Public Policy Polling has a new poll with Democratic primary numbers and general election matchups in North Carolina. Joe Biden does exceptionally well in North Carolina trailing Hillary Clinton by only 7 points, this is supposedly one of her 'firewall' states her team has put so much stock in. This confirms my theory that Joe Biden would substantially chip away at Hillary Clinton's black support and seriously threaten her Southern firewall.
On the Democratic side, North Carolina appears to be a pretty strong state for Joe Biden. Hillary Clinton leads with 37% but Biden's at 30% to 17% for Bernie Sanders, 3% for Jim Webb, 2% for Lincoln Chafee, and 1% for Martin O'Malley. The North Carolina data reaffirms previous findings that a Biden entry would hurt Clinton a lot more than Sanders- 46% of Biden voters say Clinton's their second choice to just 21% who say it's Sanders. Reallocate Biden voters to their second choice and Clinton would lead Sanders 51/23, tighter than her 55/19 advantage a month ago but still not terribly competitive.
The general election matchups also shows Biden is the strongest Democratic contender in North Carolina confirming what other polls nationally and in other states have showed.
Republicans are leading Clinton across the board in the general election match ups in the state now. The strongest ones are Carson (51/41) and Rubio (50/40) who each lead Clinton by 10 points. They're followed by Huckabee and Fiorina who lead Clinton by identical 7 point margins at 48/41. Bush (46/41) and Trump (47/42) each lead Clinton by 5. The closest match ups are with Kasich who leads her by 4 at 44/40 and Cruz who leads her by 3 at 46/43.
Biden at this point does an average of 7 points better than Clinton in head to head match ups with the Republicans we tested him against. He actually leads Bush by 5 at 47/42 and ties Trump at 45/45. He trails Fiorina (45/44) and Carson (47/44) by narrow margins but at least comes a lot closer to them than Clinton. Sanders performs similarly to Clinton, doing on average a point worse than Clinton in match ups against the quartet of Bush/Carson/Fiorina/Trump.