Public Policy Polling

Vying for state's second top post Wilson Daily Times
Hill picks up in Indy & NC Polls New York Post
Wake voters support district school board elections NBC 17
Will Obama debate in NC? Wilmington Journal
Easley backing gives Clinton a push in NC Winston-Salem Journal
McCrory's lead cut News&Observer

Wake Voters Do Not Support At Large School Board

Topline results are below. Full results, including crosstabs, can be found here.

Q1 Do you think the way of electing school board
members in Wake County should be changed
from a model where they are chosen in
individual districts to one where they are
chosen at large? If you think the current
system of electing school board members in
districts is fine, press 1. If you think the system
should be changed to at large, press 2. If
you’re not sure, press 3.
Current System is
Fine......................... 54%
Change to At Large. 33%
Not Sure.................. 13%

Q2 If you knew that changing the way of electing
school board members to at large elections
would be likely to decrease minority
representation would you be more or less likely
to support changing the way they are elected?
If it would make you more likely to support
changing the way they are elected, press 1. If
it would make you less likely to support
changing the way they are elected, press 2. If
you’re not sure, press 3.
More likely to
support .................. 25%
Less likely to
support .................. 46%
Not sure ................ 29%

Republican Race Six Days Out

Our new poll yesterday showed that Fred Smith has closed to within five points of Pat McCrory.

What's interesting is that over the last month McCrory's level of support has remained remarkably stable. He was at 35% in the first poll of the month, went up to 36, down to 34, and now back to 36 for the last two weeks. So it's not like he's losing support.

He is remaining stagnant though, while Smith is on the climb. Smith started the month at 23%, went to 26, had a one week blip back to 25, then went up to 29 and now 31.

My guess is that conservative voters who were undecided between Smith, Bill Graham, and Bob Orr have started moving into the Smith column because they realize he's the only one with a chance.

It is hard to predict what will happen this final week, especially with 21% of voters still undecided. I am particularly interested to see what impact Bill Graham's tv advertising will have. Orr and Graham have combined for 11-12% in our last four polls, which is not a good enough performance to cause a runoff. But if they managed to push their level of support into the 25% range, say 15% for Graham and 10% for Orr as undecideds break and Graham steps up his campaign, we could see the McCrory-Smith dynamic end up at 39-36 or 38-37.

My guess is that even our final poll will not make it much more clear what's going to happen on Tuesday because I still think 10% or more will report as undecided. It may be that those folks end up not actually voting, or make decisions based on relatively spurious reasoning.

We'll know this time next week!

Democratic Race Six Days Out

I don't know that the reason Bev Perdue has solidified her lead in the polls over the last week or so is that voters like the fact that she's running a positive campaign. She was already leading by 8 when she made the pledge and last week her lead was only up to 9.

I'm pretty sure the reason she's up to 14 now is because she made the pledge though. Sound inconsistent? No. More important than any goodwill the pledge built with voters is that it caused Richard Moore's campaign to go off the deep end. And that's why Perdue's lead has expanded.

During the bomb throwing stage of the race things were going well for the Moore campaign. Their negative ads were a lot more effective than Perdue's. The polls were closing in. I think if things had continued on like that Moore would have won the primary because the race was being played on a field that was favorable to him.

By putting an end to her negative ads, Perdue changed the game. It's been pretty clear the last few weeks that the Moore campaign hasn't figured out how to respond. At first it seemed like they laid off a little bit. They started running some positive ads again. The numbers didn't move so last week they decided to ratchet up the negativity to a whole new level.

The KKK thing may have been a stretch but the 'Confederate hats' press conference was a truly ridiculous (and counter productive) act of political showmanship. It was an indication that the campaign had gotten in so deep that they had sort of lost track of reality and how people would react to their actions.

I have not talked to one person who thought that was a good move. I know undecideds who it moved into the Perdue column. I know Perdue supporters who were so enraged they said they wouldn't vote for Moore in the fall if he managed to pull off the nomination. And I know Moore supporters who were embarrassed for their candidate. But I don't know anyone who thought it was anything but a stupid move.

Richard Moore is a good politician and has a good team. They've already come back from the brink once in this campaign. But they have a whole lot of ground to make up in not a lot of time.

A post I regret

About a month ago I wrote a post where I took the numbers from our tracking poll, distributed the undecideds in the proportion of current candidate support, and used them to help assess which races were headed for runoffs.

My intent was not to say that x candidate would beat y candidate by z margin if the election was that day, but to show how the relative standing at that point might or might not imply a runoff was in the future.

