Fresh off the presses this morning, PPP released a poll of North Carolina covering both parties' primaries and the general election.
The Republican primary is where all the action is this month, as the Democratic race remains stable and the general election shows that North Carolina remains the swing state it has been since 2008.http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/...
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/...
Top line numbers:
GOP
Trump 24
Carson 14
Bush 13
Cruz 10
Rubio 9
Walker/Fiorina/Huckabee 6/6/6 (of course I did)
The rest of the candidates get 3% or less.
Dems
Clinton 55
Sanders 19
Webb 5
O'Malley/Chafee 2
Lessig 1
The Dem race is essentially unchanged, with Clinton stable at 55 and Sanders down a point from 20 last month. Clinton's strength is won largely on her advantages with nonwhite voters who make up nearly a third of Democratic primary voters in North Carolina. She leads among African American voters 68-10 and among "Other" 70-7.
Once again we see much higher unfavorables for Sanders among both of these groups, despite lower name recognition, indicating that Clinton's leads are not just a function of name recognition. Clinton holds dominant leads among very liberal (+28) somewhat liberal (+48) and moderate voters (+48).
Sanders does best among somewhat conservative voters, losing by just ten points. Among Very Conservative Democratic primary voters Sanders leads and Clinton comes in last, but the numbers don't appear to mean much-
Sanders 13
O'Malley/Webb 7
Clinton 5
Not sure 68%
Interestingly, there is no apparent gender gap in North Carolina. Clinton leads among men by 37 and among women by 35. We see the same dynamic across age groups- Clinton leads among all age groups by margins similar to the topline numbers.
All of the fun comes in on the Republican side. Trump remains dominant, Carson continues his surge in popularity, Bush is stuck with middling numbers, and Walker's support is plummeting. The interesting thing there is that Walker's favorables among Republican primary voters is essentially the same as last month. It appears his "do no harm" strategy in the debates did no harm to his favorables, but voters have abandoned him for more interesting candidates. His support has been cut in half since last month. Huckabee's support is also essentially halved as he dropped from 11 to 6.
The worst of the bunch is Rand Paul who has seen his unfavorables shoot up and his horse race numbers sink to Mike Gravel levels.
If he keeps seeing numbers like this, he might have to go ahead and run for the Senate after all.
In one on one matches Republican candidates beat Trump as the non Trump support coalsces, but he is becoming increasingly popular among Republicans.
Trump's lead is kind of expected at this point as he confounds the conventional wisdom that he's a flash in the pan. Carson's the biggest winner as he's the most popular candidate in North Carolina, in second place overall, and the dominant leader among voters' second choices.
For the general election, we see mostly small Republican leads in very close races. Carson does the best in the general election, leading Clinton 47-40. Rubio leads 45-41. The rest have 1-3 point leads over Clinton besides Paul who she leads 44-40, Christie who she leads 40-39, and Bush who she ties at 42. Sanders performs similarly, underperforming Clinton by an average of 1.5% against the Republicans. As one of the closest states in the nation in the last two Presidential cycles, it looks like NC will continue in it's new battleground status.
Trump as an independent remains a nightmare for Republicans as Clinton would lead a three way matchup 38-28-27 against Bush and Trump.
Overall, nothing too unexpected. Clinton remains dominant in a state that is more diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump's lead continues as it has nationally and in every state, and the Carson surge is trickling down to the states, as well. Walker is floundering, just as he is elsewhere.
The general election looks like a tossup.