There's good news for both Elaine Marshall and Richard Burr in PPP's newest poll of the North Carolina Senate race.
The good news for Marshall is that she's picking up undecided voters and closing the gap against Burr. She now trails by 8 points, 48-40, after facing a 13 point deficit against Burr three weeks ago. She's starting to shore up her support with the base, getting 73% of Democrats compared to 65% in the previous poll.
And that base is getting larger as the level of interest from Democratic voters picks up with the election moving closer. In late September the likely voter pool for this year voted for John McCain by a 9 point margin, suggesting a massive drop in Democratic turnout given that Barack Obama actually won the state. Now the likely voter pool reflects an electorate that supported McCain by 4 points, still pointing to a decline in Democratic turnout but perhaps not as massive as it looked like it would be earlier in the cycle.
There's good news for Burr in the poll numbers as well, beyond the obvious fact that he continues to lead. Although Marshall has picked up support Burr is not really losing it. His 48% is basically identical to the 49% he was getting on the previous poll and is awfully close to crossing the 50% mark he needs to clinch a victory. He continues to hold a remarkable 52-24 advantage with independents. If that holds on through election day it's hard to see a scenario where Marshall wins.
Interestingly the 42% of voters with a favorable opinion of Marshall actually exceeds the 40% who approve of Burr's job performance. You might expect Marshall to be polling closer with that as the case but casting a shadow over her is Barack Obama's high level of unpopularity in the state. 54% of voters disapprove of the job he's doing as President to only 41% who approve and there's a near total correlation between how voters feel about Obama and how they're planning to vote in the Senate race. Only 4% of voters who approve of Obama are planning to vote for Burr. But only 6% who disapprove of Obama are planning to vote for Marshall. That makes her path to victory tough when a majority of voters fall into the disapprove category.
Burr appears to be in good shape but Marshall does find herself in the strongest position she's been in in over a month and we'll see if she can continue that momentum over the final two weeks.
Full results here
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14 comments:
OMG Please quit sucking d!ck.
Oh my--get ready for the usual suspects to come on and denounce this poll, too. I wonder if they are going over to Rasmussen to denounce their new Kentucky Senate poll just out a few minutes ago showing Conway cutting Paul's lead from 11 to 5 points? Fox/Pulse also showed gains for Dems in their polls today. Obviously pollsters are showing that Dems are becoming more engaged and so races are tightening.
Ugh. Why do so many people disapprove of Obama? It's sad the way the right wing has been able to manipulate people's opinions. Obama is actually doing a great job as President cleaning up an absolutely huge mess left to him by the Republicans.
On top of that, the GOP has been putting politics ahead of the country since Obama's first day in office. They have been roadblocking progress entirely in the hopes that it would benefit them politically even though they know it hurts the country.
To put it simply: The Republicans are the PROBLEM! Voting for them is insane.
Come on North Carolina: Do what's right - Vote For Marshall.
Another factor with Rasmussen is that they are coming out of "narrative setting" mode and into the time of year when they are actually trying to call the elections correctly (so that they can say they are accurate and be able to set the narrative again next time around.)
Pretty liberal sample, only a few points off Obama landslide territory.
But I can totally believe Marshall at 40%.
Burr's going to win by the largest margin of any NC Senate candidate since the early 70's, but I'm 90% ... well, 50% sure Elaine Marshall will hit 40%.
Jonny: If sanity, intelligence, and rationality were expected of voters, Bush never would have been president to do that damage in the first place.
Can't wait to see how things look next week when we've got a week and a half of early voting to factor. Dems won NC in 08 on the Early Vote, and I appreciated the fact that you tracked it and broke it out in your top lines. I was able to look at your polling as a form of "early exit," compare with actual numbers from the sboe site, and figure out roughly where our numbers were heading into election day. I hope we can bank a huge advantage this cycle in the early vote, because we are going to need it.
Thanks for the awesome, as always!
Jonny V,
Yesterday I did the early voting in orange county. In 2008, when I did early voting, there were lot of african americans trying to vote. But this time, it was all white republicans casting their ballots.Lol! I was the only non white voting for republicans.
Why do so many people disapprove Obama?
1) Did you check the unemployment numbers recently? I thought, we spent a trillion dollar. Where is the shovel ready jobs?
2) Obama' presidency was supposed to make the world love America. Is it happening? No
3) Can you honestly say that, he has done good job in Iraq and Afghanistan? No
4) I am sure, you are doing the renewal for your health insurance. Do you see your premium's going down?
5) After all this housing foreclosure moratorium, are the prices going up? Only number of foreclosures are going to increase
We want a president, who is not apologetic for the so called past mistakes. So, we conservatives from both democratic and republican party is taking over the government.
We cannot send Marshall to support Harry Reid, Obama and Nancy pelosis
Ranjit's got the Republican mindset right there in a nutshell (which is, really, a very appropriately nutty and small place for a Republican mind). List a series of ways things aren't going well, then say you don't want someone who recognizes that the Republican policies that created all those situations were mistakes. In right-wing land, everything Republicans did in the past to screw up the present is old news, nobody should think about those other than to think how much they liked those policies before they knew the consequences!
"Can't wait to see how things look next week when we've got a week and a half of early voting to factor. Dems won NC in 08 on the Early Vote"
I'm sure you've seen by now that Republicans are leading the early vote in NC so far.
Dems are ahead by 14 % in early voting, in Forsyth County.
Dem-50%
Rep-36%
Ind-14%
I would like to see how the other Urban areas are voting! Go Elaine!
I might be more supportive of Republican candidates if they would stop taking money from the Koch brothers, Fox News and foreign interests via the "U.S. Chamber of Commerce."
Vote for Elaine Marshall and tell these goons North Carolina is NOT FOR SALE.
The private sector is sitting on piles of cash it refuses to use for hiring. Do you suppose it's because Rush Limbo said "Obama must fail?"
If people like the Koch brothers can demonstrate that an African-American, let alone a Democrat, cannot govern, their reward will be at least one generation of poorly educated and sickly citizens who will do their bidding.
Obama is unpopular (with older Americans) because he's black...and smart. When is the MSM going to figure that one out? (I don't feel this way myself, but as a white person I get the fun job of asking others. It's not pleasant.)
Hmm. Which party prevented regulation of Fannie and Freddie? Which party controlled the House and Senate for two years BEFORE the meltdown? Yet somehow it's all the Republicans fault. The reason provided? Because Bush was President! Firm evidence. There is a vague "Republican policies" without detailing which ones and why they caused the mess.
Somehow, even though the Democrats were elected to solve the problem and it keeps getting worse, that's the Republicans fault too.
I know if you read something in a liberal blog that makes it true, but there's no evidence Rasmussen changes anything.
One question for the Dem's: If all of these problems are caused by the Republicans, why have they been getting exponentially worse? The Dem's have had control of congress for four years now and the Pres had a veto proof majority for much of his first two years. I can taste victory. I can't wait to gloat!
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