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District Polling This Week

Chris Hayes — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:38:52 +0000

Four more state legislative district polls were released this week in competitive legislative districts — and as a whole, continue to portray a difficult year for Democratic candidates.

On Monday, Civitas released results for HD 4, an open seat in Duplin and Onslow counties, rated as a neutral district on the NCPI.

Republican Jimmy Dixon led Democrat Mott Blair 43-39 among all voters. Among those most likely to vote, Dixon’s lead explodes to 51-31.
59% of the voters in HD 4 disapprove of the job Obama is doing as President.
Burr leads Marshall 50-31 in the race for US Senate.
Only 28% approve of the job Bev Perdue is doing as governor.

On Tuesday, Carolina Strategy Group released a poll in SD 24 showing Republican Rick Gunn with a 4 point lead over Democratic incumbent Tony Foriest. SD 24 is rated as an R+3 district.

Wednesday, Civitas released the results of HD 22, with incumbent Democrat William Brisson holding a narrow three point lead over Republican challenger John Szoka 42-39 in a district rated as a D+3 on the NCPI.

Republicans hold a 47-41 lead in the generic ballot.
60% of voters disapprove of the job Obama is doing as President.
Only 24% of voters approve of the job Perdue is doing as Governor.

Finally, on Thursday, Carolina Strategy Group released perhaps the most surprising results of the week, with incumbent Democratic Rep. Rick Glazier trailing Republican Jackie Warner 41-39 in HD 45, rated a D+4 district. Among most likely voters, Warner’s lead expands to six percent.

These results confirm the growing trend that the electoral wave for Republicans is very strong this year. If Democrats are having to spend money defending seats like Glazier’s and Brisson’s, it could be a long, long election night for them in November.

HD 112: Hager (R) 46% – Proctor (D) 36%

Chris Hayes — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:11:11 +0000

In the race to replace the retiring Rep. Bob England (D-Rutherford) in House District 112, Republican Mike Hager leads Democrat Jim Proctor 46%-36% according to the latest Civitas Poll of that district.

The district consisting of Rutherford and a portion of Cleveland county is an R+7 district on the NCPI. Many people have theorized that England was just about the only Democrat who could hold the seat (much like Senator David Hoyle in SD 43) and that seems to be the case.

Without England, the district is swinging back to its Republican leanings.

The big eye opener in this district is the huge lead that Hager has among definite voters. Among those that said they are 10 out of 10 likely to vote, his lead grows to 56-33. Among 9 out of 10s, its 51-29.

Most outside observers figured HD 112 as one of the most likely to flip to Republican, and given these numbers, it certainly seems so.

Full press release and all the crosstabs here.

Teachers Union Buys A Spot Inside Perdue’s Inner Circle

Chris Hayes — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:20:26 +0000

Remember how the National Association of Educators (NEA) spent $2.2 million helping Bev Perdue get elected governor?

Well, it looks like it has bought them a seat in her inner circle. From the News & Observer:

Dawn Shephard Pope is Gov. Bev Perdue’s new teacher adviser.

The governor’s teacher adviser is a liaison between the governor’s office and teachers.

Pope is a member of the National Education Association Board of Directors.

For their $2.2 million assist in electing Perdue, they get a member of their Board of Directors with a seat in her administration.

Two other random observations on this:

1. With a $3B budget shortfall next year, does the governor really need to be hiring new employees?

2. A liaison between the governor and teachers? Doesn’t the Governor have the Department of Education to do that for her?

Hackney Leads in HD 54

Chris Hayes — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:32:12 +0000

Since we polled Senate President Marc Basnight’s district a couple of weeks ago, we thought it was only fair that we poll House Speaker Joe Hackney’s as well, and Hackney is faring much better than Basnight.

Basnight led challenger Hood Richardson by a mere 10 points, whereas Hackney is leading Cathy Wright by 16 points (53%-37%).

To be fair to Wright, Hackney’s district is much more Democratic leaning, rating a D+7 on the NCPI scale (Basnight’s is a D+1).

Hackney’s favorability rating is at +19 (36% fav, 17% unfav) — almost identical to that of Basnight’s in his district (+17).

The one hiccup for Hackney is the same we see in just about every district that we’ve polled, when looking at the most likely voters (those who say they are a 10 out of 10 likely to vote), Hackney’s lead shrinks to just six points 49-43.

Full press release with all the details here.

Even More Whining About Civitas Polling

Chris Hayes — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:42:57 +0000

Another day, another story on some politician whining about Civitas polling.

Today’s whiner is Rep. Bill Owens (D-Pasquotank) who tells The Daily Advance that our questions are “slanted”. Here are the questions and results from the poll Civitas conducted in his district. I challenge Rep. Owens to tell us which one of these questions he feels is biased against him:

1. North Carolina will hold elections for national and state offices in November 2010. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to vote in the election… where 10 means you are certain to vote …and 1 means you are certain NOT to vote.

2. [Choices rotated] In the election for state legislature this fall, will you vote for … the Republican candidate? Or the Democratic candidate?

3. Is your opinion of Bill Owens… favorable? Unfavorable? Neutral? Or, do you have no opinion of Bill Owens?

4. Is your opinion of John Woodard… favorable? Unfavorable? Neutral? Or, do you have no opinion of John Woodard?

5. [Candidate names rotated] If the election for state representative were today, would you vote for … Republican John Woodard? Or Democrat Bill Owens?

6. Which one of the following issues is the most important for the state government to address: New jobs? The economy? Taxes? Government spending? Public education? Health care costs? Government corruption? Illegal immigration? The environment? Or some other issue?

Certainly some loaded questions there, right?

