campaign, Hagan now is a disciplined public speaker who mainly sticks to core — and noncontroversial — themes: support for businesses and the military and a desire for better cooperation between political parties.

A lawyer who rose to prominence on a reputation for intellectual horsepower and hard work, Hagan is still not much of a showboat by U.S. Senate standards.

Even when she’s speaking to reporters at well-organized events, one gets the feeling she’s not completely comfortable with that part of the job.

If there’s any place where Hagan, who is reaching the middle of her six-year term, should be at ease during a public appearance, it is the High Point Market. It was a critical part of the state Senate district she represented for 10 years, and the market often received state money from budgets Hagan helped write.

The bustling furniture trade show is the most visible and celebrated part of an industry important to North Carolina’s economic past and present — an industry beset by problems of foreign trade and competition but still providing jobs to local workers.

In other words, it’s tailor-made for Hagan’s regular talking points.

“There are 13,000 jobs that are created because of the market in High Point. We’ve got visitors who come visit us from all over the world.... This is a huge economic boost to the community, and I think it also speaks volumes as to what can be done here in North Carolina, and I want to be sure people all around the world know we are open for business in our state,” Hagan said.

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Anyone who spends time around Hagan during official visits eventually will hear: “Jobs are my No. 1 priority.”

It’s a point she hammers home whether touring a factory or standing with corporate executives to pitch her latest bill.

A quick survey of her latest press releases shows that of 20 issued over the past two weeks, 18 are about jobs or the military. They are the themes around which she builds public visits, themes laced with pleas for bipartisan cooperation in a Congress that seems dead set on gridlock.

“What they are frustrated with across America is the fact that they see this partisan bickering. They see this fighting. They see people not working together for their benefit,” Hagan said during her furniture market appearance. “That’s got to stop. And I’m hoping the rest of Congress can understand the frustrations that are affecting our American population.”

Political science professors and political observers say Hagan has chosen topics sure to be popular with voters while staying away from high-profile national issues.

“The challenge for a Democrat holding national statewide office in North Carolina is to hold a respectable amount of distance from the national Democratic Party and people like (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid,” said John Dinan , a Wake Forest University political science professor.

But she needs to balance that approach against other concerns, he said. Hagan will need support from her party if she runs again in 2014.

Although she has not been at the center of large national fights or sought attention from cable news shows, Hagan was one of the few elected North Carolina Democrats who was on hand with President Barack Obama when he visited the state in October. She appeared with the president in Asheville.

Part of her relatively low profile has to do with completing her third year in the Senate. She does hold a subcommittee chairmanship, but she has not yet amassed the seniority that would put her in the thick of fights over taxes or health care — or lead pundits to seek her thoughts.

At the same time, Hagan has taken up causes that aren’t necessarily on the national radar.

As Obama was getting ready to come to North Carolina to pitch his jobs plan, Hagan was touting a bill she co-sponsored with Arizona Republican John McCain to allow multinational corporations to bring home foreign profits at a discounted tax rate.

The bill, she said, would allow those companies to invest that money in the United States — either by hiring workers or investing in their physical plant — rather than having money sit overseas or become investments in foreign economies.

Hagan’s bill has been pilloried by left-leaning interest groups, who say a similar tax holiday did not produce the desired results in the past and turned into a boon for shareholders rather than the economy.

“We feel the measures we put forward are the most effective for the near-term in terms of spurring job growth and hiring,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said during Obama’s visit last month.

At a time when the Occupy Wall Street movement was spreading throughout North Carolina, Hagan appeared at the pharmaceutical consulting company Quintiles in Cary, standing with a collection of CEOs who said a tax holiday would help their business.

“I’m all about jobs,” Hagan said when asked if she was worried the bill is out of step with the public mood.

She pointed to the penalties if a company repatriates money and then lays off workers within two years.

“What I’m hoping is it will help the economy and increase wages. And anything we can do about jobs, jobs, jobs, that’s what I want to work on. That’s why we’re having defense trade shows in North Carolina. …That’s why I want to be sure to promote the High Point furniture market.”

Because Hagan doesn’t face re-election until 2014, said UNCG political science professor David Holian , the juxtaposition between her bill and the anti-corporate movement doesn’t matter as much.

“If she were up in 2012, it would be more problematic,” he said.

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By several rankings, Hagan is among the Democrats in the Senate closest to the political center.

“I wouldn’t say she’s been a conservative Democrat,” Holian said. He describes her as being in the quartile of Congressional Democrats closest to the political center.

In years past, that would have positioned her as a deal-maker. But Hagan works in a U.S. Senate where conservative and liberal rankings identify little, if any, overlap between Republicans and Democrats.

The result has been gridlock in a chamber that relies on consensus and compromise to get things done. Senate rules allow opponents of any bill to force supporters to gather 60 votes before debate goes forward.

Hagan has worked hard to cultivate a centrist image, as one who wants to work with Republicans. But extreme pressure on both sides to maintain partisan loyalty cuts down on opportunities for cross-party cooperation.

Holian said Hagan would be just as frustrated with gridlock if Republicans took control of the Senate, likely finding that she would be chided by fellow Democrats if she cooperated with the GOP.

All of that makes it even harder for a relatively new senator to make her mark.

It’s a switch for Hagan, who served in a state Senate firmly controlled by Democrats and in which she held key budget-writing responsibilities.

“There just hasn’t been any high-profile cause that she’s taken up at all,” said John Hood , president of the conservative John Locke Foundation.

He points to polls that show voters are split on their impression of Hagan’s performance, with large chunks having no opinion at all.

“In a way, it does kind of remind me of Richard Burr’s first term,” Hood said, speaking of the Republican U.S. senator form North Carolina.

Like Hagan, Burr did not find his way into the national spotlight even though he came to the Senate from the U.S. House.

In fact, Burr and Hagan have similar job-approval ratings, most likely split more along partisan lines than any thorough evaluation of their work.

Republicans, Hood said, will dismiss Hagan because she’s a Democrat, not because of anything that she has done.

“She’s not been in office very long, and virtually nothing Congress has done has made people very happy,” he said.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com