Walter Dalton continues to have all the momentum in the North Carolina Democratic primary for Governor. He now leads with 36% fo 26% for Bob Etheridge, 5% for Bill Faison, 3% each for Gardenia Henley and Bruce Blackmon, and 2% for Gary Dunn.
Dalton has gone from 15% to 26% to 36% over the course of PPP's last three polls on the race. Etheridge meanwhile has remained stagnant at 25-26%. Dalton's caught up with Etheridge on the favorability front. 40% of primary voters have a favorable opinion of each of them.
The chances of a runoff at this point are pretty minuscule. Dalton's at 36% with 25% of voters undecided and that means to get to 40% he would only need to win 16% of the remaining undecideds. Given that he's winning 48% of voters who've already made up their minds that shouldn't be a terribly tall order.
The reason there won't be a runoff is that Bill Faison has never caught on with primary voters. More- 24%- continue to view him negatively than the 18% who see him positively. He would have had to at least get into the 15-20% range to keep Dalton or Etheridge from getting to 40% and at this point it doesn't look like that will happen.
Dalton has now pulled even with Etheridge in his home base of the Triangle at 34%. Dalton meanwhile is dominating in Charlotte (28 point lead) and the Mountains (47 point advantage.)
Democrats are headed for a potential embarrassing outcome in the Labor Commissioner primary where Ty Richardson, who's drawn attention mostly for his DUI's, leads with 26% to 20% for John Brooks and 12% for Marlowe Foster. Those kinds of outcomes can happen in a low interest race where the candidates don't have much money, as South Carolina Democrats learned in 2010.
Janet Cowell doesn't appear likely to have any trouble putting away Ron Elmer in her reelection bid for State Treasurer, leading 50-11. And Scott Bryant has a small lead over Walter Smith, 20-17, in the race for Agriculture Commissioner with 63% unsurprisingly undecided in that low interest race.
Full results here
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