Civitas Results!

I'm getting to these a day late, but Civitas put out its newest numbers yesterday.

In the Democratic race for Governor they have Bev Perdue leading Richard Moore 34-24. The ten point margin is about in line with most recent polling. They show a higher number of undecideds than we do because they poll likely general election voters, whereas we poll only likely primary voters when we do a poll on the primary.

On the Republican side they have Pat McCrory with 19%, Fred Smith with 14%, Bill Graham with 12%, and Bob Orr with 5%. This is also pretty much in line with our most recent poll in the race. It is not in line with last week's Survey USA poll that showed McCrory up 27-18. I think that the results Civitas and we are showing are probably the more accurate picture.

In the Republican primary for President they have John McCain at 32%, Mike Huckabee at 16%, Mitt Romney at 12%, Fred Thompson at 10%, Rudy Giuliani at 9%, and Ron Paul at 4%. Both our poll and Survey USA's most recent poll showed Huckabee leading McCain by a point but I think these numbers are completely conceivable after South Carolina. McCain gained some momentum in the state and it's hard to see how Mike Huckabee is going to be able to cobble anything together to let him win the nomination.

On the Democratic side they have Barack Obama at 29%, Hillary Clinton at 28%, and John Edwards at 22%. Seems about right.

The most interesting question in their poll to me was this one:

DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH THE DECISION BY THE NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM TO REQUIRE LOCAL COMMUNITY COLLEGES TO ADMIT 18 YEAR OLD ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND CHARGE THEM OUT-OF-STATE TUITION RATES?

We probably would have worded that a little differently...something like 'Do you think the children of illegal immigrants, who have attended North Carolina's public schools, should be able to attend the state's Community Colleges?'

Nonetheless 39% said they agreed with the decision and only 50% said they disagreed. I would have expected the results, especially with that verbiage, to be much more against the Community College system's decision. Wish I'd asked a question about this on our general election match ups poll earlier this week. Maybe next time.

Anyway the Civitas poll is always interesting. Check out the full results here.