Erskine Bowles
Public Policy Polling (PDF). 1/27-29. North Carolina voters. MoE ±4.2% (
12/1-4 in parentheses,
9/30-10/3 in brackets):
Erskine Bowles (D): 42 [42]
Pat McCrory (R): 44 [42]
Undecided: 14 [16]
Walter Dalton (D): 35 [32]
Pat McCrory (R): 50 [46]
Undecided: 15 [23]
Bill Faison (D): 31 (26) [30]
Pat McCrory (R): 50 (47) [45]
Undecided: 19 (26) [25]
Anthony Foxx (D): 32
Pat McCrory (R): 50
Undecided: 18
Brad Miller (D): 35
Pat McCrory (R): 49
Undecided: 16
Richard Moore (D): 36
Pat McCrory (R): 47
Undecided: 17
Mike McIntyre (D): 30
Pat McCrory (R): 50
Undecided: 20
Allen Joines (D): 30
Pat McCrory (R): 50
Undecided: 21
Bob Etheridge (D): 35
Pat McCrory (R): 50
Undecided: 16
Dan Blue (D): 31
Pat McCrory (R): 49
Undecided: 19
Heath Shuler (D): 31
Pat McCrory (R): 48
Undecided: 21
Kay Hagan (D): 41
Pat McCrory (R): 48
Undecided: 11
Charles Meeker (D): 29
Pat McCrory (R): 49
Undecided: 22
Sorry to be unusually waffly in the lede to a big story, but I don't have any other way of saying it: Democrats may be better off with unpopular incumbent Gov. Bev Perdue's stop-the-presses decision late last week not to run for a second term ... or they may not be better off. It depends on who the actual candidate is, and whether he can get his name rec up to the point where he's running at a rate comparable to Generic Democrat.
"Generic Democrat," for now, is the Democrats' best bet here, actually leading Republican challenger and former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory, 46-45. (By comparison, a Bev Perdue loss was probably already baked in: She was routinely polling at a high-single-digits or low-double-digits deficit against McCrory.) Unfortunately, Democrats are experiencing some of what Republicans are currently experiencing at the national level: Nobody in reality measures up to Generic D's potential. [UPDATE: It's worth noting that Generic D is actually matched up against Generic R, rather than McCrory. The non-controversial, business-conservative McCrory may actually overperform Generic R.]
Democrats who've run statewide near the top of the ticket (former Senate candidate Erskine Bowles, Sen. Kay Hagan) have the name rec to make it an interesting race from the get-go; downballot statewide Democrats, U.S. Reps., and big-city mayors don't have the name rec, and trail by double digits for now. (We have trendlines on some of them, because PPP has been aggressive about testing out other options, especially Bill Faison, who'd already been planning a primary run against Perdue.)
Given Generic D's strength and the fact that McCrory starts out already very well-known (45/31 favorables, thanks to his 2008 Gov. run), a little-known Democrat could cut that down into single digits pretty quickly with a successful campaign rollout. But that means it'll take a while before we know whether our lot, post-Perdue, has really improved at all or not. And with McCrory already polling at or near 50, significant improvement over Perdue may still not be enough to get the job done in November.
Since you may not be familiar with all of these Democrats who comprise the field's very long short-list, here's some background (plus their favorables, according to PPP's sample):
Erskine Bowles: Former Clinton WH official, former UNC president, lost 2004 and 2002 Senate races, debt-reduction commissioner (38/31)
Walter Dalton: Lieutenant Governor (17/25)
Bill Faison: State Representative (8/24)
Anthony Foxx: Charlotte mayor (21/25)
Brad Miller: U.S. Representative, NC-13 (22/24)
Richard Moore: Former state Treasurer, lost 2008 Democratic Gov. primary (23/20)
Mike McIntyre: U.S. Representative, NC-07 (14/21)
Allen Joines: Winston-Salem mayor (11/20)
Bob Etheridge: Former U.S. Representative, NC-02, former state Superintendent of Public Instruction (25/27)
Dan Blue: State Senator (19/25)
Heath Shuler: U.S. Representative, NC-11 (21/23)
Kay Hagan: U.S. Senator, elected in 2008 (37/39)
Charles Meeker: Former Raleigh mayor (17/22)
A few of these names are already moot, though, with some clarification on who's interested and who's not, from over the weekend:
Kay Hagan: "not running"
Bill Faison: "I say yes"
Brad Miller: cheekily sounds interested, via Facebook
Allen Joines: "will not run"
and further down the ballot: Cal Cunningham (ex-state Rep., loser of 2010 Senate primary): "won't run for Lt. Gov." (open because Walter Dalton's already in the Gov race)