Romney, McCrory up big in NC primaries

It sounds like Newt Gingrich will be out of the race by the time North Carolina votes and that's just as well for him. Our newest poll finds Mitt Romney with a dominant lead in the state, polling at 48% to 30% for Gingrich and 12% for Ron Paul.

North Carolina makes yet another state where you can really see the Republican base unifying around Romney. He has a 61/25 favorability rating, up from 51/32 just two weeks ago. And he's winning with the groups of the GOP electorate that have typically confounded him. He has a 46-38 lead over Gingrich with a Tea Partiers, a 44-36 advantage with Evangelicals, and he's up 48-36 with voters describing themselves as 'very conservative.' It's over.

So is the Republican primary for Governor. GOP voters aren't looking for an alternative to Pat McCrory to begin with. 66% have a favorable opinion of him to only 9% with a negative one. And what little opposition there is to him is split pretty evenly between 5 different candidates. McCrory's at 67% to 3% for Jim Harney, 2% for Jim Mahan and Paul Wright, and just 1% each for Scott Jones and Charles Kenneth Moss. 23% continue to be undecided.

A runoff is looking like a very real possibility in the race for Lieutenant Governor, with three of the candidates clustered within three points of each other. Dale Folwell leads with 15% to 12% for Dan Forest and Tony Gurley. Grey Mills at 8% is still within range of the top two and only Arthur Jason Rich at 2% looks like a total non factor. Gurley at 32% in the Triangle is doing the best of any candidate in a particular region, but Folwell and Forest are running ahead of him everywhere else.

In another race that looks like it could be headed for a runoff, Debra Goldman and Greg Dority continue to hold the top two spots in the contest for State Auditor. Goldman's at 12% to 11% for Dority with Fern Shubert at 7% and Rudy Wright and Joseph Hank DeBragga rounding out the field at 4% each. Goldman and Dority have persistently been at the top of the heap since we began polling this race.

Yet another race with a crowded field that could be headed for a runoff is the one for State Superintendent. John Tedesco continues to have a small lead with 16% to 13% for Richard Alexander, 6% for Mark Crawford, 5% for Ray Ernest Martin, and 4% for David Scholl. Tesdesco has a huge lead in the Triangle while Alexander is ahead in most of the rest of the state.

In the other races we polled:

-Steve Troxler is up 41-17 in his reelection bid for Agriculture Commissioner against Bill McManus. It doesn't look like he has much to worry about.

-Richard Morgan continues to have a modest lead in the Insurance Commissioner primary with 17% to 13% for Mike Causey and 10% for James McCall.

-Kenn Gardner is still the front runner for Secretary of State with 17% to 10% for Ed Goodwin and 6% each for Michael Beitler and A.J. Daoud.

Full results here

Comments

[Frank H]

So if there isn't much of a competition at the top of the ticket in the GOP primary, do you think that will depress GOP turnout compared to Democratic turnout, since the race for governor on that side is much more competitive? And how would that bode for Amendment 1?