Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Marshall leads, Cunningham pulling closer

Our newest poll on the North Carolina Senate primary could be summarized the same way as pretty much all of the other ones: Elaine Marshall is leading, but Cal Cunningham is gaining. The question now is whether she can hold him off for one final week given his considerable financial advantage.

Marshall gets 26% this week to 23% for Cunningham. It's clearly become a two person race as the rest of the candidates are languishing in single digits. Kenneth Lewis is at 7%, Marcus Williams at 4%, and Susan Harris and Ann Worthy at 3%.

34% of voters remained undecided and even that number doesn't tell the whole story. 40% of the folks who do currently support a candidate say they could change their minds between now and next Tuesday. So more than 60% of the electorate is either completely undecided or open to a flip, showing just how fluid the race is.

After two weeks of television ads Cunningham has nearly caught up to Marshall in terms of name recognition. 59% of voters now have an opinion about her (with it breaking down favorably by a 44/15 margin) and 56% have one about him (with it breaking down favorably 39/17.)

Kenneth Lewis looked like a serious contender for a while in this race but was never able to build any momentum. His lack of resources has resulted in his continuing to lag Marshall and now Cunningham in name recognition. Despite a long list of endorsements from high profile black leaders Lewis is just tied for second with Marshall among black voters at 13%, six points behind Cunningham's 19%.

Marshall leads among liberal voters, whites, senior citizens, and folks in the Triangle, Charlotte, and western North Carolina. Cunningham's up with conservatives, blacks, young voters, and folks in the Triad and eastern North Carolina.

It's a toss up between Cunningham and Marshall. We'll do one final poll next weekend but with voters this indecisive we may actually have to wait for election night to really know who's going to win this one.

Full results here

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay, this is going to be a nail biter! I guess it will depend, on which part of the state, has the highest level of voter's. If the Triad, young, and black voter's surge to the polls, then Cal will win. If Charlotte, and senior citizen's surge to the poll's, then Elaine will win. Either way, once the the state of NC, knows Burr's shady voting record, either of these two can, and will win!

Unknown said...

I agree with Dustin, this will be a nail biter, and I agree on how much turnout will matter.

I will be happy to support either Elaine or Cal come November. But given how hard it is to turn out young voters during on year elections, I'm not sure that we can count on a high turnout during an off year election. I hope young voters do turn out in record numbers though, even if I don't expect it.

Ranjit said...

Dustin and Jake,

Best of luck with your analysis. If history is right, African Americans and Students never turn out in huge numbers for mid term congressional elections. More over with the unemployment in double digits, most of these groups will not turn out for the election. Meanwhile, Republicans are fired up and they will turn out in huge numbers. Burr will win by 5 to 10%.

 
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