Owens says he has his own internal poll showing him 14 points ahead but so far failed to make it publicly available.

Democratic Pollster has Republican in the Lead in HD 49

Chris Hayes — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:26:31 +0000

So much for all the whining on the left that all Civitas does is produce polls favorable to Republicans (they never stop to think that things might actually be that way in reality right now) — let’s see what the knee-jerk reactionaries will say about this one:

Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) conducted a poll for Republican candidate Glen Bradley in HD 49 and has Bradley leading 43%-35% over Democrat John May.

You may recall I had a Kreskin-like moment back in April when I predicted that HD 49 could very well be in play due to the district demographics and the retirement of popular incumbent Rep. Lucy Allen.

HD 49 is a D+3 district on the NCPI, and as we have seen across the state in our district polling, marginal swing Democratic districts are trending heavily Republican — especially where the incumbent Democrat isn’t well known.

District Polling and Race

Chris Hayes — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:20:57 +0000

Apparently some Democrats are unhappy with the district polling we’re putting out the past few months, and according to NC SPIN’s newsletter are questioning the results by saying we are “undersampling minority and young voters.”

Well, this is just sour grapes on their part as they search for any explanation for their poor standing in the polls.

If you look back at previous elections, in only one election out of the past 20 years (and maybe more) have African-Americans not underperformed as a share of turnout… and that was 2008. So not in 1990 or 1996 when Harvey Gantt was challenging the evil, racist Jesse Helms himself, or for Bill Clinton did African-Americans turnout and equal their proportional share of the vote.

And there is no reason to think they will this year. In 2006, African-Americans underperformed by about 2-3 percent. In 2004, as a group, they underperformed by about 1.5%. So any poll that has African-Americans equaling their registration percentage is operating on a 2008 turnout model. But anyone in the political world will tell you, that just isn’t happening in 2010 due to a number of reasons: 1) Obama isn’t on the ballot 2) Obama had dozens of field offices and hundreds of paid staff all engage in voter turnout that isn’t present this year. 3) Just about every poll taken this year has shown a sizable “intensity gap” for 2008 first time voters versus consistent voters.

So, to criticize our polling for “undersampling” African-Americans is living and operating in a political dreamworld that just doesn’t exist this year.

But back to our polling…

In the 17 district polls we’ve put out so far this year, we’ve never been off by more than a couple of percentage points in the composition of African-Americans in our polls versus their actual registration percentages. In fact, in 4 of the 17 we’ve oversampled African-Americans as a demographic. Nonetheless, slightly undersampling African-Americans by a couple of percentage points is completely consistent with building an accurate turnout model for the 2010 elections. Those who are complaining are just looking for something to snipe at because they can’t stomach the results.

Voter Opposition to Public Financing Remains Strong

Chris Hayes — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:51:09 +0000

The latest Civitas poll shows more than 3/4ths of NC voters (76%) are opposed to using taxpayer dollars to finance the campaigns of statewide candidates.

Full press release here.

In fact, even 78 percent of Democratic voters oppose the idea. No wonder there was such a visceral negative reaction from the public when our friends at Americans for Prosperity launched its campaign to stop the NC Senate from including an expansion of public financing in its ethics reform bill.

The debate shouldn’t be about how to expand this program, it should be about how to kill it. And the voters overwhelmingly agree.

Real Gubernatorial Leadership

Chris Hayes — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:08:58 +0000

As a proud North Carolinian, I can’t recall a time where I’ve ever felt jealousy for anything in New Jersey over anything here at home.

Well, NJ Governor Chris Christie is changing my opinion. Just check out this clip:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Two questions for fellow North Carolinians… why can’t our own governor show this type of leadership or commitment on any issue?

And failing that, where is the NCGOP’s Chris Christie? Who will be willing to assume the leadership mantle and have the cajones to tell the truth and tackle the tough problems? Pat McCrory? Phil Berger? Skip Stam? Thom Tillis? Tom Fetzer?

Who will do it?

Oh Fitzy…

Chris Hayes — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:56:43 +0000

I try not to respond to most inane ramblings by Chris Fitzsimon over at the NC Justice Center, but since he’s decided to distort the truth and omit critical pieces of information about our polling, I figured it was time.

Fitzsimon has been a bit flustered the past few months that we at Civitas do not send out press releases on every single poll question we ask. Considering that our polling is 35-40 questions in length each month, the mountains of press releases we’d have to produce would be unrealistic. Instead, we choose to highlight the key results in the poll through individual releases and then publish the entire results of the poll a few weeks later. Apparently that’s not good enough for him.

Now, this week Fitzsimon attempts to compare Obama’s favorability numbers from our May poll to our June poll — saying that Obama’s number’s “jumped 15 points.” On the surface, that is true. But Fitzsimon is misleading the readers of his column into thinking the polls are the same, when in fact they were conducted by two different pollsters (May by National Research Group, June by Tel Opinion Research) using two completely different likely voter screens. Fitzsimon knows this because he reads our press releases thoroughly and it’s stated right there in each one who the pollster is and what the methodology for that poll is. So in this case, he’s not lying, he’s just intentionally omitting facts to attempt to discredit Civitas polling.

Second, in an attempt to completely grasp at the last straw of his dignity, Fitzsimon attempts to say that including “leaners” in head-to-head matchups is somehow inappropriate. Again, Fitzsimon knows better and knows that this is a common practice in polling to allow undecided voters to choose which way they are favoring.

At the end of the day, Fitzsimon and the lefties have no choice but to run down Civitas polling simply because they don’t like the results. In true Clintonesque fashion, he can’t win philosophical arguments so he turns to the politics of personal (or in this case, institutional) destruction. How sad.