North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr
PPP is out with the non-Deez Nuts portions of their North Carolina survey, and they find that while GOP Sen. Richard Burr
with the edge against a quartet of hypothetical Democratic foes, his leads are a bit less intimidating than they were
last month:
• 44-37 vs. Spring Lake Mayor Chris Rey
• 44-36 vs. state Rep. Duane Hall
• 43-36 vs. ex-state House Majority Whip Deborah Ross
• 42-35 vs. ex-Rep. Heath Shuler
Of these four Democrats only Shuler was tested in July and Burr
led him by a similar 44-36. However, Burr beat last month's Democrats anywhere between 8 and 14 points (other PPP surveys have shown similar results), while he leads this crop by a smaller 7 to 8 percent margin. None of the nine Democrats tested over the last two months are well known (Shuler is the least anonymous of them, and 67 percent of respondents still don't have an opinion of him) so it's unlikely that the different selection of candidates made any real difference.
Weirdly though, Burr actually went from a 28-39 approval rating in July to 31-37 now. We'll just have to wait for more info to see if anything's changed or if this is just a blip: While a high-single digit lead is still pretty good for Burr, it's a bit less intimidating than his previous performances.
While no serious Democrats have jumped into the race yet, there's been a bit of movement over the last month. Hall recently formed an exploratory committee while Rey and Ross have each publicly expressed interest. Shuler has been publicly evasive but is also reportedly looking at a bid.