Still tied in North Carolina

PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds the state all tied up for a second week in a row: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are each at 49% and virtually no voters remain undecided.

If Obama ends up pulling out another narrow victory in the state he'll have done it during the early voting period. Among those who report already having voted he's ahead by a 58/41 margin. Romney leads 58/40 with those who haven't voted yet and he'll really need them to turn out if he's going to catch up with Obama.

Voters are pretty evenly divided on Obama's job performance with 49% of them giving him good marks to 50% who disapprove. Romney has a narrowly positive favorability rating at 50% to 47% of voters with an unfavorable opinion. North Carolina voters trust Obama more than Romney both on the issue of the economy (50/47) and foreign policy (51/46).

The Governor's race is pretty steady with Pat McCrory at 50% to 39% for Walter Dalton and 4% for Libertarian Barbara Howe. All of our polls since Labor Day have shown McCrory with a lead in the 10-13 point range. McCrory has a 52/34 favorability rating and is winning over 24% of the Democratic vote.

The open race for Lieutenant Governor continues to look like it will be the state's closest besides President this year. Republican Dan Forest has a slim lead over Democratic foe Linda Coleman, 43/41. Every poll we've done on this race has found the candidates within a couple points of each other.

In the other Council of State races we tested incumbents lead comfortably. Democrat Janet Cowell leads 46-41 for reelection as State Treasurer, Republican Steve Troxler is up 48-38 for Agriculture Commissioner, and Democrat Beth Wood has extended her lead to 50-38 in the Auditor's race amidst a lot of personal drama for her Republican challenger Debra Goldman. In the critical Supreme Court contest Sam Ervin IV leads Paul Newby 39-35, but with 26% of voters undecided in the nonpartisan race it could still end up going either way.

The generic legislative ballot in the state is knotted at 45% but that's good news for Republicans given how favorable the new districting lines are to them. The Democrats (36/46) and Republicans (35/46) in the legislature have almost identical favorability ratings.

Full results here

Comments

[Zach Johnson]

Thanks for the results. As a recommendation if you can squeeze it in the polling ask something like "Do you approve of Obama's handling with Hurricane Sandy"