I should have known, however, that in contests for offices like Treasurer and Lieutenant Governor where there is little or no media coverage any bone I threw a campaign would be used for maximum advantage.

Later the same day an e-mail came out from Janet Cowell's campaign claiming based on the analysis that Janet was the candidate best positioned to cross the 40% mark.

Then Friday of that week Walter Dalton declared that we said if the election was held that day he would win by ten points. That made me cringe because the reality is I did not say that. I said that if the undecideds were distributed in the levels of current candidate support that Dalton would have 33 and his closest opponents would be at 23. Undecideds breaking in the same percentages as current candidate support is a big if and is a lot different than saying Dalton would win by ten if the election was that day. Hampton Dellinger fairly disputed Dalton's characterization in an email to the press later that day.

What really got me was an email from David Young today. He claimed that his 19-16 lead in this week's tracking poll was outside the margin of error! Their claim was based on their own extrapolations of the undecideds to 100.

I'm sorry but taking a poll with over 50% undecideds, distributing those voters in the same percentages as the 43% who are decided, and then claiming to have a lead outside the margin of error just is not correct. A three point lead with a +/- 2.8 MOE is a statistical tie and it is not accurate to claim it as anything else.

I'm not mad at the Cowell, Dalton, or Young campaigns for the claims they've made. It's my fault for writing that stupid post in the first place. But I hope campaigns will be more accurate in their portrayal of our numbers from here on out.

Clinton leads in NC?

That's what a new poll from Insider Advantage says.

Looking at the crosstabs a couple things jump out:

-They only have the black electorate at 25%. Survey USA, Rasmussen, and PPP all have it at 33%. That doesn't mean that IA is wrong, but it does help explain why Obama is doing so much worse in their poll than in others.

-They also only have Obama receiving 64% of the black vote at this point, which would be unusually low for him.

We'll see how the race moves over the last six days.

Obama still leading, but losing ground in NC CQ Politics
Pick a story, any story The Hill
Clinton leading by 8 in Indiana CQ Politics
New Clinton supporter is a potent symbol Politico
Campaign Watch News&Observer
Clinton talks tough during visit Salisbury Post
Poll finds Perdue ahead News&Observer

Smith continues to whittle away

Topline results are below. Full results, including crosstabs, can be found here.

Q1 The Republican candidates for Governor are
Bill Graham, Pat McCrory, Bob Orr, Elbie
Powers, and Fred Smith. If the primary was
today, who would you vote for? If Bill Graham,
press 1. If Pat McCrory, press 2. If Bob Orr,
press 3. If Elbie Powers, press 4. If Fred Smith,
press 5. If you’re undecided, press 6.
Graham................. 6%
McCrory ................ 36%
Orr......................... 5%
Powers .................. 1%
Smith..................... 31%
Undecided............. 21%

Q2 The candidates for Lieutenant Governor are
Timothy Cook, Greg Dority, Robert Pittenger,
and Jim Snyder. If the primary was today, who
would you vote for? If Timothy Cook, press 1.
If Greg Dority, press 2. If Robert Pittenger,
press 3. If Jim Snyder, press 4. If you’re
undecided, press 5.
Cook ............................................................... 6%
Dority .............................................................. 10%
Pittenger ......................................................... 25%
Snyder ............................................................ 8%
Undecided....................................................... 51%

Clinton shows solid lead in Indiana

Topline results are below. Full results, including crosstabs, can be found here.

Q1 The Democratic candidates still running for
President are Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama. If the primary was today, who would
you vote for? If you would vote for Hillary
Clinton, press 1. If for Barack Obama, press 2.
If you’re undecided press 3.
Clinton..................... 50%
Obama.................... 42%
Undecided............... 8%

Q2 If you are a woman, press 1, if a man, press 2.
Women ................... 55% Men......................... 45%

Dueling Presidential Polls

Two new North Carolina polls out this morning with somewhat divergent outcomes:

-Rasmussen has Obama up 14.
-Survey USA has Obama up by only 5.

Who knows?

In the Democratic race for Governor, Survey USA shows the same five point movement in Bev Perdue's direction that we did this week. Her lead over Richard Moore in their poll goes from 4 to 9, while it went from 9 to 14 in our poll.

Their Republican gubernatorial numbers show Fred Smith pulling within a 36-32 margin of Pat McCrory. We'll have our numbers in that race out in a little bit- they are nearly identical to what SUSA is showing.

Should be an interesting final week.